Under the grand title of biggest photo competition in the world,Canon and EMAP ran a competition with a £10,000 safari prize!. I entered this through Trail magazine, the subject being the "Spirit of Trail".It is a walking magazine so I sent an image of Pen y Fan in mono.
This to my surprise I won for which I recieved a Canon EOS1X and a place in the second round.The description of the image in the magazine made interesting reading.I quote "Is it Alaska,is it the Arctic? No it's Pen y Fan on a cold November day.The mood of winter hill walking beautifully captured".We recieved our invitation to the Victoria and Albert museum where the category and final winners would be announced.It was a caviar and champagne evening with luminaries from the sport and entertainments.Chris Packham,Koo Stark,Rebecca Stevens and Darren Campbell awarded the prizes.All the images that had won their respective rounds were framed and hung in the gallery.Maggie and I had travelled by tube and were enjoying the proceedings, meeting the other contestants.Finnaly they announced the winner with the managing director of Canon saying " you do not have to travel far to get winning images, to the Brecon Beacons in fact" then my name was announced!.Maggie and I looked at each other in disbelief.I had won a competition with 10,000 entrants and we were going to Africa (Botswana) on a experience of a lifetime.We were both as high as could be, sitting in a coffee shop letting the evenings excitment sink in before our journey home. Africa was to have a profound affect on us.