Stanfords have teamed up with Wilderness Lectures who bring travellers and explorers to venues in Bristol.
The Wilderness Lectures are a winter series of public lectures in Bristol, the theme of which is worldwide adventure. The lecturers are well-known explorers, mountaineers, travel writers, TV and adventure sports personalities or anyone who has an epic story to tell and can entertain the audience with a good story. The talks themselves usually including slides and/or film.
The tickets for this season of Wilderness Lectures are available on the Stanfords’ website and from our Bristol store. (up to 72 hours before each event) - see the programme guide below.
Wilderness Lectures Guide Winter 2011-12
Season tickets are no longer available.
5 October 2011 - 7:30pm - Ed Stafford - Walking the Amazon
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
Ed Stafford has experience of surviving adversity in some of the world's most remote locations. In August 2010 he completed one of the most audacious expeditions ever undertaken – to walk the entire length of the Amazon River. This will be the story, mistakes and all, about the planning and the reality, how things changed and what happened along the way such as passing through the drugs trafficking heart of Peru, being accused of murder, and being held up at arrow point by Amerindians.
19 October 2011 - 7:30pm - Will Millard - In search of Papua's Great Road
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
In 2009 young British adventurer Will Millard set out to uncover the Jalan Raya, the ‘Great Road', an ancient, forgotten pathway that linked every major tribe of the highlands in a chain of trade stretching the length of Papua. This entertaining and inspiring talk will take the audience through Will's extraordinary story – chance meetings with indigenous rebel armies, forest abandonments, runaway pigs, wildlife encounters, and his team's eventual rediscovery of the Great Road.
2 November 2011 - 7:30pm - Col. John Blashford-Snell OBE - Conquest of the Blue Nile
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
At the request of Emperor Haile Selassie, John Blashford-Snell, then a Royal Engineer Captain, led a team of sixty servicemen and scientists to navigate, map and explore the river, using unique inflatable craft and modified assault boats. In two months they fought rapids and bandits and pioneered white water rafting.
16 November 2011 - 7:30pm - Martin Strel - Swimming the World's Greatest Rivers
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
In this account of truly epic feats of endurance, Martin speaks about achieving his extreme swimming challenges on the world's greatest rivers, the Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi, Danube and Paraná. His experiences lead him eloquently to raise awareness for clean waters and a green environment. He integrates stories from his unique experiences and explains how he mentally prepares himself to swim day after day. Martin's long river journeys are mostly the journeys of his mind and only he knows what it takes to complete such breath-taking challenges.
30 November 2011 - 7:30pm - Chris Jewell - Two Weeks in a Wetsuit
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
In 2009 and again in 2010 a team of UK cave divers travelled to the Picos de Europa mountain range in Northern Spain. The objective was to explore the resurgence cave Culiembro and look for a connection to one of the potholes on the plateau above. Finding a connection would be realizing a dream after many years of exploration in these mountains but cave exploration is never easy and cave diving adds a whole new dimension to the difficulty. The UK divers swapped the small cold muddy passages they were used to exploring for the large cold crystal clear water of a Spanish mountain cave and spectacular underground scenery. Using modified equipment and specialist techniques the divers explored places never seen before and pushed further into the mountain in search of the missing link. This is a story of ingenuity and perseverance with the historical context of 30 years of cave exploration in the Picos.
14 December 2011 - 7:30pm - Sam Manicom - 'Into Africa' Combine a motorcycle and no time limit, and a tale of the unexpected begins.
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
This is the story of an enlightening, yet daunting and sometimes downright harrowing, journey across 14 African countries by motorcycle. Sam, a novice biker, decides that an opportunity to do something completely different is just too good to be missed. So he sets off to ride from Cairo to Cape Town. The adventure begins...
11 January 2012 - 7:30pm - Matt Hughes - A Year at Sea, Sailing Solo Around the North Atlantic. THE GINETTE HARRISON MEMORIAL LECTURE
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
This is an account of a relatively recent dream, to sail a North Atlantic circuit. After years of reading Robin Knox Johnston, Ellen McArthur, Pete Goss, Lisa Clayton, Dee Caffari and others, sailing around the world appeared too large a project in time and money. A chance encounter in the wrong section of a second-hand bookshop with an account of a failed circumnavigation turned out to be the inspiration for this trip. In the next eight months Matt bought and prepared a yacht and then took a year off work...
18 January 2012 - 7:30pm -Reel Rock Tour- Reel Rock
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
The sixth annual REEL ROCK Film Tour brings you a mind-blowing, palm-sweating pump-fest of new releases from Big UP Productions, Sender Films, and more. Featuring the race for the Nose speed record, a nine year old bouldering prodigy, Tommy Caldwell's epic mission to free the Dawn Wall, Andy Lewis' crazed slacklining and BASE jumping antics, the wildest ice climbing ever done, and a near-disastrous winter ascent of an 8,000 meter peak. Crack Corn by Ki Theory and Huffy Ten Speed by Body Language.
25 January 2012 - 7:30pm -Beverley Ashton- 52 days at sea in a 24ft rowing boat
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
In 2010 Beverley was a crew member of a 52 day unsupported non-stop circumnavigation of Britain in a 24ft rowing boat. The crew of four women (Seagals) survived extreme sleep deprivation, gale force storms and narrowly avoided being run over by cruise liners and supertankers to gain a Guinness World Record as the First Women To Row Around Britain. They also experienced a unique view of Britain 'from the outside, looking in', encountering some of the best of Britain's scenery and wildlife.
In this illustrated talk Beverley explains the life-affirming highs and depressing lows that such a challenge demands. She insists that this was not a crew of 'superhumans', 'maniacs' or 'heroes' just ordinary people driven to achieve something extraordinary and hopefully to encourage others to take up their own challenge...
8 February 2012 - 7:30pm - David Lewis and Anthon Jackson - Among the Afar
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
After graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1933 Sir Wilfred Thesiger set out to trace the course of the Awash River to its terminus. He overcame many difficulties and risked much, becoming the first European to return alive from the treacherous lands of the Danakil people. The material achievement of reaching Lake Abbe in 1934, into which the River Awash drains, was somewhat marginal. Instead, Thesiger sought 'colour and savagery, hardship and adventure' among crocodiles, hippos and, most importantly, the hostility of the Danakil – a tribe upholding the credo 'It's better to die than live without killing' – in the hottest place in the world.
22 February 2012 - 7:30pm - Ron Fawcett - Rock Athlete
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
Ron's talk tells an extraordinary story of how his love of nature and the outdoors developed into a passion for climbing that took him to the top – and almost consumed him. Starting from an early humble family life in the Yorkshire Dales, Ron eventually emerged to make a pioneering visit to Yosemite in America. This was a time when most British climbers had never heard of Yosemite. The lecture moves through Ron's travels, adventures and relates anecdotes and experiences from the life as one of the world's best ever climbers.
7 March 2012 - 7:30pm - Matt Dickinson - Summits, Saints and Sinners
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
During a twenty year career filming for National Geographic, the BBC and Discovery Channel Matt Dickinson has joined some of the world's most notable adventurers on their often perilous journeys: to the summit of Everest with Al Hinkes; to Antarctica with controversial French climber Chantal Mauduit; shooting Judy Leden's world record hang gliding exploits from Cotopaxi and in the Middle East, to name but a few.
21 March 2012 - 7:30pm - Holly Budge - Holly Budge, the first woman to skydive Everest
Tickets are now only available from our Bristol store up to 48 hours before the lecture or on the door.
On October 5 2008, Holly became the first woman to freefall in front of Mount Everest. She exited the Pilatus Porter at 29,500ft, falling at 140mph, in -40C wind chill conditions, getting a bird's eye view of some of the world's most breath-taking mountain scenery before landing on the world's highest dropzone at 12,350ft. Holly's parachute was much larger than normal to account for the faster speeds of descent in the thinner air. She also used a skydiving oxygen system and purpose-made thermal jumpsuit and headgear to ensure none of her body was exposed to the biting cold. Holly first completed a six-day acclimatization trek through the Himalaya, joined by her 58-year-old mum, Linda, a huge fan of her daughter's adrenaline-fuelled adventures.
All lectures are held at the Chemistry Theatre, University of Bristol, Bristol.
For more information on Wilderness Lectures, go to www.wildernesslectures.com.