Hole

I took a drive out to the Grand Canyon on Wednesday. It was a 500 mile round trip but it was definitely worth it. The show has, in one way or another, now taken me to see The Grand Canyon, The Great Wall of China and Niagara Falls which I stupidly thought were all "7 Wonders of the World" © ®

It turns out that I'm completely wrong and my naive assumption that I'd now seen 3/7 of the world's wonders is incorrect. I was wondering what else qualifies as a "Wonder of the World" © ® so I had a quick look around the internet using some search engine or another (I can't remember which) and discovered that there are several different lists. The only seven that seem to enjoy a broad agreement are the seven ancient wonders of the world ... of which only the Great Pyramid of Giza is still standing so when it comes to viewing the "7 Ancient Wonders of the World" © ® it's only possible to see 1/7th of them and I haven't even done that.

Most people seem to have the Grand Canyon on a list of Natural Wonders though I'm surprised that Niagara Falls doesn't makes it on to that list and while The Great Wall of China is obviously not a natural wonder, I'm amazed that it rarely gets a mention on any of the lists because it's definitely one of the most wondrous things I've ever seen.

It seems that the original "7 Wonders of the World" © ® list was compiled by Greeks way back when and they didn't know that the Great Wall of China existed (or Stonehenge for that matter) and so it didn't make it on to the list. But why, as the collective knowledge of the world grew, people didn't promote the Great Wall of China and demote The Lighthouse of Alexandria, say (I don't know, I've never seen it) or why the world didn't decide that there were now 8 Wonders of the World doesn't make much sense to me.

Anyway... as far as Natural Wonders of the World go, I've now seen my first official Wonder © ® and the Canyon is something truly remarkable to behold. I took a light aircraft flight over it and loved every minute of it... even the minutes when I was tightly gripping the seat in front of me because of the turbulence. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Back in April I wrote about how it was impossible to capture Niagara Falls in a photograph but impossible not to try over and over again to do so. It was the same with the Grand Canyon - I took hundreds of photos but none of them convey the magnitude of it properly.

Here's one attempt:

and here's a picture of me dangling my feet over the edge of the most impressive hole I've ever dangled my feet over the edge of: