Mark Beaumont cycled 18,300 miles across four continents and 20 countries in his recent attempt to set a new world record for solo circumnavigation of the globe by manpower alone.
His former teacher, Val Vannet, followed his progress faithfully, reporting nightly in her blog www.geobloggingwithmark.blogspot.com on the fascinating geography of the latest region Mark had travelled through.
Now, over 190 days later, Mark has completed his journey and Mrs Vannet, head of geography at the High School of Dundee, has written more than 600 pages in her blog, highlighting the environmental diversity which exists in 360 degrees of longitude. The blog covers everything from the floating hives on the river Apalachicola in Florida, where Tupelo honey is produced, to the extinct volcano, Mount Ararat, in Turkey, which is four times the height of Ben Nevis.
Over the coming weeks, Mrs Vannet plans to go through her postings, tagging features such as ox-bow lakes, so that geographical content is more accessible to teachers. “Geo-blogging with Mark has been a learning journey for me and if I have managed to share some of my enthusiasm for the subject I love with a wider audience, it will have been a very worthwhile project,” she said.
