Have you noticed how sometimes things look like other things even though they totally aren’t that thing? Yeah, you have, you do it all the time. Whenever you see faces in inanimate objects, for example, that’s called pareidolia, and our brains are programmed to do it.
The octopus / hook above is all very well, but this is a travel site and we ought to look at the big picture around the world – namely, big rocks that look like other things.
Lion Rock, Piha Beach, Auckland
This iconic black-sanded beach has its own TV show, “Piha Rescue”, due to its reputation for being rather dangerous. Despite being nearly 3km long, swimming is only permitted in a small section with a myriad of lifeguards watching carefully all the time.
Forget about the swim and take a look at that big rock that looks like a lion though. It’s a bit like if The Lion King was made out of a rock and was sitting on a beach in New Zealand.
Giewont, Zakopane, Poland
This mountain range not only looks like a bloke lying down, who for some inexplicable reason is using a cross as a toothpick, but it has an appealing little legend to go with it. Apparently it’s a giant sleeping knight who will wake when Poland is in danger.
Seeing as Poland has been in quite a bit of danger on-and-off for the last few hundred years, it seems he needs nothing short of an apocalypse to wake up.
Pedra de Gavea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Not far from Christ the Redeemer is this large-foreheaded fellow. There are lots of fun theories about why the rock looks like the bigfoot from Harry and The Hendersons, including UFOs and something to do with Vikings, but it’s just plain old rain erosion as far as the so-called scientists can tell.
It seems more fun to assume it was carved by an ancient clan of super-intelligent yetis.
(* The mountains in our featured image do look like mountains. It’s by ramsesoriginal)
