Most Beautiful And wonderful rocks around the world

Rocks around the world

Is this the most fun job in the world? The man that travels the world testing holiday resort waterslides

Surely the envy of any desk-bound office worker, Tommy Lynch has travelled over 27,000 miles this year, for his job testing holiday resort waterslides.

Mr Lynch, 29, works for holiday giant First Choice, checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes, as well as all safety aspects.

He said: 'I do have the best job in the world. No-one believes me when I tell them what I do.

'Some people sit in an office all day but I get to fly all over the world and slide down flumes.

'It can be a bit tough when it is chilly and you have to strip off and shoot down the flume but other than that it is great.
'There is so much more that goes into the flumes than people realise. The pools and slides are such an important part of the family holiday so it is vital everything is right.'

In 2008 Mr Lynch tested waterslides at holiday villages in Lanzarote, Majorca, Egypt, Turkey, the Costa Del Sol, Cyprus, Algarve, Dominican Republic and Mexico.

This year he will quality control First Choice's new splash resorts in Greece, Turkey, Florida, Jamaica and Ibiza.

His favourites flumes include the ultra modern design at the company's holiday village in Benalmadna on the Costa Del Sol, and the Aqua Fanasty park in Kusadasi.

Liverpool-born Mr Lynch, whose job title is lifestyle product development manager, was recruited to identify the very best pools to be featured in First Choice's new Splash Resort collection. He also ensures potential new resorts are up to the company's standard.

He said: 'There is a serious side to my job, which carries a lot of responsibility, but getting to check out the flumes is by far the best bit.'

A spokeswoman for the company said: 'At First Choice we understand how important swimming pools are to kids on holiday, which is why we appointed someone dedicated to finding the very best in the world.


'As you can imagine, there were no shortage of applicants for the job.

'Tommy takes his job very seriously and he has left no stone unturned in his pursuit of the world's coolest pools, trying and testing each and every flume, slide and wave machine on the way.'

A pair of white lion cubs make their wobbly world debut

A pair of rare white lion cubs have taken their first shaky steps in public just a day after they were born.

Video footage showed one bravely squeaking and wobbling across the enclosure until he was rescued by his mother. She deftly picked them up in her teeth and took them to a sheltered spot to suckle.


The two youngsters were born to parents Vambo and Kiara at Belgrade Zoo. White cubs are extremely rare because both parents must have the same particular recessive gene.

They are part of a subspecies unique to the Timbavati area of South Africa. Although around 50 white lions have been bred in zoos for their unusual colour, they have not been seen in the wild since 1994.

Serbia's capital was delighted to welcome their new residents.

Zoo director, Vuk Bojovic, said: 'We now have five white lions. They are very rare and they used to kill them in Africa.

'If white lions were born they treated them as a nature's fault and they used to bring a person to kill those lions.'

Pictured: The incredible secret world at the bottom of the sea

In a year-long mission, a BBC team probed a small part of the earth's amazing undersea world. They completed 1000 dives and explored seven different oceans across the globe. What they found was extraordinary...


To most of us, seas and oceans are featureless expanses. On a good day, the vast surfaces stretching endlessly towards the horizon provide a picturesque foil for a sunset.

Yet these glassy waters hide an extraordinary world.
In fact, we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the deep ocean floors, which is why a team of experts decided to probe a small part of the planet's seas, and film it for an eight-part TV series, to be shown on BBC2 next month.

Headed by Paul Rose, ex-base commander of the British Antarctic Survey and dive trainer to the US navy, the Oceans team includes maritime archaeologist Lucy Blue, marine biologist and oceanographer Tooni Mahto, and conservationist Philippe Cousteau, grandson of the celebrated underwater pioneer Jacques.
Over a year, they set up eight expeditions to seven different seas and oceans across the globe - spending more than 700 hours underwater, and completing 1,000 dives.

Their aim was to seek out the hidden secrets of our oceans and, ultimately, to better understand how much we rely on these enigmatic and alien places.
Four-fifths of all life on Earth is found beneath the waves, and scientists estimate a million new species are out there waiting to be discovered.

Below the surface of the oceans there are mountains that would dwarf the Himalayas, waterfalls bigger than Niagara and more active volcanoes than anywhere else on the planet.
The mid-ocean ridge, a chain of mountains that runs through all the great seas, is 37,300 miles long, with an average height of 3,000 metres.

Together, the oceans make up an unimaginably vast environment wrapped around more than 70 per cent of the surface of the planet.
It is no surprise, then, that a new species was discovered by the team during almost every deepsea dive.

But there was more to find, including underwater caves that preserved the remains of lost civilisations and wrecks that spoke of ancient battles.
They saw rare and endangered creatures and dived in alien marine environments: pitch-black waters turned purple by toxic bacteria, and eerie tannin-stained waters housing bizarre creatures.

They even dived into a throng of sharks to test out a new repellent - and were relieved to find it worked.
Unfortunately, they also found found evidence of the changes wrought by mankind - warming seas destroying unique ecosystems and overfishing decimating entire species.

But there were also signs of hope: coral that harbour a special heat-resistant algae that could also protect the other reefs of the world, and marine creatures with amazing abilities to adapt to their changing world.
And, in the Arctic, they discovered a potentially new species of amphipod - a great find, as these tiny creatures provide a crucial link in the entire Arctic Ocean food chain.

There were numerous other highlights, including a rare encounter with a green-eyed six-gill shark, a dive alongside Seri Indians, and swimming in the presence of the terrifying Humboldt squid.

Here, they exclusively share with us some of the amazing sights they found under the sea.

• Extracted from Oceans: Exploring The Hidden Depths Of The Underwater World by Paul Rose and Anne Laking, BBC Books, £20. (c) Paul Rose and Anne Laking, 2008. To order a copy at £18 (p&p free), tel: 0845 155 0720. Oceans starts on BBC2 on 12 November.