Interesting geographical things to do....

Mark Beaumont (aka "The Man who Cycled the World" and "The Man who Cycled The Americas") is doing a lecture tour at the moment, and will be at the Assembly Rooms in Derby on Friday 14th May. I went to the Loughborough lecture, and it was brilliant.... More information and the link to book tickets on Mark's website... Go and see him!

Also, if you are in Nottingham, you might like to visit the Nottingham Contemporary, where there is a new exhibition starting today - "Uneven Geographies: Art and Globalisation"... looks interesting!

Cycling the Americas

I posted the other day about Mark Beaumont's new adventure, and you can find links to his blog and Twitter feed there.

Some more good news though is that Mark's former Geography teacher, Val Vannet, will be writing a parallel blog, looking at the geography of the places Mark visits on his journey from Anchorage to Ushuaia. You can follow the blog here and if you missed the blog that Val wrote as Mark cycled around the world then you can catch up with that one here.

The Man Who Cycled The World...

Those of you who enjoyed following Mark Beaumont's progress as he cycled the world will be pleased to hear that his book, The Man Who Cycled The World, is out now...

And... even more exciting is that Mark is about to embark on his next adventure - on 27th May, Mark will set off from Anchorage in Alaska - on his way to Ushuaia, 15000 miles away in southern Argentina.

The BBC will be filming Mark's journey for a documentary series, The Man Who Cycled The Americas, and you can follow Mark's progress here.

Editing to add a link to an interview with Mark for The Scotsman.

Wet and windy Edinburgh...

Spent this weekend in Edinburgh for the SAGT Conference... An interesting lecture from Iain Stewart - "Unnatural Hazards: Creating Cultures of Catastrophe":


Two excellent workshops by Ollie Bray and Alan Parkinson - some great ideas coming soon to a classroom near you!

Lots of freebies including a fab notebook made from obsolete geological maps... Interesting conversations about the possibilities of trips to Norway or Switzerland... Excellent demonstrations of a twister in a jar and a clever way to show how warm and cold fronts move...

And a fascinating talk from "The Man Who Cycled The World":

The atrocious weather for most of the rest of the weekend meant that there wasn't much photography other than a quick snap of the Castle this morning:

Looking forward to next year!

The Man Who Cycled The World...

You might well remember me posting about Mark Beaumont's record-breaking round-the-world cycle... 18,000 miles in 194 days! Well, as well reading Val's epic blog which explored the geography of Mark's journey, you can now see the BBC documentaries - Monday 18th-Thursday 21st August, BBC1, 10.35pm.

You might also have seen a new Orange advert in the past week or so - featuring Mark... If you haven't, check it out here together with a short documentary about Mark and his journey.

And if you are a new Geogtastic visitor and don't know what I'm talking about, click on Mark Beaumont at the bottom of this post, or check out Mark's website.

Around the world in 195 days! On a bike!

Back in August, I posted about Mark Beaumont - former pupil of a geography teacher friend - who was just setting out on his round-the-world cycle...

Well, today - just 195 days later - Mark has arrived back in Paris, smashing the previous record of 276 days!!

His former geography teacher, Val Vannet, has been blogging about the geography of Mark's journey - http://www.geobloggingwithmark.blogspot.com/... check it out now if you haven't already been following the journey!

BBC News coverage of Mark reaching the finish line here...

Geo Blogging with Mark

I've posted a few times about Mark Beaumont and his round-the-world cycle challenge, and I've also mentioned Val Vannet's excellent blog... Val is Mark's former Geography teacher, and is writing a really interesting summary of Mark's journey with extra geography for free! She's just started a new blog http://www.geobloggingwithmark.blogspot.com/ - a prize for the first SHS person to tell me the capital city of the country where Mark is at the moment!!

Don't forget, you can also follow Mark's progress, and read his "diary" on the World Cycle website...

Geography: My Place and Yours

I've mentioned Val Vannet's excellent blog before, but it's particularly good at the moment, because she is following the journey of her former pupil, Mark Beaumont, as he cycles round the world.

You can track Mark's journey yourself, read his diary, etc. at the Artemis World Cycle website, but if you have a look at Val's version, you get the geography of the places Mark's travelling through as well!

On the way!!

I posted the other day about Mark Beaumont setting off on his 18000 mile cycle trip around the world... Well, Mark set off this morning from the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees, and is on his way...

You can follow Mark's progess on the website here, or on the BBC site that is tracking his journey...

Good luck Mark!

18000 miles...

That is how far Mark Beaumont will be cycling on his round the world trip which starts on Sunday morning from the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Mark - who is a former pupil of a geography teacher friend Val Vannet, at the High School of Dundee - plans to cycle 18000 miles through 20 different countries, in an attempt to claim the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle.

The current record is 276 days, 19 hours and 15 minutes; Mark hopes to complete his journey in 210 days, returning to Paris in February next year.

You can find out more about Mark's journey at http://www.artemisworldcycle.com/ and follow his progress on the BBC Online Documentary.