16th May 2014 marks 10 years of Costa & Stephie in digital photographic art form.

Here is our very first picture, taken in Gosport, Hampshire on 16th May 2004:

What have we been up to in the last 10 years? Well, travel is one of our favourite pastimes. We are based in Hampshire, but always look forward to discovering new places. We have ticked off around 18 English Counties, and also have made it to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Guernsey.

Further afield we have been fortunate to visit 14 countries,Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Singapore, Switzerland, and United States.

Travelling to all these exciting places often means an airplane ride. More often than not we are stuffed into the seat back pockets, but sometimes we get upgrade to actual seats.

More by accident in 2010, we discovered elephants in London. Since then, we have seen the Elephants in Heerlen, Copenhagen, Milan, Singapore, Hasselt, London (again), Luxembourg and Trier.
Not content with Elephants, we have also visited Lions, Rhinos, Hippos, Bears, Swans, Gorillas, Cows, Giraffes, Gromits, Olympic Mascots, Eggs, and Sprouts!

Being adventurous explorers, we occasionally got ourselves into danger. We have been trapped in Bear Claws, eaten by Swans, Tigers, Sharks, Snakes, Crocodiles and Lions. We experienced being trapped in quicksand, swept up in avalanches, struck by lightning, frying in a furnace and abandoning a ship. But we survived.

More mainstream adventures, we have driven steam engines, traction engines,trams, and fork lift trucks. We have done rock climbing, explored labyrinths and ascended mountains.

We have visited palaces, castles, châteaux and schlösser.

At times we needed a bear head for heights. We have been at the top of lighthouses, big wheels, tall buildings, and cable cars.

In 2008 we were very fortunate to sit for an official portrait on canvas.

Unlike proper bears, we have been out in all seasons, winter, spring, summer and autumn.

All these adventures made us thirsty and hungry, and we were not adverse to a nice drink and snack every now and then. We also once baked a cake from start to finish.

So let's go full circle and finish where we started. Here we are at the very same spot where we posed exactly ten years ago.

What's to come in the next ten years, who knows. In the meantime we thank you all for your visits and kind comments, and hope you will continue to drop by and share our adventures.

Costa and Stephie.