I have held healthy respects of bears along with assorted crocodiles, snakes and lots of other animals. You know, bears are dangerous, you have to be super careful.
Time and experience have taught me that fame and money very rarely go to the worthy, by the way – hence we shouldn’t ever be too impressed by either of those impostors. Value folk for who they are, how they live and what they give – that’s a much better benchmark.
The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word – extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me…
You’re not human if you don’t feel fear. But I’ve learnt to treat fear as an emotion that sharpens me. It’s there to give me that edge for what I have to do.
The hardest thing about my job isn’t the snake bites or the crocodiles, it’s being away from my children. I have a really religious satellite phone call every day back to the boys, wherever we are, whatever time zone, to say goodnight.
I’ve fallen down crevasses, been bitten by snakes, been knocked unconscious, had various limbs broken and once, a heavy camera came plunging down which very nearly decapitated me.
Textbook survival tells you to stay put. Stop. Wait for rescue. Don’t take any risks. But there’d been a whole host of survival shows like that and I didn’t really want to do that.
Well, wolves will pretty rarely hunt. You’re vulnerable if you’re on your own or injured. But for lone wolves, get up high, show them that you’re not injured, face ’em off, be authoritarian with it, and look ’em in the eye.
That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn’t about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it’s about inspiring people. That makes me really happy.
I think fire is so critical in the wild. You can cook with it, you can make tools, you can deter a predator, you can dry your clothes and you get that element of morale that matters so much when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.
