I’M ASHAMED to admit that I had fallen victim to the old cliches about Switzerland – land of army knives, chocolate and cuckoo clocks, and ski-ing in winter. It barely figured in my list of European must-dos.

IF I weighed in at 60 tonnes, I could manage little more than a lie on the sofa in front of daytime TV. But for the gigantic Southern Right whales off the coast of Cape Town, weighing the same as seven double-decker buses is no reason to avoid a spot of acrobatics.

STAND under the hot prairie sun for the opening parade of the Calgary Stampede and you begin to get a sense of why the city-wide celebration bills itself as The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.