This interview first appeared in the March 2015 issue of Wanderlust – along with lots of other travel articles, including Ireland's Atlantic coast, South America's 12 best walking routes, Tirol's Alps (Austria), Kenya's Rift Valley, caving in Vietnam – and more! Get your hands on a copy here
What’s the idea behind your new series Lost Worlds?
The big question for me was: can you still genuinely get off the beaten track? Does it still exist? The interesting thing for us was that we had limited time and money, so a lot of the things that we did, anyone with a backpack and a sense of adventure can do too.How did you select the places to visit?
We had to go to places that we could get to quickly but were unexplored. You’d think if you could get to it quickly, obviously it’s going to be explored. But we realised there were a number of places where ecotourism had pushed quite far in but, if you literally pushed in two or three days from there, you were suddenly hitting environments that ecotourism hadn’t penetrated. There were other places that we threw a little bit of money at. We were like, “Right, we need a helicopter to get in there”!Did anywhere prove particularly tricky?
Kamarang in Guyana in particular was a proper little cheeky one. It was hard to get to, logistically it was very demanding, and when we got there we only had a couple of days to do all the stuff we wanted to do: measure the falls and do a quick gathering of species and samples. We had a scientist in there with us – a fantastic old guy called Bruce – and he just charged around gathering stuff while Leo [Houlding] and I went off climbing and exploring. Local Amerindians have hunting trails around there, but they tend to avoid Kamarang because they think it’s a mystical place.
What's the furthest you think you got off the beaten track?
In Borneo we went to the Mulu Caves and Melinau Gorge. Ecotourism has pushed quite a long way into the Mulu Caves system and there’s actually a package you can do that’s a sort of advanced caving trip, where a guide will take you for a full day in, then you stay overnight and go back out again. We followed that route for the first day – but then we pushed on from there for another day and a half. We were with a very good caver called Andy Eavis, and his right-hand-man Moose.We went to a place called the Secret Garden and Andy said, “More people have stood on the moon than where you’re standing at the moment”. We pushed on to map a couple of new passages, new chambers, so we could almost tick the box to say we’ve been somewhere where nobody's been before. The estimate is that only 30% of the Mulu Cave system has been explored, so it's a true wilderness.
So, could Wanderlust readers do those trips themselves?
Yes! The sheer joy of it was that given a bit of determination, the right gear and obviously doing it safely with a local guide, they're accessible to just about everyone.How long did you have in each place?
We only had slightly over a week to do each expedition. We certainly touched on places that were very, very exciting indeed and are worthy of future projects and expeditions. There’s a lot of stuff still to be done in the places we found.What was your best challenge?
I’m not a climber, unlike Leo, so for me this was a very personal challenge, because I don’t like heights. Standing 1,000ft up a rockface in the Melinau Gorge [in Borneo] was hell! I’m a diver! So it was a very personal moment, and I’d rate it. I think Kamarang Falls was spectacular and special and extraordinary – really sort of mystical, Conan Doyle Lost World stuff.Did you have much opportunity to interact with the local communities?
The expeditions were so quick, but we had porters with us and local guides and we got to know them well. We had a lot of fun with them! We stayed in an extraordinary village for two or three days at the end of the Kamarang project, and it was an amazing place. It was like paradise. It was quite a religious place, with only about 150 people in the village. Once a week the whole village gets together to clean, and then they all eat together, they have a big feast. It’s just an amazing place. It was like Utopia. We played them at football and they beat us 10-0 in 27 minutes! Most of the local guides had never been to Kamarang and it was as big an adventure for them as it was for us.Leo’s a famed climber, you’re a former marine – was there a little bit of testosterone flying between you?
There was definitely a bit of ‘old bull, young bull’ going on. Often the two of us would push ahead of the rest of the group and sort of test each other out. Leo is used to leading his own expeditions and so am I, and there can be a danger that sparks fly. I think the way that was resolved was that we both had our areas of expertise: when we were climbing I completely handed over all authority and leadership to him; when we were doing the biology stuff, he totally handed it all over to me.Did you have any close shaves?
Ironically the climbing was probably the safest thing I did. The guys were keenly aware that I had very little climbing experience, so they double-roped me all the time. Leo had a couple of falls and one of them was a humdinger. He was 700ft-or-so up the Melinau Gorge; he peeled off and a little bit of protection came out as well. I think he fell about 30 or 40ft – and we caught that on camera! That was quite a moment.What do you do when you see someone fall like that?
There’s nothing you can do. If that had happened to me, I’m not quite sure I would have been able to handle it. Leo said that he’d fallen so many times, he’s so used to falling, that when he falls he just kind of goes floppy and relies on the ropes. So he just cracked on again, he just carried on climbing, which is extraordinary to observe when you see it. But I was right on the edge, all the time. It was an exercise in fear management.When you go away on an expedition, what’s the first thing in your travel bag?
My camera. I’m an amateur, but a very enthusiastic amateur. I firmly believe you either have the talent for it or you don’t… and I plainly don’t! And then, my laptop – for writing. When you’re in these environments it can be very intense, and very, very hard work, and it’s lovely to do a bit of writing and relax. Also... it’s very nice to just sit there in the evening, and watch an episode of Cheers. Just chill out and plug your headphones in, zone out for a while. Expeditions can be very intense, very immersive, so I think it’s quite nice to zone out every now and then.
You’ve done a few Lost World things – what’s the attraction for you?
I think the attraction that I have, and probably every reader of Wanderlust has as well, is the chance to be the first person to experience an environment. Last year, I did a project I’d always wanted to do on the UK coastline. We’ve got around 7,000 miles of coastline, so I’m thinking: there must be places that no-one has dived before, surely. So we set out last year to try and find them all and I did it with five separate little expeditions with volunteer divers. It made precisely sod-all money, which I think epitomises a good expedition. You should never come back with any money!Do you think of yourself as an explorer?
I did a series a couple of year ago called Dive Mysteries: we were trying to find the great dive mysteries around the world. I was about to dive the Blue Hole and I had all my fantastic high-tech equipment on and communication systems and safety guidance, and I glanced across at a tourist who was just about to step into the water to snorkel for the first time. He was entering this underwater world for the first time, a totally alien environment, and I remember thinking: who’s the biggest explorer here today? It’s not me; it’s definitely him.Where is the last great frontier?
We’ve explored 5% of the deep sea. The problem is that the average depth of the ocean around the world is two-and-a-half miles. To get kit down there is a massive logistical exercise which costs millions. There’s an awful lot of stuff down there that we know nothing about. In terms of the really deep stuff using ROVs, submersibles and all that, it’s just not an area I remotely have enough access, money, time or expertise to pursue. It’s like a whole new career, basically. I would love to do it, and I think most other people would too.Where’s the next big travel experience for you?
I was talking to my little daughter this morning and she said, as I was making her breakfast, “Will you take me to Africa?” It’s from watching the Lion King, probably! And I said “Yeah, definitely!” That’s the next thing, travelling with the family. Last year, the best trip I did was going down to Cornwall with Isla, Molly, and Tam my girlfriend. And yeah, we just had a nice time down in Cornwall, down at Watergate Bay and taking Isla swimming and all that little stuff.What is at the top of your bucket list?
I don’t want to get all cheesy and all that, but I got asked this at a conference I did recently: What would be on your headstone? Will it be explorer, diver, filmmaker, or any of these things? But I just want to be a great dad. That’s the bucket list at the moment.Lost Worlds starts on 13 February 2015, 9pm (Discovery Channel)
