The wide waters of the Chobe River form the northern boundary of the national park of the same name. They divide Botswana from its neighbour Namibia to the north. But of course the wildlife that teems on its shores, in its waters and in the skies above knows no national borders. And nor does the sun, which sets and rises on all.
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There is indeed something particularly awe-inspiring about coming across an oasis in a barren landscape. The contrast between lush greenery and bare rock or soil can be so striking. Wadi Bani Khalid is one of the best-known and most accessible of Oman’s wadis. But the small amount of development here has been done sensitively and it doesn’t detract from the visual impact of deep green waters, lush date plantations and stark mountains all around.
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As much as the sights we see, it is the people we meet who make travel so rewarding and so memorable. Whether close to home or on the other side of the world, an interesting encounter can really bring a place to life. A few years ago we had just such an encounter in Seaton Sluice, a coastal village north of Newcastle in north east England.
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Standing here and looking out over the valley, you have the same view a Mogollon would have had, centuries ago. For thousands of years, groups of nomadic people had used these caves to provide temporary shelter. Until, in the late 1200s, some people of the Mogollon culture decided this would be a good place to call home. They built rooms, crafted pottery and raised children in the cliff dwellings for about twenty years. Then the Mogollon moved on, leaving the walls of their homes still standing.
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As a lover of mountain scenery, I have long wished to visit the high Andes of Patagonia, and specifically the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. This is named for the three distinctive peaks at its heart, the Torres or Towers, but these are just a few of the majestic mountains contained within its boundaries. Add numerous lakes, glaciers and rivers, and this is a landscape to tug at the heart strings and demand attention.
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Towering cliffs and deep deep canyons, delicate orange arches, slender pinnacles, balancing rocks … Stone doing what you would have thought stone could never do. And always that blue never-ending sky.
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When we travel to Africa we do so in the hope that we will see wildlife, and we have never yet been disappointed. We also accept that on occasion one of the smaller local creatures might find its way into our accommodation, a natural hazard in many parts of the world.
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If you have never been on a road trip before, what would be your ideal first-timer destination? Could there be a better choice than California? We have made nine road trips in the US but our first remains in many ways our most memorable, and not just because it was the first. LA, San Francisco, the Big Sur, Yosemite, Joshua Tree … the list of iconic sights goes on and on.
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As one of the rainiest places in the US, the Olympic Peninsula coast is notorious for bad weather. So we counted ourselves fortunate to experience slightly damp but by no means unpleasant conditions.
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The road wound up and up, at first tarmac, later gravel. If it weren’t for the few scrubby bushes we might almost have been on the moon, the landscape was so barren and rocky. It was hard to believe that this road led anywhere at all ...
