Fancy a night of adventure? The Kendal Mountain Festival Tour combines adventure films with great speakers to inspire you to get out there – or just appreciate the comforts of home and the bravery of others.
There are two upcoming Welsh dates in their tour diary: Caernarfon, on Wednesday 4th May and Aberystwyth on Thursday 5th May:
Daring adventure filmmaker to speak in Caernarfon
Thousand-foot vertical drops? Tarantulas and snakes? Hidden crevasses? It’s all in a day’s work for Matt Pycroft, adventure filmmaker and photographer.
Pycroft, who specialises in working in remote and hostile environments, is visiting Caernarfon to talk about his exploits in some of the world’s most challenging locations. Speaking as part of the Kendal Mountain Festival UK Tour, he will share the joys and occasional moments of terror that make up an adventure cameraman’s life.
The Sheffield-based filmmaker has travelled to some of the world’s most remote and inhospitable locations to cover expeditions, often accompanying well-known climber Leo Houlding. From Mount Asgard on Baffin Island in the Arctic, to Mount Roraima in the depths of the Amazon jungle, each expedition has thrown up its own challenges not only to capture top-quality film footage, but also to stay safe and survive. “Things don’t always go according to plan”, as Pycroft wryly says.
Pycroft will be speaking at Galeri, on Wednesday 4th May. Tickets are available via the Tour website kendalmountaintour.com/tickets or by calling the Galeri box office on 01286 685 222.
Meet the intrepid woman who ran 5000 miles around the coast of Britain, with 200 strangers putting her up for the night along the way
When Elise Downing found herself hating her job, relationship, and flat share, she could only see one way out: ditching it all… Running away from your problems doesn’t solve anything – but sometimes it’s more fun than dealing with them.
Elise was spending a lot of time crying on buses. She had just graduated from university; she had a shiny new flat, her first proper job and a budding relationship – and they were all making her utterly miserable. Sitting at work one day, she hit upon the obvious solution: run 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain, carrying her kit on her back.
Six months later Elise set off, with absolutely no ultra-running experience, unable to read a map and having never pitched a tent alone before. Over the 301 days that followed she developed a debilitating fear of farmyard animals, cried on a lot of beaches and saw Britain at its most wild and wonderful.
Speaking as part of the Kendal Mountain Festival UK Tour, she will share with humour and heart the thrill taking risks and putting your trust in total strangers, and learning some home truths along the way.
Elise Downing will be speaking at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 5th May. Tickets are available here.
Theses events are part of the Kendal Mountain Festival UK Tour, which features a collection of the world’s best short adventure films for audiences to watch on the big screen. Steve Scott, director of Kendal Mountain Festival, presents the Tour events and says, “‘Kendal’ is all about adventure; stories of extreme human endurance, breathtaking environments and adrenaline-fuelled excitement. Our Tour events are mini-Festivals that distil this spirit of adventure and exploration into one unique evening.”
Can’t make these? Here’s the rest of the Tour:
- Glasgow: Thursday 12th May
- Inverness: Friday 13th May
- Banchory: Saturday 14th May
- Coventry: Friday 20th May
- Norwich: Saturday 21st May
- Whitehaven: Sunday 22nd May
- Whitley Bay: Friday 3rd June
- Nottingham: Wednesday 15th June
- Exeter: Thursday 16th June
- Llanelli: Friday 17th June
- Canterbury: Wednesday 22nd June
- Brighton: Thursday 23rd June
- Kings Lynn: 24th June
- Kendal: Wednesday 29th June
