Terran Terrains

Considering some contrasts

This month’s challenge, “Terrains of the World” might appear to be an easy one — I could just post a lot of pictures from various landscapes. However, Anne Bonfert has guided us to show “… mountains and flatlands, deserts and wetlands, glaciers and oceans …”, which has inspired me to focus on contrasting terrains.

Here is the challenge that Anne issued to us Globetrotters if you haven’t seen it yet:

So let’s start with those mountains. My header image already shows some of the most impressive mountain views that I can remember seeing, during a road trip between Calgary and Vancouver, in June 2017. Here (below) is another image taken during that trip, showing the steep peaks behind a partially frozen Lake Agnes. I wrote about our move through that part of the world (and our dramatic experiences there) in another story, titled “Beauty and Bother in Banff”, which I’m sure you can find here on Medium if you look for it.

Let me now show you a somewhat less wild, and very much flatter landscape. Perhaps not surprisingly, the next picture was taken in the Netherlands, within a few minutes walk of our house in Eindhoven.

After showing you all that water, either liquid or frozen, let’s have a look at something drier. In January 2019, we drove from Zambia through Botswana and Namibia, where I took the following few photographs.

I could not write about this dramatically beautiful area, without showing at least one image of the granite boulders near the Madisa campsite, where we stayed.

Continuing this somewhat geological theme, let’s have a look at some volcanic terrains, starting with the cliffs surrounding the headland of Sao Lourenco on the eastern extremity of this Portuguese island, located in the Atlantic Ocean.

There are quite a few other volcanoes in that ocean, here’s another one — El Teide, Tenerife. This is one of the Canary Islands, which are a part of faraway Spain, though located off the western coast of Morocco and Western Sahara.

If islands are your thing, and you want to know which ones to visit, then JoAnn Ryan has a few suggestions for you:

But now it’s time to show you some greenery that I have experienced, myself. And one of the best places to see a lot of greenery, is Bowen Island, just off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. It’s a short ferry ride out of Vancouver and we had an opportunity to visit friends there, during our trip through western Canada in 2017.

Other shades of green can be seen in my last image, overlooking the Kafue River from a granite hill in the National Park. Since the time of that picture, the rains in Zambia have been heavy and by now that entire light green valley is probably flooded, up to the trees that mark the edge of the floodplain. You didn’t think that I’d let you get away without at least one image from Zambia, did you?

So, I hope that I’ve given you a sample of some quite different natural terrains that I’ve been fortunate enough to see. You might have seen more in some of my other stories, which are easy to find if you just follow me on Medium.

Of course, you can look at many many different terrains in the various stories that we Globetrotters like to share. For instance, if you follow Jillian Amatt, you will get to see many different views from different countries, here’s a sample:

To all of our Globetrotters, and those who just read our stories, and look at our images: Please do follow the links and lose yourself down the rabbit hole of one story leading to another (or more than one). Enjoy the variety!