Category Archives: PLACES AND TRAVEL

The Giddy 1000 yd Zip Line trip to Yushan Village.

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article-2204686-150f8764000005dc-962_964x1444If you suffer from even the slightest amount vertigo then Yushan village in China’s Hubei Province is probably best kept off any list of potential holiday destinations.
For despite its staggeringly beautiful location, Yushan’s only connection with the outside world is a precarious zip line stretching for a dizzying kilometre, 400 metres above the valley floor.
A pair of thick cables are strung between two high cliff faces with a steel cage suspended below to carry people and goods in and out of the village.
Don’t look down!
This terrifying zip line stretching 400 metres above the valley floor is the only connection to the outside world for Yushan village in China’s Hubei Province
Maintenance man Zhang Xinjian and his family have been checking the cable ropeway for quite some years.
Yushan has a population of just over 200 people and before the ropeway was built in 1997, villagers faced a walk of several days to get to the next nearest village.
The village is hoping to have a road constructed over the next few years.
via Take the high road! Chinese village’s only contact with world is 1,000-yard zip-line at a dizzying height above valley floor | Mail Online.

The 17th century Tan Hill Hostelry,Yorkshire Dales.

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Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Snow surrounds the Tan Hill Inn. The 17th-century hostelry in the Yorkshire Dales is the highest in Great Britain.
Built to cater for Yorkshire miners, Tan Hill’s claim to fame is that it’s Britain’s highest pub, at an elevation of 328m (1732ft).
It perches in the middle of nowhere about 11 miles northwest of Reeth.
At times the howling wind can make it feel a bit wild up here, but inside it’s unexpectedly comfortable and welcoming, with an ancient fireplace in the atmospheric, stone-flagged public bar and leather sofas in the lounge.
Image Credit: Photograph by Owen Humphreys/PA
Source: The ‘Rowing Marine’ and a snowy scene: Monday’s best photos | News | The Guardian

Trinity Church, King George Island.

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Photo: James L. Boka on Wikipedia)
This strange little church, perched on the black sands of King George Island, looks like something out of Harry Potter, but is actually the southernmost Orthodox Christian church in the world.
It was built by the Russians in the 1990s to minister to their permanent settlement in Antarctica, Bellingshausen Station.
Manned by a couple of volunteer priests at all times, the chapel also serves a number of other international bases in the area.
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Unlike most of the squat, unadorned buildings in Antarctica, the church brings a warm dose of old world flare to the island, and seems almost miraculous amongst the harsh surrounds.
via Chill Out at These 9 Antarctic Outposts | Atlas Obscura.

Ancient Incan Rings of Moray.

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imageContributor: leiris
Grouped together in Peru’s lush Cuzco region, the ringed Incan ruins known as Moray have long been a mystery, but it is looking more and more likely that the nested stone rings may have been part of a large-scale agricultural experiment.
Unlike a number of the elaborate metropolises and statuary left behind by the Incan people, the rings at Moray are relatively simple but may have actually been an ingenious series of test beds.
Descending in grass-covered, terraced rings, these rings of rings vary in size, with the largest ending in a depth of 30 meters (98 feet) deep and 220 meters (722 feet) wide.
vista-moray
Studies have shown that many of the terraces contain soil that must have been imported from other parts of the region.
The temperature at the top of the pits varies from that at the bottom by as much as 15ºC, creating a series of micro-climates that — not coincidentally — match many of the varied conditions across the Incan empire, leading to the conclusion that the rings were used as a test bed to see what crops could grow where.
Edited by: SkareMedia (Author), Rachel (Admin), oriana (Admin), EricGrundhauser (Admin)
via Moray | Atlas Obscura.

Lindisfarne Castle, built 1550.

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1280px-LindisfarneCastleHolyIslandLindisfarne Castle is a 16th-century castle located on Holy Island, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England, much altered by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1901. The island is accessible from the mainland at low tide by means of a causeway.
The castle is located in what was once the very volatile border area between England and Scotland. Not only did the English and Scots fight, but the area was frequently attacked by Vikings. The castle was built in 1550, around the time that Lindisfarne Priory went out of use, and stones from the priory were used as building material. It is very small by the usual standards, and was more of a fort.
The castle sits on the highest point of the island, a whinstone hill called Beblowe.
Lindisfarne’s position in the North Sea made it vulnerable to attack from Scots and Norsemen, and by Tudor times it was clear there was a need for a stronger fortification, although obviously, by this time, the Norsemen were no longer a danger. This resulted in the creation of the fort on Beblowe Crag between 1570 and 1572 which forms the basis of the present castle.
After Henry VIII suppressed the priory, his troops used the remains as a naval store. In 1542 Henry VIII ordered the Earl of Rutland to fortify the site against possible Scottish invasion.
Elizabeth I then had work carried out on the fort, strengthening it and providing gun platforms for the new developments in artillery technology.
These works in 1570 and 1571 cost £1191. When James I came to power in England, he combined the Scottish and English thrones, and the need for the castle declined. At this time the castle was still garrisoned from Berwick and protected the small Lindisfarne Harbour.
In the eighteenth century the castle was occupied briefly by Jacobite rebels, but was quickly recaptured by soldiers from Berwick who imprisoned the rebels; they dug their way out and hid for nine days close to nearby Bamburgh Castle before making good their escape.
via Lindisfarne Castle – Wikipedia

Volcanic Island of Aogashima.

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Aogashima is a small, tropical volcanic island in the Philippine Sea, under the administration of Tokyo despite being located some 358 kilometers away from the country’s capital.
It is the southernmost and the most isolated inhabited island of the Izu archipelago.
The island itself is a giant volcanic crater, and within that crater there’s another, smaller volcano.
Aogashima is still considered an active Class-C volcano though it last erupted in the 1780′s.
When last erupted it killed nearly half of the island’s population and forced the remaining inhabitants to flee. I
t took just fifty years for the people to return.
Today, some 200 brave villagers live on the island.
Read on via The Inhabited Volcanic Island of Aogashima, Japan | Amusing Planet.