St. Gotthard Road Tunnel. Switzerland

The St. Gotthard Road Tunnel is in southern Switzerland. It runs for 10 miles from Goschene south to Airolo. The tunnel cuts through a huge mountain mass called the St. Gotthard Massif.

This mountain mass had always hindered travelers journeying through Switzerland on their way between Germany and Italy. After 1882, the St. Gotthard Rail Tunnel made travel easier, but the only road wound over a mountain pass made dangerous by deep snow in winter.

Cutting the St. Gotthard Road Tunnel began in 1970. Engineers worked toward each other from both ends. They met in 1976, and the two-lane tunnel opened in 1980.

The new road tunnel takes two hours off the road journey from north to south Switzerland. The tunnel is open all the year.

The Seven Wonders of the World

The Pyramids of Egypt were the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. The Hanging Garden of Babylon were terraced gardens in what is now Iraq. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia stood in Greece at the site of the first Olympic Games. It was 39 feet high and made of ivory, gold and gems. The Temple of Diana was a great marble temple built at Ephesus in what is now western Turkey. Also in Turkey was the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, a tomb made for King Mausolus. The Colossus of Rhodes was a giant statue on the island of Rhodes. The Pharos of Alexandria was Egyptian lighthouse which may have been 400 feet high. Of all these ancient structures, only the pyramids still exist.

Blue Lake, Mount Gambier, South Australia

A lovely remnant of volcanic activity in the South-East is this crater lake, famous for its dramatic overnight change in colour from grey to brilliant blue every November. However, the charge back to its cheerless winter colour takes places gradually between March and June. Nobody knows why this happens, for the other three crater lakes that lie nearby remain constant in colour. All four lakes act as natural basins and have water continuously seeping into them through porous limestone. Lying 450 kilometres from Adelaide in the far south-eastern corner of the State, the city of Mount Gambier sprawls beside one of ta group of extinct volcanoes that are in the district. Most of the mountain, which rises abruptly from the plains to a height of 190 metres (623 feet) is reserved for forestry and tourist purposes and there is a lovely scenic drive around the lake.

Boab Trees, Kimberley, Western Australia

The strange boab (or boabab) trees, with their swollen trunks and ungainly limbs, are a distinct feature of the Kimberley region and range over the sandy plains and low stony rises for about 160 kilometres inland. The young, relatively slender boabs certainly have more dignity than the old ones, whose boles become gnarled and distorted with age, often expanding to monstrous proportions. These grandfather boabs, squatting grumpily on the ground like grotesque characters out of tales of fantasy, are a constant source of amusement for the traveller. There are only two species of this tree, one in Africa, and the other in Australia (Adansonia gregorii), which is endemic to the North West and capable of reaching many centuries in age. The trunks act as a storage reservoir for food and water, and the tree only bears leaves during the Wet. Consequently little shade is given from its bare, untidy limns that resemble roots more than branches. The large nut-like fruit has dry pulp inside which tastes rather like cream of tartar and is said to be refreshing in humid weather. A popular name for the boab is a bottle tree, though these are not to be confused with the bottle shaped tress in Queensland that belong to the Brachychiton genus. The most famous boab is the Prison Tree, situated seven kilometres out of Derby. The tree has an enormous girth with a hollow inside, and is reputed to have been used as an overnight cell for a group of prisoners before their being taken into the town.

Geikie Gorge, Western Australia

Lying sixteen kilometres from the Kimberley settlement of Fitzroy Crossing, Geikie Gorge is easily accessible for the traveller passing through the far North-West. Geikie's story is a very old one, for over a countless number of centuries the thundering floodwaters of the Fitzroy River have cut through the remains of an ancient coral reef that formed about 350 million years age. The waters smoothed the fossil cliffs to their present height of about twelve metres (40 feet). The limestone cliffs, lining the canyon for many kilometres are fascination; the two distinct features of them that remain in most people's minds are the brilliant colours which almost seem to have been splashed on with paint, and the incredible variety of markings, indentations and holes.

Glasshouse Mountains, Queensland, Australia

One of the loveliest panoramas of the Glasshouse Mountains is from the Mary Cairncross Park, a delightful picnic ground set off the road near Monteville, high in the ranges behind Nambour. Good close-up views of the formations are best from the back road of Caboolture and the little village of Glasshouse Mountains. These unique geological formations are plugs of ancient volcanoes, and their strange shapes standing out on the horizon reminded Captain Cook, in 1770, of the glass furnaces in Yorkshire.