Rebecca Newman

Did you know that marine iguanas have two penises? That the temperature at which their eggs incubate determines the gender of a giant tortoise? That a female parrotfish can change into a male? Two weeks in the Galapagos and I’ve climbed volcanoes, swum with penguins, and worn out my shutter-finger photographing sea lion pups. I’ve also become a mound of wildlife trivia. It’s Darwin’s fault, of course. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, I took a berth on a latterday version of The Beagle to retrace the great man’s steps. Crippled by seasickness for most of his voyage, Darwin wrote: ‘I loathe, abhor the sea and all ships which sail on it.’ But then his Beagle was a cramped ‘coffin’ brig with limited rations.

Rebecca Newman gives a rundown of her week Rarely in my life have I enjoyed running. A tubby child and then a sickly teen, I spent games lessons hiding behind a piano with a book. Odd then, that this week I completed (half of) one of the toughest marathons in the world. Stranger still, I enjoyed it. The Lewa Marathon is a unique event, a challenge I was romantic and bloody-minded enough not to turn down. It snakes through the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in north-east Kenya, presenting a testing combination of dry heat, steep inclines and shingle descents. To top it off, Lewa is at 6,000 ft above sea level. But I couldn’t resist the idea of running through the African savannah, with spotter planes circling to keep rhino and cheetah at bay.