MAN: I'm Bear Grylls.
Whoo!
I've travelled to the ends of the earth
in search of the most extreme challenges
in the most dangerous locations
to show you the skills you need to survive
in the world's toughest environments.
I've been to the four corners of the planet - sea...
Let's just move. Come on.
..mountains...
The whole slab just dropped. Let's keep moving.
..ice...
Oh. I got to get out of here.
..and desert.
(PANTS) Very, very hot.
With me through every challenge is a
small team of dedicated professionals
committed to capturing every step that I take.
In this special episode I'm going to take you behind the scenes,
introduce you to the crew,
and show you how we make this program
and get out of it in one piece,
most of the time.
Every show is an adventure and it's a great privilege to do this job.
People watch this show and often think,
"Maybe it's a little bit crazy."
You know what, the wild can be crazy,
and these places are often full-on, sometimes a little bit scary too.
Most of the time it's amazing, but it can be frustrating...
This isn't working.
..frightening, exhausting...
Take two steps forward.
Ooh.
..and dangerous...
(BEAR YELLS) Sit down, buddy.
..and often it doesn't go your way.
This plan has not gone TO plan...
(PANTS AND SPLUTTERS)
With me are Simon and Dan, who run the cameras.
SIMON: You've got to just concentrate on what you do.
You know, once you can do that, it makes the scary scenarios
a lot more comfortable.
DAN: Bear is the one making his way
through all of these different
wildernesses that we get to
and keeping up with him is a real challenge.
Dave's the one who keeps the crew safe.
DAVE: And it's my job, really,
to make sure that they're looked after
so they can do their job to the best of their ability.
There. Now you can see.
And Danny and Duncan, they're the grown-ups on the shoot.
They tell us to stop if we're pushing things too far.
You got to really make sure you don't get bit here.
It's three and a half hours to get you to the hospital.
Whatever the environment,
more than often the trickiest and most dangerous part
is getting the team on to the ground....
..and there's never a straightforward way to do that.
The insertions at the beginning of the show are brilliant fun.
MAN: He's by the skid. Steady there. Hover. He's nearly at the bottom.
We do dream up really wonderful ways to get Bear into the environment
and that ranges from jumping from seaplanes...
..numerous helicopters...
Skydiving freefall...
..aircraft...
..sometimes by boat...
The more weird and wonderful they get, the harder they get to plan.
Let's go!
It's difficult and something could go wrong very quickly.
They are very intense and you've got to get it right.
You've only got one chance.
This is one jump I cannot afford to go wrong.
In one of the show's most audacious insertions
we were trying to get deep into the Caucasus Mountains.
We adapted an old Russian helicopter
so that I could drive a snowmobile out of the back
while it hovered above the snow.
Ride skidoos out of the back of helicopters.
Hey, it's all in another day's work for Man vs Wild.
It picks the crew up, we love this part of it.
Dave and Nick need to be on the same radio communications.
Dave Pearce will oversee the safety of the crew
and be an extra pair of eyes for me.
Attempting something as dangerous as this, there's no room for error.
The engineers have taken the doors off,
and we're going to do some rigging
to get Bear on the edge here
as the helicopter's flying through these...through the mountains
and the valleys of the Caucasus,
and then we're going to get a skidoo in the back here.
DAVE: Fingers!
MAN: OK, fingers.
DAVE: We were gonna try and land,
but the helicopter can't land and shut down
because if it does it could sink or tilt.
So the pilot has to skilfully tickle the belly of the snow
with the helicopter.
When I think it's all safe and we're ready to go and the pilot's happy,
then I'll give Bear the thumbs up
and he'll rev that skidoo out and fly out the back,
making sure he goes that way and not that way.
Otherwise he'll get a very swift haircut on the tail rotor,
which will be going at a ridiculous speed.
That whole insertion was high-octane, high-octane,
lots of little components going on there,
which could have made the thing disastrous.
Looking good.
We're just above the snow. Go.
Let's go.
Bear slams on the accelerator, dives out of this thing...
We're gonna get into the mountains now
and all the clouds are finally coming in.
The helicopter disappears off the Caucasus Mountains,
Bear starts tunnelling uphill and then...
It comes to a grinding halt.
(ENGINE REVS)
(GRUNTS) I think it's all the snow.
At the moment, it's just like porridge.
It's on the foot from here. OK.
Like all these environments,
you don't know which time it is going to come round
and give you a little nip in the backside.
The Caucasus Mountains were isolated
but nowhere feels as remote as Australia's Northern Territory.
It's one of the harshest environments on the planet
and populated with deadly animals.
Lack of roads made access impossible.
Our best option was a 70-year-old plane.
OK. It's dawn, early morning, Northern Territory, Australia.
The crew's just prepping kit.
I'm about to jump into one of the most croc-infested places on earth,
and I have actually been really nervous coming down for this shoot.
The good thing is we're jumping in
from the coolest plane you'll ever see.
Check out this old World War II Dakota.
SIMON: This thing, when we first saw it, was a beautiful machine.
It was all polished silver
and it looked amazing from a distance,
and as you got closer you could see it had had a hell of a life.
DANIEL: Where the engines were I could see rivets half hanging out,
you know, and it did look as though it should be sitting in a museum
rather than up in the air.
It goes through your mind... It certainly went through my mind.
I'm thinking, "How air-worthy is this thing?"
And they started this thing up.
It looked like it should not leave the tarmac.
It looked like it should just stay there and rest.
(PILOT SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
But once we started and got into this thing and got up to height,
it was absolutely amazing.
It was beautiful.
It was smoother, really, than a lot of the commercial jets
that you fly nowadays.
It was absolutely amazing.
Once we were flying in this DC-3
we're getting to the area where we were jumping from,
and Dave is at this...the rear door, standing there.
He's on the phone to the pilot, he's communicating with the pilot,
to get him to the right place and the right drop zone.
Nerves do run quite high.
Bear and I literally wait for Dave's word to go, "Right, let's go."
Dave says, "Power off 'cause we're coming to the drop zone point,"
and they back off on the speed
so they're exiting and we're not going too fast when they exit.
I'm crouched in the door, right in the prop draft,
and also where the blast from the wind's coming straight through.
I'm sitting there trying to sort of sit there.
I mean, my face is just being contorted
by the fact that the wind is blasting through.
Final checks are made.
Yep.
Here we go.
At the right time, Bear leaps out.
Yeah!
It's really exciting, an exciting sequence.
But he's got to get his drop zone right
because all sorts of things want to eat you out there.
There's all the crocodiles...
There's plenty of animals that you don't really want to encounter
when you're heading in with a parachute on your back.
Northern Territory, here we come.
As much as possible we can dictate where we land,
but one thing we can't control is the weather and the environment
and often that's the hardest part.
Making this show we've travelled to the toughest places on the planet
to show you how to survive.
We do operate in extreme environments.
It's either hot, sweaty, cold, freezing,
or dry as you like in the arid sands of the Sahara.
When you're at the mercy of the elements
you have to be prepared for anything.
(GROANS) (SNAPPING)
This turned into a bit of an epic.
On the Baltic coast, my mission was to show the survival skills you need
in an abandoned urban environment.
Here jungles and rivers have been replaced by derelict buildings.
Once we're on this building we have to get into the building,
and to cut a way into a building
is through the air conditioning ventilation shafts.
Bear smashes his way through and we drop in.
Bit of a squeeze getting into this one.
You don't want to have had too much lunch.
I've never been in one of these things,
but to be honest, ever since 'Die Hard' came out I have wanted to.
But there's nothing Hollywood about these ventilation shafts.
As it got to the really, really narrow point
absolutely what was going through my mind is,
"Does this get even narrower down here?" and it did.
Go on all fours if you need to. Spread your weight.
That's thin here.
If you're thrown in a tight area that's getting tighter, you think,
"What if we can't get out this way? Can I actually get back?"
As the space got smaller, Bear says,
"The thing...the trick is here now not to panic."
See, if you panic your chest cavity expands
and a tight place becomes even tighter.
As soon that's flagged to you and he said that to me,
I was thinking, "Thanks. I hadn't even thought about that."
Suddenly now it's in your mind.
That's all you can think about is expanding your chest cavity,
like telling someone not to look at the light.
First thing they do - look at the light.
But thankfully there was light at the end of this tunnel.
Soon we were out of the ventilation shafts and into the building.
Here. Give it here. I got it. I got it.
Man, it's nice to be out of that place.
I did feel relieved once we got out of that.
It was an absolute dream, you know.
Brilliant. What a great day that was.
A key ingredient to survival is trying to use nature to help you.
Fir trees are meant to be friendly.
But sometimes even the most useful resource can test your patience.
(GROANS WITH FRUSTRATION) Bamboo!
DANIEL: Really, really strong material,
but, being really strong, a nightmare to get through.
With extreme environments come frustrations
because it's so unpredictable.
Oh, God.
Bloody, bloody, bloody cacti.
He lets you know that he's frustrated,
but he just cracks on, you know?
He's got that kind of never-say-die attitude about him.
Sometimes the environment and its
inhabitants are just plain dangerous.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
Straight under that rock there.
(OMINOUS RATTLING)
If he gets those fangs into you
and injects you with his haemotoxic venom,
you end up just vomiting and pooing blood.
That's the nastiest sort of death you can imagine.
(HISSES VIOLENTLY)
Why is it that everything around here
is either spiky, sharp or out to kill you?
And after an exhausting day,
even getting into bed can have its ups and downs.
Whoa. More string?
The desert is one of the most unforgiving environments.
Bottom line is it doesn't matter how good or smart or clever you are,
without water you're dead.
In North Africa, as temperatures soared,
I had to find a way to cool myself down.
He's a real opportunist as far as kind of what's available to him
and his surroundings and that stretches to his own pee.
Take your T-shirt and then just pee on it.
Try and capture as much of that fluid as you can.
And even just, you know, a little bit of pee into the mouth
is just going to help moisten it, take the edge off the thirst.
Something I've never got used to.
When he drinks his urine, it looks like he's loving it as well.
It's not something, I think, that, you know, most people would be doing
on a Friday night if they were going down the pub or anything like that.
And that's even just... wiping on my face,
it's cooling my face down.
We had a thermal imaging camera with us
and we could actually see whether or not his own pee
changed the temperature of his body heat and it did.
If we're putting that on,
you can see what the difference the fluids on the face make.
It worked as a coolant, effectively.
You see the darker bit is where is all much cooler than all of this.
It's gonna be bright and hot.
So if I then put this T-shirt on,
that's gonna keep me even cooler.
When you haven't got that much water around you, it has to be done.
But, uh, not my favourite.
Cooler. Smellier. But better off for it.
In an Alabama swamp heat wasn't the problem.
It was what lurked beneath.
I remember we were up to our knees in this swampy kind of mud.
See that?
Bear just picked up this snapper turtle.
Oh, look.
They can give you a vicious bite.
Snap down on that,
and that would tear your finger just clean off.
These things have got serious, serious jaws on them.
I mean, the crushing power is phenomenal.
It's actually got pound-for-pound
as much strength in those jaws, if not more, than an alligator.
Then he dropped the bloody thing.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on.
You just told us how delicate this thing
is and he dropped it right next to us.
And then he can't find it again.
Where is he? And there he is trying to grab it.
I think I said to him,
"Let's just leave this one alone, shall we, and crack on?"
Better not mess around with it too much. Just leave him.
Thanks, Bear. Nice one. Next time hold on to it, please.
Where is he?
But as I was about to find out in Canada,
sometimes it's not the environment or the wild animals
that pose the biggest threat.
Argh!
Just lie down, buddy.
What have I done? What have I done? I've hit him. Where have I hit him?
You know, if I've hit him in the head,
that's...that's, you know, potentially he's dead.
BEAR GRYLLS: Surviving in the wilderness is one thing,
but having to film what I do to survive is another thing altogether.
It takes a dedicated team and complete trust in each other.
Never take anything for granted,
and never think, "Yeah, this will be easy,"
because when you say that
then it's probably time to pack up and go home.
In an episode filmed in Canada,
I wanted to show what happens to the body
when fully immersed in freezing water.
Bolted on to jumping into cold water and swimming in the ice
are inherent risks.
Holes were cut through a frozen lake and my heart was monitored.
What I was trying to do was dangerous
and this wasn't the place for things to go wrong.
Let's get ready for this.
For Bear, clearly it's quite a nerve-racking thing.
It gets pretty scary.
Do you know, this is much harder than normal.
OK. Here we go.
Once he hits that water...
It's a massive, massive shock to your body
once you hit that kind of temperature.
Everything seizes up. You're trying to breathe. You hyperventilate.
(SPLUTTERS)
It becomes a very dangerous game.
I can feel my extremities are just beginning to slow up here.
If I start heading off line, you've got to keep eyes on me, OK?
We got no extension line here. You get it straight.
For me, probably one of the most concerning things
was whether he would stay on line swimming under the ice.
If you're under water and you're trying to follow a line forward...
You don't know where 'forward' is. It could be there. Could be there.
A few degrees out means you're going to come up and hit ice,
and then you're gonna panic.
His body has gone through a hell of a lot
in a very, very short space of time,
and so once he goes under that ice bridge
the potential for disorientation is really, really high.
You never quite knew 100% if everything was 100% safe.
(GASPS AND SPLUTTERS)
Alright. I got to get out of here.
You could see he was absolutely physically exhausted,
and you can see the heat energy coming off him
on the thermal imaging camera,
and my hat goes off to him in those environments
because you just think,
"That's a hell of a thing to do, a hell of a thing to do."
Wherever possible we minimise the risk in making this program.
But sometimes I need to leave the camera crew behind.
In those cases a camera, affectionately known as Bear cam,
is strapped to my wrist while the crew remain at a safe distance.
Descending a swollen river in Vietnam was one of those times.
It was a very, very tricky,
precarious location to be working in for anybody.
The river swelled probably about 10 to 15 foot.
It was deep.
It was very important for the crew to be harnessed up
and to be anchored off to trees and to rocks.
He wasn't taking the crew down there. It was far too dangerous.
So he fitted a wrist cam.
OK, that seems about right.
Every time I see Bear put the Bear cam on,
I think, "Thank God it's him and not me."
You've got hundreds of tons of water.
He worked his way down to the rock at the base and off he went.
It's not for the faint-hearted, that one, I can assure you.
Whether it's Bear cam or the crew
we always get the cameras as close as we can to the action.
But while glissading down a mountain in Canada,
the camera got just too close.
(BEAR YELLS)
(MAN OVER RADIO) Is he OK? Is he OK?
In Canada we did a glissade scene,
and a glissade is effectively sliding down a slope.
We were gonna demonstrate the arresting techniques
as you go down this thing.
You can't underestimate just how fast you pick up speed
on these sort of slopes.
Unless you know what you're doing you're not going to beat gravity.
All relatively straightforward.
I was gonna slide down behind Bear and I had my camera.
I was on a little sledge and I was gonna slide down, camera in front.
We did tests on it.
37 miles an hour.
You'd get a ticket in an urban place in the UK with that speed.
We're thinking, "Yep, this is comfortable."
"This is fine. This is going to work.
"This is gonna show the viewer what you need to do."
OK, here we go.
But as I was about to find out,
no matter how much you plan things can always go wrong.
Bear got further away from me at the start,
and once he hit the ice with the ice axe it threw up a cloud of snow.
All I could see was a big cloud of snow and ice...
..and I just remember thinking, "Where is he?"
What was going through my mind was, "Please don't hit him.
"Please don't hit him. Please don't hit him,"
and as soon as that thought was in my head...
I mean, all this is happening in, you know, microseconds.
Bang. I hit him.
(BEAR YELLS) (MAN OVER RADIO) Is he OK? Is he OK?
It felt like a colossal impact. It felt like hitting a wall.
And I just thought...
I just felt so terrible and just thought, "Oh my, God," you know,
"What have I done? What have I done? I've hit him."
"Where have I hit him?"
You know, if I've hit him in the head, that's...
You know, potentially he's dead.
Bear, do you want to lie down, buddy?
Ran over to him and then I could see the blood on the snow,
and I suppose the only kind of solace I had
was the fact that he was moving and I hadn't actually killed him.
Luck was on my side.
Simon had missed my head by a fraction, but hit my leg.
Someone pointed out to me, "Get your nose sorted out,"
and I went sort of, "Why?"
And then I remember touching my nose and thinking,
"Right. OK. That's the source of the blood."
So all the blood all over the snow was mine and not his.
An interesting look.
Bear's got a bad leg injury.
We don't know if it's broken or not.
We hope not. Please, let's hope that it's not broken.
Simon's busted his nose. He got the camera in the face.
What's left of the housing. That's the front.
That's quarter-inch plate glass, that. It's like a shop window.
That went into Bear's leg.
It could have been a lot worse. Just thank God they're both alive.
I had a big haematoma on my leg and Simon had a broken nose.
We were both extremely lucky that day.
Fortunately, fortunately, you know, I didn't hit him in the head.
I mean, I just...
It doesn't bear thinking about how horrendous that could have been.
It absolutely doesn't bear thinking about.
(BEAR YELLS) (MAN OVER RADIO) Is he OK? Is he OK?
In the wild, food isn't always that appealing.
But if you're going to survive you can't be squeamish.
Eugh.
That is a whopper!
BEAR GRYLLS: In survival situations there's no gourmet menu.
You survive on what you can find.
The list of things that Bear's eaten is completely unimaginable.
It reads like the most horrendous menu that you've ever seen.
A puff adder like this, even with the guts and skin on,
you can eat them straight like this.
It may look grim,
but if it's going to keep you alive you've got to tuck in.
Over the past few years I've seen him eat...
- Cockroaches. - Flies.
- Wood louse. - Centipedes.
Beetles.
Beetle larvae.
- Sea cucumber. - A yak.
A lot of them I don't even want to look at, let alone touch,
and definitely don't want to eat.
But he does.
He sees an animal and it's like, "Eat it. Eat it."
I want to know what these taste like 'cause I'll never ever eat one.
But I really want to know what they taste like. You tell me.
It tastes like rubber bands.
Creamy goo.
Very bony.
Dog faeces.
Salad that somebody's put a lot of mosquito repellent on.
It's all claws, legs and bone.
It's bad. It's really wrong.
(SPITS AND SPLUTTERS)
And he dreads eating them. He absolutely dreads it.
I've really learned to hate that taste.
Eugh.
In North Africa, I found a whole platter of surf-and-turf delicacies.
Whoa. There's a scorpion. See this guy?
You got to be super careful.
The smaller they are with the scorpions,
the more poisonous they are.
That's a death stalker. Look at its tail. Right up.
Get hit by that and you could be dead in 24 hours.
Whip the tail off. The rest of it's fine.
So the tail goes on the ground, just keep an eye on it...
..scorpion in the mouth, munch away.
Bear does eat some extraordinary things.
How he keeps them down I've got no idea.
The rufty-tufty crew just tend to go a bit, "Whoa,"
and Bear - straight up with his hand, in his mouth.
Also in North Africa, an old wreck was too good to pass by.
I wanted to check it out to see if there was anything worth salvaging.
There's an octopus clinging on to the hull.
I'm going to see if I can get him out of here.
There we go. Look. You see? He's clinging on with all his tentacles.
He managed to get hold of an octopus,
which I'm sure if he had the time or the means to cook it
would've been fine.
But unfortunately for him, it was a raw eat on this occasion.
That's going to be tough as hell.
It's better on a platter
in a nice seaside resort with family around and a bit of mayo
than like this.
But when needs must, that's gonna keep you alive.
And he bit off one of the tentacles.
It's still gripping on.
He was gagging all the time
'cause the tentacles had actually attached to his throat.
The problem is the suckers stick to your throat.
One of those moments when I'm glad
that I'm standing this side of the camera and he's that side, really.
(GAGS AND SPITS)
It has still...still got a lot of suction power.
That's what's gripping on down my gullet.
That evening, the light of my fire attracted all sorts of insects.
The octopus had filled me up
but I thought the bugs would make a great breakfast.
He has to wake up the next morning
and eat what we called a 'bug burger'.
The easiest way of eating this
is to make a bug patty out of all of these things.
Let's see what we've got here.
And I think it consisted of a praying mantis, a couple of moths...
Scorpions, crickets, locusts...
A few beetles.
Ooh, quite a diverse breakfast menu.
Squidge all that up together.
Made this little patty like this
and you could just hear everything cracking and popping.
It was disgusting.
I think the popping was probably the heads of the crickets.
What's that?
They've all got their little hooks on them, all these creatures,
and when you go to eat them, they sort of...their legs sort of hang,
and so he's sort of pulling them off his lip.
Rogue leg in there.
Oh, God.
It's just a real nice opportunity
for us to just keep the camera on him,
and just keep it on him,
and then a bit more,
and I know that he's thinking, "Just turn it away.
"Give me the opportunity to get out of this,"
and you're like, "No, no. You're gonna swallow this."
(EXHALES HEAVILY)
A truly terrible way to start a day.
Hang on.
Bear survival food
is not normally something that I myself would like to eat,
but in Torres he came across these rock lobsters.
Looks like a couple of feelers
just poking out from under that rock ledge.
Usually for him it's normally something a bit more disgusting.
He's caught this rock lobster.
That's going to be good food. Come on, then.
Brought it out onto the beach and taken the shell off,
cooked it up and everything.
Looked beautiful. It's an amazing thing to eat.
On the basis that good survival is about keeping your morale up...
..this is good morale.
Wow.
But meals like this are rare,
and in the wild you have to be careful
not to end up on the wrong side of the menu.
We had seen a lot of crocodiles on the banks and they will go for you.
It's hard enough to find food when you're surviving in the wilderness,
but when the tables are turned and the hunter becomes the hunted,
well, that makes a bad situation worse.
Suddenly it could all go horribly wrong.
The whole thing could collapse.
It doesn't matter how strong you are at swimming
or whatever your survival abilities are
if you're in the wrong place.
(HISSES)
Gonna find a way across this river.
In Australia's Northern Territory
I was trying not to cross paths with one of the most lethal predators
that I fear most.
We got to a point where we had to cross this river.
There was really no avoiding it.
So Bear was looking for some way to get across
and he saw what he thought was gusset,
which was this tree that had fallen on to another tree.
Well, it does go across the river all the way.
Crossing a river like this would normally be easy.
But these waters are full of saltwater crocodiles.
We had seen a lot of crocodiles on the banks.
The thing with saltwater crocodiles, you know, they're hunters,
and they will go for you.
You know they're in the water because of the bubbles,
and there were bubbles everywhere.
And I think this is probably the first occasion
where I've really been very concerned for Bear's safety.
You know there's saltwater crocodiles all over this place.
So it's probably, the drop... The drop's not gonna hurt.
It's maybe the bite at the end of it that might.
Yeah. Let's not get to that stage. No.
To me, what was pretty threatening was the top part of the tree
where it's resting in the other tree on the other side of the bank
is rotten.
So we decided to film it with Bear's little camera on his wrist.
Come on, then. Give us the camera. Let's just do this.
So Bear started climbing the tree
and, you know, we were very nervous for him,
and I think that's the first time
I've actually seen Bear quite nervous.
You know, he was seriously going into the unknown here.
DAVE: From what I recall as well, interestingly, about crocodiles,
particularly saltwater crocs, is that they react to movement.
So it was not as though a big splash would've frightened them off.
It would have attracted them.
BEAR: We've got bubbles there.
(GASPS)
OK.
It was very difficult to manoeuvre around some of the branches.
Halfway across Bear does fall.
(BEAR GROANS LOUDLY)
(BEAR PANTS HEAVILY) DUNCAN: And the camera just fell.
Thankfully, it was attached to a cord.
I swallowed my heart at that particular point...
But, you know, he's got great upper-body strength
and he managed to right himself and carry on across.
And in China I discovered that no matter how strong you are,
if you're being hunted, size really doesn't matter.
DAVE: The jungles of China are tough
and made even tougher by Bear walking into this weaver ant nest.
Oh!
(YELPS)
SIMON: Bear found a nest, and we sort of go crashing into this nest,
and Bear goes, "Whoa, whoa. Stop, stop, stop."
And he comes back and he sees this beautiful nest made of leaves
and the ants have made it, and it's an amazing creation.
See, it's why they're called weaver ants.
They've weaved all of these leaves together.
They have this, like, it's like glue that holds it all in place.
But these are nasty ants.
They're tiny little things but they're unbelievably vicious.
(BEAR YELPS)
As we're filming, Bear's swatting his arm and getting bit by them.
So am I. They're crawling up my arm but I can't do anything about it.
Yep. Behind the ear.
Right down the neck.
And as I'm getting bitten, I'm thinking, "Bear, hurry up.
"Talk faster. Talk faster. Talk faster."
In northern Australia
we faced a very real threat that had the whole crew on edge.
DANIEL: The island in Torres
is probably the scariest place that I've been, really,
as far as animals are concerned.
There were sharks' fins just littering the kind of horizon.
They were everywhere, sharks everywhere,
and Bear's got to do this crossing from one island to another.
So we're about to do this crossing from this island to over there
and it's full of sharks.
Just been in the shallows near one,
and to be honest, I'm definitely quite nervous about this.
Sound guy's just prepping his kit.
He's taking an abnormally long time about it.
Come on, Paul!
He's been doing this for about 20 minutes.
And all that I'm seeing is fins going left, right, left, right.
With sharks as far as the eye can see
this was going to be the longest 300 yards I've ever crossed.
What... What was that?
A shark... A shark passed my legs there.
Go on here. Speed up. Let's get moving.
You can see the fins all around him.
Two of them.
They're inquisitive creatures,
and they're coming and they obviously want to know what he is.
Stay still.
They say one of the worst things about the shark
is that they will bite you to find out what you are,
and these sharks did look like they were wondering what he was.
So the next thing we're all waiting for is the potential munch,
and hence the reason he's got to sprint for his life.
Let's just move. Come on.
(SIGHS)
Getting out of the wilderness is always a relief,
but often even that comes with its own challenges.
OK, we're gonna need to stick together in this.
God. Where the hell's that come from?
After being out in the wilderness,
there's no better feeling than finding your way out.
To do that you have to move fast over all sorts of terrain.
DUNCAN: Bear will pick up his rucksack and start running,
and just hop, skip and jump, and he's off.
It's quite amazing.
When Bear's travelling fast through these different types of terrain
I have to try and keep up with him.
He often does leap over boulders,
jump across gaps, crevasses, buildings, you name it.
It's either climbing up something or down.
It's never walking.
We barely ever walk anywhere.
In Texas I saw a way out...
Patrols going up and down the river.
If you reach that you're gonna get found.
..but at the bottom there was one last hurdle.
SIMON: Right at the end of the Texas show
Bear jumps off this big ledge and lands in the water...
..and I really wanted to run behind Bear and jump off this.
But this area was quite small he had to hit and I couldn't go,
and I decided actually that was one step, one step, I think, too far.
This is going to be just heaven.
I just run up with him.
He runs up, I let him go,
and you just see him fall away and the camera tilts down,
and I look back on that shot now and I go, "I wish I'd gone with him."
Sometimes extractions are straightforward.
But in China water also played a part not only getting in,
but also getting out.
In China we were hit by a tropical hurricane.
It's that atmosphere of being in a storm
where it's relentless, madness,
and you just seem to be at your wits' end trying to get through it.
Jungles are really a nightmare at the best of times,
but when you start getting typhoons involved,
which is what we've had out here,
you know, it really takes on a whole other meaning.
You suddenly get three foot of rain, 40- or 50-mile-an-hour winds,
and these places just become, you know, a real epic,
you know, not only for the crew, but also for what we're planning to do.
What we were planning to do was get out by crossing a river,
but that was now flooded.
We need to get across this.
Yeah, you can see this river is in full flood with all the rains.
SIMON: This was literally just post-cyclone.
This river had raised, believe it or not, about five metres.
It was a ridiculous amount of water that was coming down that river.
OK, we need to stick together in this.
DANIEL: He'll say it himself in the show, time and time again,
you don't mess with jungle rivers.
They're seriously, seriously treacherous places to be.
You can feel there's actually a strong current in here,
whipping me down.
And as we cross this river the whole sky goes quite black
and it goes quite eerie and quite grey and real silvery clouds.
Where the hell's that come from?
It felt quite dark and lifeless and certainly had a sense of...
Well, I had a sense of not really wanting to be there.
There's all dead wood
and bits and pieces of debris coming down the river,
and you do expect to see a sort of body come floating past.
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
But in a survival situation staying positive is crucial.
Bear copes with it very well and he just says to himself,
"I am gonna get out of this and I will find a way to do it."
Getting out means the end of the journey,
not just for me but for the crew as well.
When the end of the show comes I do feel a sense of relief
because, you know, you've finished it and you've got all your limbs
and maybe not too many cuts and bruises.
DUNCAN: All the planning and prep that's put into this,
it's quite enormous.
So coming home is, yes, time to relax.
There's no doubt that me and the crew
travel to some of the extremes of the earth.
There's often danger and high risk.
But I work with the best.
We work hard, trust each other with our lives,
and the number one goal -
always get back in one piece.
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