Leveret Publishing imprint: 18 books

Ilu Tepuy is the most northerly tepuy or sandstone spire in the Roraima chain of mountains in South-East venezuela close to the Brazilian and Guyana Borders. This is an account of the first ascent in October 1981.

"Terra Firma - very large, about which nothing is known", was how Columbus described the mainland of South America. David finds himself on anything but firm ground when he arrives in Venezuela to work for Jordi's uncle Manuel, the Minister of Planning. Jordi's exotic family befriend him...

Because of its remoteness, New Zealand was one of the last places to be settled by humans who arrived only 7-800 years ago from Polynesia and founded what today is a strong and highly influential Maori culture. We went to study recovery after the 2012 earthquake and stayed with Scharlie’s cousin...

The GR20 is one of the great walks of Europe, comparable in length to the Tour of Mont Blanc and similar in quality to the Cuillen Ridge on Skye. It runs across Corsica northwest to southeast. It crosses jagged peaks, that are snow covered for much of the year. It is over a hundred and thirty miles...

We went to Guatemala to visit David, a friend I hadn’t seen for more than twenty-five years since I lived in Venezuela. We stay with his delightful family, a house full of delightful women. We go to Chichicastenango on market day and witness the strangely pagan firework procession from the church;...

Aconcagua at nearly 7,000 metres is the highest mountain outside Asia From the south it is a hard, dangerous climb. From the north, given good weather, it is relatively easy. In my twenties I read a book about three Polish climbers who in 1934 made their own equipment and climbed it by a new elegant...

The city of Van on the Silk Road in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It was hit by an earthquake on Sunday 23 October 2011. People were killed and many more made homeless. I went there a year later to see how well the city is recovering. Scharlie, my wife, came for the first week in Izmir where we stayed...

We went trekking with a group of friends in the Garhwal Himalaya. Michael was able to get permission for us to go both to the legendary Valley of Flowers and the Bioshere Resereve and the Inner Sanctuary of Nanda Devi. We describe the overwhelming impact of the colours, sounds and smells of Delhi...

In the summer of 2004 we went climbing with Dimitri in the Valle Garrafano in the Apuane Alps, a limestone area famous for its Carrara marble. Dimitri had been a tenant of ours in Cambridge when he had a sabbatical working in the University Library. We returned the following summer and were whisked...

In 2006, with Emily So, I went to the areas affected by the Pakistan earthquake of 8 October 2005. It changed my life. The aim of for Emily was to ask survivors of the earthquake about their injuries as part of her PhD. My job was to help her design a the survey. We interviewed people in Islamabad...

We went to Ecuador to visit my daughter Frances. In Quito we stayed with Ecuadorian friends who introduced us to culinary delights such as calf’s foot soup (good for hangovers), cow’s udder (like eating Pirelli tyre rubber) and guinea pig (like roast chicken on a spit). We planned to climb volcanos,...

We went to St Petersburg in 2009 for a an EU project about heritage tourism. The May weather was marvellous and we stayed in a nice hotel next to the Fontanka River in walking distance of Nevsky Prospect. The high spot of our trip was a private tour of the Impressionist paintings in the Hermitage...

A trip to Thailand to test using satellite imagery to monitor long-term disaster recovery. We had two or three days in the hot and steamy concrete jungle of Bangkok and then spent a week in Ban Nam Khem, a fishing village on the west coast, that had been badly damaged by the tsunami. We had a day...

In 2003 we went climbing with Muni and Rose to Varasova, a limestone cliff in Greece east of Missolonghi. This 900m high promontory that drops into the Ionian Sea is the home of Greek climbing. There are over 200 routes, some sports routes of 3-4 pitches on the south face near the sea and some much...