visit the 7 natural wonders of the world

• Mount Everest
• Victoria Falls
• The Grand Canyon - DONE!!
• The Great Barrier Reef
• Northern Lights - DONE!!
• Paricutin Volcano in Mexico
• The Harbor at Rio de Janeiro

Second one off the list is the Northern Lights. My girlfriend and I went on a 3 week trip through Canada and Alaska in September 2007 with the hope of seeing bears, moose, bald eagles, caribou, killer whales and the elusive Northern Lights. We were successful on all counts bar the whales (more on that in another entry…) but all came with considerable effort and patience – it was quite a tough holiday but rewarding by the end.

We flew to Vancouver and hired a car there to make the mammoth 2000+ mile trip to Alaska through some completely deserted wilderness in Canada. The further north we got, the more we were scanning the skies for the aurora – made considerably more difficult by the dashboard lights which were green and, once it got dark enough, reflected in the windscreen causing frequent bogus aurora sightings.

On approaching Whitehorse however we thought we saw a thin green line in the sky out of a side window and so excitedly pulled over, grabbed our cameras and turned the car lights off to try and capture it. However, this led to the next car to come along, backing up and it’s owner berating us for pulling over and not putting our hazards on! Well we didn’t want our photos ruined, did we?

So that was our first sighting, although it wasn’t quite what we were expecting – very faint and not moving at all. However later on in the trip we got much farther north, to Fairbanks and, on the recommendation of a local, drove to the top of a place called Ester Dome. Lots of light pollution from the city and a very bright moon meant conditions weren’t perfect, but after about 30 minutes the lights began to appear and moved very slowly above our heads. We managed to capture a few semi-decent shots on film, one of which is shown above, but my ineptitude with a camera meant that they weren’t really done justice at all.

Then towards the end of the holiday, on the journey back to Vancouver, we were treated to one last sighting – the best one yet, due to zero light pollution – about 20 miles from Watson Lake. It was so dark you could barely see your hand in front of your face – which led to some scary moments as we were parked alongside a rocky hill and could hear that something was moving causing little mini rockslides to come down. We were torn between staying outside and watching the lights or getting back in the car to avoid being savaged by what we thought were almost certainly bears. After bravely staying outside as long as possible, we got back in the car, turned the headlights on and saw it was a couple of sheep….

On our return from Alaska we felt that although we had been amazed by the lights, and felt extremely lucky to have seen them, they weren’t quite what we’d imagined. We decided to take a short trip to Tromso in Norway to have another go. Highly recommended as a much cheaper way to see them from the UK (Ryanair London-Oslo, then NorwegianAir Oslo-Tromso – very reasonable!). We stayed in a little cabin and kept sticking our heads out the door every 10 minutes, which would quickly freeze shut between each time. When the lights finally appeared, they were 10 times more impressive than what we’d seen in Alaska. Reds, yellows, blues, greens; and they were streaking across the skies this time. I managed to get 1 very average photo before my tripod broke – but this just meant that I concentrated less on photographing them and more on just watching them – not particularly a bad thing.

We were lucky enough to see them 4 nights in a row in Tromso so I highly recommend going there to anyone who would like to see them.

For anyone wondering what the Seven Natural Wonders are, here’s the list:

• Mount Everest
• Victoria Falls
• The Grand Canyon - DONE!!
• The Great Barrier Reef
• Northern Lights
• Paricutin Volcano in Mexico
• The Harbor at Rio de Janeiro

First one to be ticked off is the Grand Canyon. Goes without saying that it’s absolutely awe-inspiring, but then it wouldn’t be on the list if it wasn’t, would it… TV pictures and photos really don’t do it justice as, unlike most other canyons, when you’re standing on the rim it’s all you can see for 180° all round.

My girlfriend and I went there in July 2005 as part of a 3 week holiday travelling round the southwest of America. Our original intention was to hike from rim to rim (one of our other 43 things to do), but as will become apparent as I add more entries to this, we have a habit of attempting these things but have a disappointingly low success rate (usually through no fault of our own, I hasten to add!), meaning all these places we are lucky enough to go, we will probably have to go back to! But we’re trying, dammit!!

We arrived at the south rim late at night, and with nowhere booked to stay, we pulled the car up to the edge of the rim and settled down to an uncomfortable night in a Dodge Neon… A blessing in disguise as it turned out though, as we were woken by the sunrise and an incredible vista of the canyon filled with early-morning mist (see the above photo) – a view I doubt matched by even the most expensive hotel room.

We’d bought all our supplies for the arduous trek and even had a night booked in the Phantom Ranch down at the bottom of the canyon. But alas, upon moseying up to the Information Center for a pre-hike wee we spotted a number of signs indicating that due to forest fires burning round part of the rim, it was highly recommended that asthmatics (one of which I unfortunately am) don’t attempt the hike as breathing would prove difficult upon reaching the inner canyon. Since I’d rather not die trying to complete one of my 43 things, we took the frustrating decision not to do the rim to rim. We did hike about 3 miles down the Bright Angel trail however, which was fantastic – a taster of what’s to come when we return for a 2nd attempt.

Seeing as we now had a couple of unplanned spare days, we also did a helicopter flight over the canyon and drove to the far less touristy North rim. We took in a v. interesting Ranger walk there and went and saw the end of the trail we should’ve come up had things gone differently… Oh well, hopefully next time.