Unusual places

The results of our competition to photograph the IoS in the weirdest locations in the world

Who Says we are a nation of wimps? A look through the entries to the "Unusual Places" competition, sponsored by ISIC, (in which readers were asked to send in photos of the Independent on Sunday taken in improbable places) has given the travel editor an insight into the lengths people are prepared to go in the name of glory.

Alex Hargreaves from Leeds, for example, was willing to read her IoS in a smoking, sulphorous volcanic crater. Lawrence Hene of Stockport lugged his copy all the way out to the Great Wall of China, and Anna Coleman of London laid hers down to be pecked at by stuffed vultures in South Africa. As for Mrs Edwards, of St Albans, she browsed through her paper while windsurfing (the photos do not show what happened in the seconds following the initial shot). Finally, Kevin Mansell sent in a picture of himself sitting on rocks in the Juan de Fuca Straits between Canada and the USA; to reach the rocks, he tells us, he first had to obtain permission from the Canadian military, then ride by sea-kayak across perilous tidal waters pursued by elephant seals.

The winner? After much deliberation we chose Niamh Delaney from the Netherlands - she is seen here quietly reading the IoS in the middle of a plateau in the Pays Dogon, in Mali, West Africa. To Niamh go a pair of return tickets to any destination in Europe or America.

We also liked the lady's bottom by Guy Moberley, of Middlesex, and the picture of a captive monkey reading the paper in Marrakesh (no jokes about the intelligence of the average IoS reader, please) by Howard Bourne from Shrewsbury. The picture from C Bielckus of Southampton of a statue holding the paper, was also arresting.

Finally, a big thanks to everyone else who sent in pictures and apologies to those whom I could not mention here.