My very own Epic Adventures

When my favourite outdoor store Blacks announced that they were running a competition in conjunction with the travel company Explore.co.uk to find the best WILD, FAST, PANORAMIC or EPIC travel adventure photos, I knew that I had to have a go so I spent a wet Sunday afternoon going through all my travel pics to choose the ones to enter in this blog post.

Let's start with EPIC

Jumping for Joy at Macchu Picchu

I'd been wanting to visit Macchu Picchu for over 20 years and finally made the trip there in 2012, spending 3 days up in this magical place.

What's more epic than the Great Wall of China?  the only man made structure visible from space, we were able to visit "far from the madding crowds" and enjoy trekking for miles along the wall without seeing another soul, incredible.

Far from the Madding Crowds

Four "watery" epic shots now, each completely different but linked by H2O which seems to be a prominent feature in many of my trips!

First, an epic trip to the great white wilderness of Antartica, next swimming to the very edge of Victoria Falls in Zambia; diving amongst a huge shoal of fish in the Red Sea and finally, watching lava flow into the sea in Hawaii.

FAST

Penguins are SO ungainly on land, but incredibly fast and agile in the water.  Capturing this shot of one flying through the air involved alot of luck and many attempts!

Out on safari early one morning, we came across a group of impala refreshing themselves at a watering hole (there's that H2O again!) when they were spooked by a passing elephant and made a hurried exit.

Finally, I was amazed in Vietnam by how many of one family could fit onto a moped, unusually, most of these had some sort of helmet!  as for the traffic in Vietnam, it's fast and furious!

PANORAMIC

I love being "on top of the world" - here on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town

...and here, Halong Bay in Vietnam

Finally for panoramic pics, I had to include another one from my trip of a lifetime to Antarctica as we crept through the iceberg laden Lemair Channel.

WILD

More watery photos.......

the first 2 were taken whilst scuba diving and could probably also be classified as epic - we were surrounded by a school of sharks in the South Pacific and wild dolphins in the Red Sea

and we were stunned when this whale surfaced right beside our boat near Cabo in Baja.

Two naughty "teenage" elephants were having a play fight in Chobe, oblivious to the rest of the herd

Walking along a deserted beach, we were amazed to see this seal capture an octopus, play with it for ten minutes before enjoying it's meal.

Looking back at the categories, it seems that there's alot of crossover when photos could have appeared in epic and wild, or fast and wild etc.

Hope you have enjoyed seeing my favourite photos from my travels.

p.s.  I couldn't resist including this one, what an "epic" souvenir this would be!  ;)