So its not southeast asia but it is just as amazing!

Kinder Scout from Cown Edge near Manchester, England

Getting back to the UK in the middle of February was a bit of a shock. The contrast in temperature between Bangkok (about 33C) and England (ca. 4C) is quite something, but I think it is the lack of light that is the most significant factor.
We have actually been very lucky - as you can see in this picture, the weather has been quite beautiful since we returned and it has allowed us to get our for some decent walks. This view is a panorama that I created from several individual pictures using Adobe's Photoshop CS3. We were about mid-way through a walk from a village called Charlesworth that is about 15km east of Manchester (less than 30 minutes drive from our house in Sale).
We had walked up to a series of crags called "Coombes Edge" and thought we would wander over the ridge to see what was on the other side. To be honest, we didn't really know what to expect and were greeted by this immense view of Kinder Scout.
Kinder Scout is about the highest thing near Manchester and its not easy to miss especially as not only is it high, but it is high over a vast area. At this time of the year, it looks very majestic as the Pennine moorland looks so brown and there's a lovely contrast in colour between this and the blue sky.
Kinder has quite a history with one of the most important events being the famous "mass trespass" by ramblers in their quest to gain more access to open moorland in England. The trespass took place on 24 April, 1932 when several hundred ramblers trespassed onto the privately owned summit. More can be found at http://kindertresspass.com
In addition to adding photos from recent days, I am going back through the 1000s of pictures we took on holiday (yes I took about 5,000!) and will be uploading some of the best to Flickr - there are also quite a few more panorama shots to build using Photoshop. Last but not least, I've been uploading various little videos to Youtube. So in many respects the events of our holiday carry on and I'll be updating this blog regularly so please check in whenever you can!