Water-jousting in Languedoc, France

At some point in the distant past, the French decided that you don’t need a horse to be a knight in shining armour, and the truly bizarre sport of water jousting was born.
Practiced increasingly across France, it involves two groups of eight rowers powering their champion down the river.
Perched on a heightened platform, the two jousters are armed with a lance and a shield and expected to prod, swing and defend until one of them is knocked off, preferably into the river.
For some reason, the boats also contain a drummer and someone playing a modified oboe, but given that the rest of it makes little sense, who cares? Oh yes, and they’re all singing too.
Languedoc is regarded as the home of water jousting, and while it also happens elsewhere, this is often with ultra-safe lances, and a lot of the pageantry taken out.
The most prestigious tournament is held in Sète on August 25th every year, but events can be stumbled across throughout the summer.

More information: Rules and dates can be found at the Fédération Française de Joutes et Sauvetage Nautique’s website.

Great Gorilla Run in London, England

There’s nothing better to send traffic veering into bollards than the sight of a thousand gorillas rampaging through the streets of London, brandishing bananas as weapons.
Ostensibly run to raise funding for the protection of gorillas in Africa, most of the Great Gorilla Run’s participants are clearly there for the chance to get dressed up in a ridiculous costume and monkey about for the cameras.
The costumes don’t stop at the gorilla outfit either – most taking on the 7km run adapt their outfit to add an extra dimension; hence the gladiator gorillas, Baywatch gorillas and ballet dancing gorillas pouring over Tower Bridge. The Great Gorilla Run takes place in September each year.
Check the official site for more information.

Getting there to the Great Gorilla Run in London, England

Nearest international airport: The event takes place in the City of London, so London Heathrow and London City are nearest airports, although London Luton, London Gatwick and London Stansted aren’t far away.

Using public transport: The event takes place in the City of London, so London Heathrow and London City are nearest airports, although London Luton, London Gatwick and London Stansted aren’t far away.

More details: Great Gorilla Run Official Site

Play or watch Pétanque in France

For a stereotypical image of France, aside from a man in a stripy shirt with onions round his neck underneath the Eiffel tower, you cannot beat a game of boules.
Ah... old men - preferably wearing berets and smoking pipes - leisurely lobbing metal balls into a sandpit in the afternoon sunshine.
The idea is fairly simple, and is closely related to the British version of bowling. The closer you get to the small jack, the better.
Pétanque is the more simplified version of boules, and originated in the south of the country, where it is more prevalent. Ostensibly, it is played for fun, although it doesn’t take much watching to realise that this isn’t the case. At even the lowest level, it is regarded as a game of precision and technique, and this has a tendency to fuel male pride.
It’s important to bear this in mind if you fancy a game. A complete stranger is unlikely to offer you the chance to play, while if you buy your own set of boules, consider the serious looks on the faces around you before treating it as a raucous lark in the local Boulodrome.
Should you wish to watch, then Grenoble is something of a hotspot. The city at the foot of the Alps has held three of the last five World Championships in the sport, hosting competitors from 52 nations.
However, for a dip into history, try the small village of La Ciotat. Just outside Marseille, this is where the game originated.

Anglesea Golf Club in Anglesea, Victoria, Australia: Golf with kangaroos

There is an exceptionally good reason why no mega-money golf tournament will ever be played at Anglesea Golf Club at the start of Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
The course, about 115km south west of Melbourne, is absolutely teeming with kangaroos. They are as much a hazard of playing there as sand traps, water hazards and sadistically placed pins.
In the early morning and late afternoon in particular, there can be up to 100 of them on the course, hopping across fairways and stopping for a chat on the greens. To the members and locals, they’re an accepted extra dimension to the game.
Many have been hit on the head after not paying attention to the cry of “fore”, and club legend has it that a drive once landed in a pouch, with the lucky recipient nonchalantly bouncing away. Whether it was decided that this warranted a penalty shot is not quite clear.
Green fees at the club are quite cheap, so visitors wanting to try and dodge Skippy are welcome to have a go.

Getting to Anglesea Golf Club, Australia

Nearest international airport: Melbourne International Airport at Tullamarine, Melbourne, Victoria. That said, Avalon Airport near Geelong is closer for domestic flights within Australia.
Using public transport: Get the train (or bus) from Melbourne to Geelong, and then the V-Line train to Anglesea.

More details: Anglesea Golf Club Website

The Plymouth- Banjul Challenge – from England to the Gambia

Not got the money for the Paris to Dakar Rally? Well why not try the low budget alternative race between Plymouth in England and Banjul in the Gambia?

An alternative to the Paris to Dakar Rally
A novel take on the more established (and infinitely better-funded) Paris to Dakar Rally, the Plymouth - Banjul is about willpower overcoming rusty engineering. And the fact that it doesn’t even go to Dakar is irrelevant, despite also calling itself the Plymouth to Dakar rally in order to get attention.

Banger run through the Sahara Desert
The idea is that the route has to be covered, completely unsupported by back-up crews and the like, in a vehicle that costs under £100. Essentially is a great banger run over two continents, risking all manner of trauma in the harsh, isolated conditions of the Sahara Desert.
Just to make things a little more interesting, the organisers have no specialised arrangements with the governments of the countries that are raced through (unlike the Paris – Dakar).

Travelling as a tourist, not a sportsman
Everyone travels as a tourist, having to detail with little problems like Senegal not letting in cars older than five years old (unless customs officers escort them all the way to the Gambian border) and a Gambian ban on right-hand drive vehicles.
The challenge is almost as much about keeping sane with bribe-hungry officials as keeping sand out of the engine.

More details: Plymouth to Banjul Rally

Walk around the Monaco Grand Prix Circuit

In the tiny principality of Monaco, it is possible to emulate the likes of Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Lewis Hamilton by walking around the famous Formula One Grand Prix circuit.

Tricky navigation is something of enduring theme in Monaco, as can be seen from a stroll round the famous Grand Prix circuit.
When the Formula One circus isn’t in town, the racetrack reverts back to being ordinary streets. Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet once compared the Monaco GP to “riding a bicycle around your living room,” and it’s easy to see his point.
The streets used have helpful red and white markings on the kerbs, so it’s easy to plot your own course around, making screechy engine noises in your head. Dear lord, there’s little room for error on foot, let alone screaming round at full pelt in a Ferrari.
And as for the poor bus driver trying to get round the hairpin by the Fairmont Hotel... his nerves must as frayed as the crotch on a pair of fifteen year old jeans.

World's oldest golf course – Musselburgh Links near Edinburgh, Scotland.

It may not be the most challenging of adversaries, but golfers have been fluffing their putts on the Musselburgh Links in Scotland for longer than anywhere else in the world.
It’s only nine holes long, and par 34, but the club has documentary evidence showing that people have been spoiling good walks here since 1672.
Hoary old legends suggest that Mary Queen of Scots turned up on the course for a quick round on the world's oldest golf course in 1567, but this may well be wishful thinking.
Being a short course, and not that prestigious, green fees are very reasonable, should you wish to swing your way through history.
Musselburgh is in East Lothian, a short drive (that's as in car, not golf shot) from Edinburgh.

More information: Musselburgh Links

Boomerang-throwing in Charleville-Mézières, France

Despite being more popularly associated with Crocodile Dundee and the Australian outback, France has taken the boomerang to heart, and is at the forefront of turning into an international sport.
It all kicked off properly in Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes, where a sketchily-organised world championship was held in 2004.
From that point, the world’s boomerang-throwing federations got together in order to make the rules agreed upon internationally. It’s never going to overtake football, but the sport is growing at a phenomenal rate, and there are now 21 clubs across France who regular travel huge distances to compete against each other.
There are various events in these contests, some specialising in accuracy, some in endurance, and some in showing off with fancy catches. France currently has one world record-holder too, with Arnaud Tribillon managing to keep one of the old Aboriginal Australian hunting devices airborne for 190.2 seconds in Dijon last year.
Tournaments are held throughout the year, and given the small attendances, there’s a real feeling of discovery when you turn up to watch. Charleville-Mézières is still a major staging post, but a list of tournaments can be found at the French Boomerang Federation’s online arm.

Pelote in St Jean de la Luz, Basque France

Played primarily in the Basque regions of far south western France, the most extreme forms of pelote look like squash as played by those with a death wish.
To reduce it to the simplest level, pelote involves hurling a tightly-wound ball against the wall, hoping to do it so well that the opposition cannot return fire. Given that the ball can be travelling at speeds of up to 180mph, it’s a wonder that anyone would want to try and get it back.
That the sport has not really ventured for out of southern France and northern Spain comes as no great surprise. There are many versions of the game, played with different instruments, ranging from the bare hand to frightening basket-like Chistera, which can send the ball hurtling at very painful speeds indeed.
While the courts can be found in just about every town in the area, they are of varying size, ranging from 30m to 80m. The major hub of pelote activity is in St Jean De Luz, a fishing port south of Biarritz, and most competitive matches of a good standard are played here at International Arena Jaï Alaï during the summer months.
The truly brave/ barking mad can hire equipment to try the sport out at the town’s tourist office.

Rungnado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea

When neighbours South Korea were handed the Olympics in 1988, North Korea’s barmy dictator Kim Jong-Il decided whatever they could do, he could do better. So, he built a venue that was twice the size of Seoul’s Olympic Arena - Rungnado May Day Stadium
With a 150,000 capacity it is the biggest stadium in the world, and will probably never see a sporting spectacle worthy of that scale due to the country’s isolationist policies. Still, it’s the perfect location for all those preposterous military displays that Kim is rather fond of.
The biggest two shows to date have been somewhat strange. The latest was the Dear Leader’s 60th birthday party in 2002, which involved an astonishing 100,000 participants and was largely designed to overshadow South Korea’s World Cup opening ceremony celebrations.
The other, in 1995, was the biggest ever attendance for a wrestling event, where a scarcely believable 190,000 grappling aficionados piled through the gates to watch some obscure Japanese C-grade wrestlers in action.