Tag: wildlife

Castle CottageThis year Shirley and I took a trip to Lundy Island to celebrate our Anniversary. We stayed in the wonderful Castle Cottage which has a picture window that overlooks the harbour.

I have always been fascinated with Puffins and was hoping to catch a glimpse of some and cross another item of the Bucket List. Unfortunately that was not to be but there was plenty to see and do and the trip was a great success. All except the boat journey across to the island which was pretty rough. Most of the passengers seemed to be hanging over the edge, me included, or have their face thrust into a paper bag…

One bonus was that I managed to spot a couple of dolphins while hanging over the side of the boat. Not sure what they were though. They seemed to be spotted dolphins rather than common dolphins but not sure if you actually get them in our waters?

The journey back was quite smooth though which was a relief. Anyway here is a collection of some photos we took while on the island.

Pembrey 001Every year Shirley and I try and take the whole family away for a week. Last year we went down to Cornwall. This year we rented a huge cottage near Carmarthen in Wales.

The cottage was connected to the Three Rivers Hotel & Spa so we even had the use of their swimming pool, sauna and gym. This was a great little bonus even though the walk back up the hill afterwards was a bit of a killer…

The weather held out again and I think it’s fair to say we all had a great time…

Here are a handful of photos from the trip showing off some of the wonderful places close to where we were staying. I know this post is a bit late but what with the distraction of the Royal Wedding I didn’t want to rush things…

Riverbed No Longer DryLast week I put up some photos from our recent trip to Lanzarote. I decided to leave out the fact that it rained for a lot of the holiday!

Don’t get me wrong there were some clear spells but there was also a lot of rain. Today’s post is going to show the other side of our holiday…

I don’t mind the occasional rain shower but some of the rain was quite heavy. Lucky I had my waterproof coat really and it was required a few times…

Supposedly it was some of the heaviest rain they have had in 15 years!

It was still a lot warmer than back in good old Blighty though…

Soaking Up The SunMy wife and I recently went on holiday to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some of the photos from the trip.

We booked our holiday to the Canary Islands from Alpharooms.com which turned out to have the cheapest on offer. We stayed at a place called Los Ficus in Costa Teguise.

We didn’t do too much sightseeing as this holiday was purely meant for rest and recuperation. I did manage to cross something off my Bucket List though which was great fun…

I have started experimenting with uploading my photos to Flickr so you should be able to click through and view larger versions if you want. Please let me know if you have any issues viewing the pictures.

There is even an option to view these photos as a slideshow. Just bear in mind this is new to me so there may well be a few teething problems…

Stroking The TurtleWhile I was backpacking around the world I had the wonderful opportunity of watching a Loggerhead Turtle lay her eggs before crawling back to the water. It was a pretty amazing experience and one that I am very proud to have witnessed.

I saw this turtle at Mon Repos, near Bundaberg, in Australia. I visited there back in December 1999. It was a long night as I didn’t get back to my room till 05:30 the following morning but it was well worth it.

The monumental effort involved for the turtle to drag herself up the beach, dig a nest and lay the clutch of eggs almost seems to much to handle. That is only half the battle though as she still has to cover the nest back up with sand and then crawl all the way back to the ocean before swimming off back to her natural habitat.

As this item is on my bucket list I thought it might be nice to upload some of my photos. I hope one day to return and watch some turtles hatch and make their way to the sea for the first time so that is also on the list.

Chimpanzee WalkingHere are some photos from a recent trip to Monkey World.

This is a refuge for rescued apes from around the world. This includes animals that have suffered abuse or neglect and provides rehabilitation back into some sort of natural living groups.

We took a trip there to celebrate June’s birthday, my Mother-in-Law. June even had the pleasure of meeting Jeremy, the star from the program Monkey Life.

It gave me the perfect opportunity to get my camera out as practice for Lianne’s upcoming wedding at the end of this month. Bit of luck really as I was definitely a bit rusty…

Taking photos through fences or glass can add to the challenge and as some of the shots were inside with low light that gave me a few more things to think about.