Top Ten Tuesday

Talking about the Twelve Apostles last week made me think of other places that I have been that were a similar experience. To me, there are some things in nature that are almost religious and they fill me with wonder. While these are my top ten amazing places in the world (that I have been to) they are not in any particular order because how can you put one of these amazing places ahead of the next? I can't and I don't want to, I just want to celebrate each one.

Top Tem Places That Have Amazed Me

1. White Sands, New Mexico. Out of nowhere, there's this desert of the brightest white sand. You feel like there should be an ocean washing up on it, but there isn't. And it's so damn bright as to be almost blinding. Incredible.
2. Cape Reinga, New Zealand. This is at the tip of the North Island and it's where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. I could have sat there on the bluff and watched the waters meet, listen to the waves crashing together, for days.
3. Northen Tip of Jutland, Denmark. This is the northern tip of Denmark where the North and Baltic seas meet. It's just as powerful as Cape Reinga, but instead of lushness, it's all sand dunes. Still awesome.
4. Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Talk about power. The water rushes over the edge and pounds down into the river below, throwing up tons of mist. They are loud and majestic and in the winter there is ice coating everything from railings to trees as the mist freezes in the cold. You can go behind the falls and see them from inside out. You can go on a boat that will take you as close as it can down below. Or you can just stand next to them, down the road from them, and watch and listen to the majesty.
5. Great Barrier Reef, Australia. We took a day tour on a boat to see them, donned snorkles and swam above them. The colors were incredible, the formations amazing. I have never seen anything like them.
6. Uluru and Kata Tjuta, Australia. First of all, all the red dirt in central Australia is really cool and then, out of the flat land are these rock formations. I can see why they are sacred to the aboriginals. I got to see Kata Tjuta at sunset and Uluru at sunrise. Magificent. Just make sure you wear one of those hats with the mesh that comes down around to your neck because omg, the flies!
7. Heidelberg Castle, from Schlierbach. So when I was 10 we went to Germany for a year. We lived in a suburb of Heidelberg called Schlierbach, which was around the hill from the castle which hovered on the side of the hill over the city. You could walk along the hill and approach the castle and grounds from behind. When it isn't tourist season, this castle was 'ours' (and all the other Heidelbergers) and we would walk to it almost daily and wander around the grounds. 
8. Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, New Zealand. I'm sure I would name other glaciers too if I had been to them, but these are the only two I have seen in person. I love the different colors of the ice, but the blues are my favorite part. It's incredible to imagine that these slow-moving giants have been around for so long and are continually changing. 
9. Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Canada. The water simply disappears for miles and miles when the tide is out. Nature is incredibly cool. Seriously.
10. Beaches on the Atlantic ocean. I have been to the beach in Nova Scotia, and I have been to the beach in Florida and while one was warm and the other one much colder, they both have the waves coming in over and over again. I realize a lot of my top ten places involve water and it's because to me there is something peaceful and renewing about the water. It speaks to me somewhere inside. My sister got marries on the beach and we flew in late Friday and left early Sunday, but I spent almost every moment of Saturday on or near the beach and could hear the water the entire time and when we got home I felt so reinvigorated. 

So there you have it, ten amazing places in the world. There are so many more that I have been to - all of New Zealand is incredible, from the caves, to the dormant and not-dormant volcanos, the mud pits, the glaciers and mountains, the beaches, the hundreds of years old trees... and that's just one country!

And I didn't even name the place that inspired this list in the first place! The Great Ocean Road, Australia, with its Twelve Apostles and other rock formations, and all that beach.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.
Sean
smut fixes everything