We’ve travelled both East and West. Here’s Susan straddling the Grenwich Meridian at Cleethorpes. On foot in the East and one in the West.
We’ve been lucky in recent years to travel to many countries and to see special and interesting places.
Using the points of the compass as a guide this page shows you some of the far flung places that we’ve enjoyed visiting.
Carry on reading below to see the furthest points we’ve reached North, South, East and West.
We’ve travelled North and South. Here’s Susan balanced on the Equator near Quito, the capital of Ecuador. One arm is pointing North and the other arm pointing South.
Our visit to Iceland was our futhest Northern Tour. It was cold, as you might expect. We did enjoy it even though we missed out on a couple of highlights. Firstly, although several of our group stayed out well into the night, we didn’t see the Northern Lights. Secondly, the geyser that we were taken to see must have been having a bad day and only managed a couple of spurts to about three feet high.
Below – Picture 1) is 60m‐high Seljalandsfoss waterfall, 2) Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach with the snow showing and 3) a tomato greenhouse at Frioheimar geothermal farm. The greenhouses are heated by geothermal energy and lit by Solar Panels. We had a delicious tomato soup there with local baked bread.
We had to stay in our hotel one afternoon as the snow was coming horizontaly at around 50 mph.
The most Southerly place we’ve visited is Punta Arenas in Southern Chile on the Magellan Straights. Our hotel room had a notice saying not to open the windows due to the strong wind. We travelled from the Atacama Dessert in the North of Chile down to Punta Arenas, stopping along the way in the Lake District and the Torres de Paine as well as Santiago de Chile, it’s capital.
Below – Picture 1) Magellan penguins in Otway Sound. They came out of the sea and up the beach into their burrows, 2) San Pedro de Atacama. This is billed as the driest place on earth – except when we were there. They had just had the heavy rains that come about once every 20 yrs. You can see the adobe buildings are dripping mud and 3) here we are alongside an icy river dressed to board a speedboat to visit the glaciers in the Torres del Paine national park.
Our furthest point West was my most favourite holiday ever. It was to Rapa Nui, Easter Island. Ever since I was a teenager and saw a visit there on Wicker’s World on a black and white TV screen I wanted to go. I never thought I would do.
We set off from Santiago de Chile for a five and a half hour flight west into the pacific. We had two halfday tours around the island. We also went to the quarry where the satatues were made and saw several in part construction. Some had fallen on their “walk” to the Ahu platform. A fascinating place. Lots of the theories about their downfall were dismissed – most of the problem was illnesses brought by European explorers.
Below – Picture 1) shows a reerrected Moai, the only one where the white eyes have been replaced. Many sets of these white eyes made from shells were found buried at the base of the Moai. It is thought that the eyes were fitted when the pleople wanted to talk to the chief that the Moai represented, Picture 2) shows the largest group of Moai that were reerected and Picture 3) shows a part-carved Moai in the quarry. The craftsman had carved down to a crack in the stone and so it had been abandoned.
Our furthest visit East was to Beijing in China. We’ve been lucky to visit China twice. On the first occasion we travelled to Xi An to see the Tericotta Warriers – an amazing sight – and then along the old Silk Road nearly to the Chinese border in the west. Along the way we saw ancient cities in the dessert and huge buddhas carved inside manmade caves that had escaped the cultural revolution.
On our second visit we travelled by train across the “roof of the world”, the Tibetean Plateau, to the capital Lhasa. Our journey through Tibet to the west became more and more remote until we reached Everest Base Camp at just over 1700 ft. Recently the limit of travel has been pulled back a few kilometres to the Rongbuk Monastery.
Below – Picture 1) is The Great Wall at Mutianyu about an hour and a half’s drive north of Beijiing, 2) shows our welcome at the Gates of XI An and 3) is our group at Everest Base Camp with Everest just visible in the background.
