A woman who set sail from Falmouth to run the length of South America with her husband will return to the town for the launch of a book based on her journey.

Katharine Lowrie will speak at the Poly on Thursday, December 7 about her new book, Running South America with my Husband and other Animals, which is based on her and her husbands’ world first expedition, carried out for wildlife and the wilderness.

Falmouth is particularly special to Katharine and her husband David, as the couple sailed to South America via Falmouth upon their 1935 wooden gaff-ketch boat in 2008, and returned to the port at the end of their voyage in August 2015, and lived in the Fal for a couple of months before returning to the River Exe.

During their travels the couple surveyed and wrote a book about the seabirds of the Eastern Caribbean, circumnavigated South America, and became the first people in the world to run the length of the continent. Katharine has also been involved in the reintroduction of the cirl bunting on the Roseland peninsular, as a conservationist for the RSPB.

The talk will carry the audience on a journey through five South American countries, spanning 15 months and 6,504 miles, including running marathons back-to-back, sleeping by the side of the road, meeting remote villagers, and travelling with a bright orange bamboo trailer.

The couple took on a continent to learn how to run again, barefoot, and push their bodies and minds to levels they had never considered possible, in a bid to give a voice to the wildlife and wildernesses they adore.

Amazing animals accompanied them: gigantic vaulting stick-insects, cackling macaws and a giant anteater whom they stalked through a snake-infested swamp, to watch him devour termites upon the end of his long sticky tongue.

Day after day, for months on end, running from freezer through desert and into the biggest rainforest on earth, they survived hurricane force winds, near 100 per cent humidity, swarms of biting insects and some of the most crime-ridden places on the planet. The expedition nearly cost them their marriage, health, sanity and lives. But somehow, they made it to the other end of the continent, 6,504 miles and fifteen months later.

The talk will begin at The Poly on December 7 at 7.30pm, and there will also be the opportunity to buy a signed copy of the book.

For information and tickets go to thepoly.org/whats-on/event/531/katharine-lowrie-running-south-america