A winter series of public lectures in Bristol the theme of which is world-wide adventure.
Our lecturers are well known explorers, mountaineers, travel writers, TV personalities, adventure sports personalities or anyone who has an epic story to tell and can enthral our audience with a rattling good yarn. The talks are invariably illustrated with slides and/or film.
Featured Speaker
Jeremy Wade
Jeremy Wade is a biology teacher turned writer and television presenter, who has been exploring the world's remoter rivers for over 25 years. In addition to being arrested for spying and catching malaria, he has survived a plane crash in the Amazon and a head- butting from a fish that left him in pain for over a month. He has written for The Times, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph and BBC Wildlife, and is the co-author of 'Somewhere Down The Crazy River', widely regarded as a cult classic of fishing literature.
Please check our Whats On to find out how next season's programme is shaping up.
Download this season leaflet (4.3mb)
Download a full list of our speakers
North to South - surely that's downhill??
Tori James and Maria Leijerstam - 06/10/2010 19:30
With very little planning or preparation, no previous experience of cycle touring and having only met each other a few months previously, Tori James and Maria Leijerstam loaded their bikes onto international flights to New Zealand with the intention of cycling 2400km from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Their journey was powered by an unrelenting appetite for extreme physical challenges, and more than a few blueberry muffins! This will be an entertaining talk which will either leave you wanting an ice-cream or reaching for the chamois cream!
A Stroll Through the Axis of Evil
John Pilkington - 20/10/2010 19:30
In a lecture full of twists and surprises John takes us to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, countries which he says "are in the news for all the wrong reasons". Starting in Beirut, he unraveled a picture quite different from the news stories as he followed a winding route via the Euphrates, the Caucasus and the Valleys of the Assassins to finish on the Persian Gulf. He met a spectacular variety of people - Druze, Maronites, Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Azeris and both Shi'ite and Sunni Iranians - and found families and whole communities working together to survive the harsh climate and political strife. John says that Iraq was fascinating of course, but it was the people of Iran who made the trip really unforgettable. They must be the most warm and generous in the world. For days on end he was hardly allowed to buy any food or drink. Worryingly he managed to get arrested in the holy city of Qom, but luckily was let off and continued south through the desert to the Gulf island of Qeshm, a rocky no-man's-land that doesn't seem to have changed much since Marco Polo was there in 1271.
Two Sides of the Story: Walking the Great Wall of China
Tarka & Katie-Jane L'Herpiniere - 03/11/2010 19:30
In 167 days and over 4500km Katie-Jane and Tarka became the first to walk the entire length of the Great Wall of China from its most westerly terminus to its most easterly, making an award-winning documentary en-route. For Katie-Jane, the transition from her previous life as a fashion model was extreme, she made the transition from high-heels on the catwalk to blizzards, temperatures of -35°C, frost bite, starvation, exhaustion and dehydration? Travelling through the Gobi Desert and the sub-zero temperatures of the mountains, the journey was the equivalent to over 100 consecutive marathons with a third of their body weight on their backs.
