a bit of nature
Some nature pictures from over the past few years, since 2003…
This tree is only around 5% of the actual tree, more pictures of these magnificient trees can be seen in this old web page thats no longer maintained.
The rest are taken abroad, where I have the habit of going to some remote places (which btw I do in India as well once in a way) and woe be it for any unfortunate soul who’s doomed to be in my company abroad, because I usually drag them as well instead of letting them lounge around in front of a TV set or stroll around in shopping malls. So far nobody’s complained too much
though, a couple of chaps even vouched that its the best weekend they’ve ever had and they’re never going to waste another weekend again 😀
This picture is taken by a very reluctant colleague who got mercilessly dragged by me for a trek through the black forest in southern Germany (near a famous lake called Titisee).
Water droplets are on a small plant on the Swiss Alps – near a relatively unknown village called Meiringen – where Sherlock Holmes met his demise in his fatal tryst with Prof Moriatry and both of them plunged down Recichenbach Falls (but on popular demand, later turned out that he’d survived the fall and spent a lot of time incognito, even in India, before going back to solve more cases).
This was a dry tree is in Bristol in autumn I think…
This one is at a park I happened to wander into in Bristol. It was a real dense forest inside. At one time, for quite a while, I was walking *completely* alone – not a single sound! And then there was a sudden crash in the undergrowth… I stopped and looked around… and there was something out there… some very large creature. After what seemed to be eternity, something just charged out and ran across and disappeared into the
darkness – and in the brief moments I could get a glimpse of a magnificient stag.
This dark tunnel was on the way in one of the coastal walks in the southern part of UK. Here I was sitting at the edge of a coast one time, and suddenly from out of the blue, a man floated past – he was parasailing (or I don’t know the right term) – he was flying a kite while sitting in it! It was simply great to watch him go by. Later on, maybe a km or so down the path, I saw him again, and this time he landed. I went and spoke to him. He turned out to be a really nice guy… said he’d been in India as well… and among other things, guess why he’d come down…??? He said he’d come down because of a cell phone call 😉
These are pictures in parks/nature reserves in Germany – one unique thing I’ve seen in Germany is that there are plenty of such things amidst the city!
This is one of my all-time favorite pictures. I was walking in a park, when it suddenly started raining. Everybody was running helter-skelter but this swan seemed to be enjoying the rain so much that I joined it (though opening my umbrella)… simply knelt down on the bank of the pond and clicked…
I’ve not spent that much of time abroad, maybe a little over a couple of years if all the trips are added up… but have seen more places than an average traveller – and in more unfettered ways than just guided tours. Kambar says in his interview that to see yourself, don’t just look at a mirror, look at the trees, the sky, the birds, the sun, the moon, the plants, trees and and everything else in nature! In a mirror, you are reflected alone, but here you are reflected along with everything else.
If I compare it to other options of typical ways of spending time on weekends like lazing around watching TV/movies or sleeping the whole day, then I have no doubts whatsoever that these discoveries of the beauty of nature externally – was a far better way of spending my time! (The second best thing compared to discovery of nature internally! While an attempt can be made to share the beauty of external nature through writing or putting up photos, the same cannot be said about internal nature 🙂 )
Discoveries require a bit of getting out of the conventional habit pattern of the mind – doing something other than what we’re always used to – something I’ve only just begun to learn, which I know by my own experience, isn’t something that happens very easily. The main advantage I’ve had which helped me go out is that I’ve never depended on “good” weather, or availability of company or whether the place is supposed to be popular or not. I’ve sometimes gone to places having no idea at all what to expect there – and at times these have been my best trips!
Last (for now) but not the least… some pictures from India…
Honnemaradu is a fantastic place overall, but one of the highlights of the trip with my friend was the walk up a hill to watch the sunrise…
…and the breathtaking view after the sun rose…
