Its been an amazing two and a half months filming from India, through New Zealand down to the Sub Antarctic Islands on its southern tip, and now I'm sat in an airport on my home to the family, cant wait, its been a long time. I just need to remember how to be a dad and husband again.
Ive filmed Macaques, Langurs, Holi festival, Albatross, Tuatara (reptile, bit like a lizard), Giant Weta, Maori Wood carving, a sheep muster on some of the steepest mountains I've seen for a while, and finally Sooty shearwaters, its been a blast. We used every mode of transport i can reasonable think of other than a train, but cars, helicopters, planes of almost every size.
Sheep Mustering as it turns out down here, happens just before winter sets in, the farm we filmed at has some of the most amazing scenery I've been in and Kate and her shepherds get dropped by helicopter to the top of one of the more impressive mountain ranges and over two days navigate their way through this landscape trying to bring down 7000 sheep from the steep summer grazing. All while wearing shorts !!!!! It was too cold for me to think about doing that.
But the final part of the shoot was spent on a small boat in a large stormy ocean, trying to find the elusive Sooty shearwater before this amazing little bird starts it migration from the sub antarctic tip of New Zealand all the way to the California coast, a journey that means it covers roughly 47,000miles a year. The chicks spend all of there time in the nesting burrow until their parents leave without them and then embark on this amazing journey. We only had a few days to film them and spent the first day clinging onto the boat in incredibly rough seas, but Ive never seen the number of Albatross we had like that before, well over a hundred, Buller Albatross, White Cap and the occasional Southern Royal and all within touching distance.