Ness Knight: First Descent Of Essequibo River Guyana with the Wai-Wai Tribe

Welcome to Season 2 of The Adventure Diaries.

Starting off season 2 with a  thrilling episode of Adventure Diaries with your host, Chris Watson. 

This time, we dive deep into an incredible expedition with our guest, Ness Knight, an adventurer, explorer, and survivalist. Today, Ness shares the story of the first-ever descent of the Essequibo River from source to sea in Guyana, Central America. Joining her on this historic journey were two of her fellow adventurers, Pip Stewart and Laura Bingham. This episode is packed with tales of adventure, danger, and the invaluable lessons learned from the Waiwai, the indigenous tribe who played a crucial role in their journey.

Ness Knight, Pip Stewart, and Laura Bingham embarked on an expedition to descend the Essequibo River in Guyana, Central America. They collaborated with the indigenous Waiwai tribe and learned their survival skills. The journey was filled with challenges, including infections, parasites, and encounters with dangerous wildlife. The trio had to navigate political concerns and the impact of mining and logging on the river. Despite the difficulties, they formed a strong bond with the Waiwai tribe and achieved their goal of reaching the source of the river. In this conversation, Ness Knight shares her experiences of embarking on challenging expeditions, including her journey down the Essequibo River in Guyana. She discusses the physical and mental challenges she faced, encounters with wildlife, and the dynamics of team expeditions. Ness also talks about her upcoming documentary on the rhino horn trade and highlights the importance of supporting anti-poaching efforts. She encourages listeners to commit to their own adventures and make a difference by providing equipment to anti-poaching units.

Takeaways

• • Collaborating with indigenous communities can provide a unique and immersive experience during expeditions.
  • Complacency can be dangerous in remote and challenging environments.
  • Respecting and learning from local cultures and traditions is essential during expeditions.
  • Political and environmental factors can impact the success and safety of an expedition.
  • Overcoming physical and mental challenges can lead to personal growth and achievement. Embarking on solo adventures can help develop self-confidence and decision-making skills.
  • Team expeditions offer the opportunity to forge deep friendships and learn from others' skills and experiences.
  • Getting to the start line of an adventure is often the hardest part, but making a commitment and eliminating a plan B can help overcome obstacles.
  • Supporting anti-poaching efforts by providing equipment to rangers can make a significant impact in protecting wildlife.
  • Documentaries can raise awareness and transform people's perspectives on conservation issues.

Transcript

Chris Watson (00:00.014)
Yeah, they took us in, I think the first week of the expedition, the three of us were really itching, itching, itching to learn from them. We took five YY guys, they're YY warriors, they call them, with us upstream. My tactic was just to watch and if they were doing something, I would literally copy it, keep doing it. And eventually they turned around and they're like, wow, actually, we see how passionate you are about this. And by the end of it, they turned around and said, hey, Nestle, listen, we want to...

name you as our first female warrior that we've had enough immunity. Just got feel seen slightly off. He just had this glimpse in his eye and was thinking, no, no, no, James, this is not right that we there's so many voices out there. They've obviously come across others from another tribe. Something's going down. It sounds like people are killing each other. We need to help when we're sitting there with our machete saying can we go? So, you know, Pip had a really close call too. She was

jumping over this massive log and Laura from behind just comes, snake! And Pip, I've never seen her move so fast, I've never seen any human move so fast in my life, but it was a juvenile pit bite. The trouble with them is that they don't control how much they inject when they juvenile, but it was literally an inch away from her butt cheek. Wow. And it's funny to look back now, but had that got her, you know, that's... That's a game -ender, isn't it? That's game over. Welcome.

to another episode of the adventure diaries. Today we're discussing an incredible world first adventure, the descent of the Essequibo River from source to sea in Guyana, Central America with our guest Ness Knight. Ness is an adventurer, explorer and survivalist and the descent of the Essequibo had never been done before and was actually undertaken alongside two of her friends, Pip Stewart and Laura Bingham, two incredible adventurers in their own right.

The Essequibo River is the third largest river in South America and this expedition was made all that more special due to their collaboration with the indigenous tribe, the Waiwai. For what became a truly immersive journey for the trio, learning the skills of the Waiwai and the ways in which they navigate truly wild, pristine, virgin rainforests. This is a truly fascinating conversation. We also discussed Ness's

Chris Watson (02:21.582)
accidental route into a life of adventure, some of Ness's previous solo adventures including paddle boarding down the Missouri River, cycling across America and swimming the length of the Thames in England. We touch on the dynamics of team expeditions versus solo adventures, some of the challenges and learning experiences from the Essequibo expedition, including some of the incredible wildlife encounters they had along the way too.

And we touch on Ness's passion for wildlife conservation, including some of the work that she's doing to tackle the illicit rhino horn trade. This is a truly fascinating discussion. So settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with explorer, adventurer and survivalist Ness Knight. Ness Knight, welcome to the adventure diaries. How are you? Thanks. I'm doing great, actually, really good.

I've got an hour where I've palmed off my little two year old to my partner and yeah, it's a bit of free time now. Excellent. Full time adventure, full time mum as well. Yeah. It's a handful. Actually, I have to apologize upfront because yeah, she started nursery for a few hours a week and she's now coming home with about 37 new viruses every week. And so as you can hear, got a little bit of the trail ends of one of those. Well,

will be patient and understanding. I know it all too well. My little one's downstairs and she's itching to come up and say hello because of that. And I've told her to stay out just now. You've got the book! We need to get you a side one. that's so sweet. I'd love to see you. You must bring her up. Yeah, I might if she's not... She's doing her art projects at the moment. So she did have a question which I'll leave until the end. I won't spoil it at the minute. So...

Excellent. So yes, so the themes of today, Ness, is really just to kind of navigate some of your adventures. You've done a number of really great things. You know, first we went to swim the Thames, cycling across Bolivia, the Namib Desert, but I kind of really want to focus a little bit on the Essequibo expedition that you've done with Pip Stewart and Laura Bingham. But...

Chris Watson (04:41.614)
I think, you know, going back a little bit, so coming from South Africa to a profession in the city of London and in a life of adventure, how do you go from being, you know, from South Africa to the city to giving up into this life of expeditions and adventures? Accidentally. In a nutshell. So, yeah, I was born in South Africa in Johannesburg, actually. So big concrete city, full of culture and full of incredible artistic

creativity, but it's still a concrete city. And so I didn't grow up as this youngster who was continuously outdoors in the kind of way that many in the outdoor industry are. You know, we had a little land around our house and I spent half my time, you know, building tree houses and being a bit of a tomboy. So that was naturally there from the get -go, to be honest with you. No matter where I was, I think I was always a bit tomboyish. My poor mother was...

really excited about the dolls and beautiful things that she was giving me and I was just like, hmm. But I grew up with two older brothers too. So that kind of set me off on that streak. But yeah, so we moved across to the UK when I was 15. And I was down in the south east. Sorry, south west of London. And yeah, I just kind of went through.

all the straight and narrow lines that were expected. You know, I wasn't super exposed to loads of explorers' stories when I was younger. I don't know why, if it was just the way things were when I was younger. I also wasn't from the UK, so we didn't have all these grand UK British explorers going out there to talk about in South Africa. But yeah, I guess that I tried quite a few careers before finding. I was a late bloomer, in a way.

I went through schooling as normal, did my A levels, and then I studied photography for a foundation diploma. I went on to study product design and furniture design, and I went on to study business studies at university and e -commerce, specialization in that. So I taught myself programming, all these crazy technical side of things, and I worked for a social entrepreneur. We taught exactly that entrepreneurship.

Chris Watson (07:00.365)
And I guess my forte there was teaching people e -commerce and really digital marketing. And although it ticks the need for creativity and technical side of things, which is how I work, I need both of those. I just, I spent my entire life trying to tell people how to live their dream and, you know, quit working for someone else and lining their pockets.

you know, go out and do your thing and follow your passions. And I just wasn't living up to my own advice for people. And it just struck me one day that this is not for me. And it was a crazy rat race city life. And I was so fed up with people just keeping up with the Joneses and you know, what did you buy last week? What design a brand of you go over this? And I just was bored senseless by that. So I quit knowing nothing about what the next chapter would be for me.

absolutely diddly squat. I just quit and I left to go and stand up paddleboard a thousand miles down a mighty Missouri River in the USA. And at the end of that, I still didn't know what I wanted to do in the next chapter. So I just didn't go home. I had a few hundred dollars to my name and my bank account and I borrowed loads of equipment from other people, men's shoes, two sizes too big. I got a bicycle that was older than I was and I headed west.

and cycled across America. And at that time, social media was in its infancy. And I was just, I just always loved writing. I was quite an introvert and very, very painfully shy when I was little. And so I was in this wonderland world of imagination when I was young. So I loved that creative side. And I just started telling my story as I went across and suddenly there was this

huge wave of people coming onto social media that wanted to live vicariously through other people's adventures. And that's why I say it was accidental. I didn't intend for it to be a career option. I had no idea that really that's something I could have done. And so I fell into that. I thought, well, bloody hell, I can through this get sponsors, I can get paid expeditions. I wasn't even thinking about getting any kind of payment for myself as a salary. I just wanted to find ways to continue traveling to see the world because you know, when you go out into the world,

Chris Watson (09:15.309)
You kind of go out there as a youngster and you want to prove something to yourself and do these endurance challenges and see how far you can push mind and body and the world changes you. And suddenly there's more important stories out there because you have proved enough to yourself and there's incredible cultures, people, wildlife locations that are remote and unknown and uncharted and I caught that bug. Just about a decade ago then that you started that 2012 or thereabouts wasn't it? Yeah, a bit. Yeah.

2011 or 2012, I can't remember, somewhere around there. Yeah, and I think, you know, touching on that social media thing, it's, you know, it's very, it's very genuine and very raw, you know, the storytelling and the adventures and stuff. And it's far from from some of what you see on social media today. A lot of people just, you know, want to summit for the sake of summiting and doing all this stuff for a selfie. It's good to see that, you know, still 10 years later that you're still championing that and you're still doing these very...

very real and very raw adventures. It's really great. Yeah, and that's one thing about just talking about social media. It's been an interesting journey because I think when it was in its infancy, it was a little bit more authentic. People really wanted to tell real stories and then it became something else. But there still are so many authentic people out there on social media. But I hear you now. I've had so many brands historically over the last decade say to me, you know what?

We've got this new free diving outfit and we'd love you to try it out. And I was, well, that's brilliant. I love free diving. I'm sure I'll give it a shot. Why not? And then they send you these pictures of the outfit they want you to wear. And it's literally your entire butt area is not covered. It's like a G string. And then I'm just thinking, my God, no, no, I don't, I just, you know, I've just never been about that whatsoever. And it just frustrates me because I've got a daughter now and there's so many youngsters that follow these kinds of stories. And.

It's just, yeah, it's an interesting one trying to figure out how to filter out the shit and get down to finding the real stuff out there. So I'm trying to navigate that in the most authentic way, but yeah, it's been a hell of a journey, but I do have to credit social media to, you know, me being able to do what I can do today because that was what brought the money in.

Chris Watson (11:29.613)
Yeah, I think if you do it right, I mean, the audiences are there. I think there's an audience for everything, really, but I think doing that in that authentic way, it's good to look back at some of the, I mean, doing the research, some of your photos and stuff on that. And I think, you know, something I was planning to touch on later, but your friendship with the likes of Pip Stewart and Laura Bingham and stuff, and three female adventurers as well coming together and doing some of these stuff is incredible. You don't see that. I don't think I can, I don't think there's anything else like that. There's plenty of...

this is a male dominated industry mostly, but there's a lot of good stuff that you've done in the expeditions into the Essex people. How did you three come to be friends? Through social media. Was it? Okay. I think all of us were just really looking for people that were like minded. And for me, it was

doesn't matter male, female, whatever. And I just happened to come across Laura first of all, and I met Pip through Laura actually, although I'd heard her name pinging around for a little while before that. And yeah, Laura and I were chatting a whole bunch, just really, really hugely supportive of each other's stuff in the early days. And she at the time was cycling across South America with no money. And she'd been with her husband, Ed Stafford, which is all the kind of discovery.

Survival. Legend. And yeah, I just, I just got a message from them one day. I think it was edit messaged me saying, Hey, listen, I've just been hit by a truck. And so I can't cycle with Laura anymore. So we're looking for someone to come and join her. So do you, do you mind heading out here? I said, well, sure. Absolutely. You know, I've got a little bit of free time now. So why not? You know, and, and it's just, yeah, it's been such a wonderful world meeting so many people like that, because at the drop of a hat.

Most of us will do whatever we can do to support each other. And yeah, from there, friendship with both of them was forged very quickly and very strongly. And they are godparents to my daughter and I'm godmom to their son. So it's just like, you know, they're like brother and sister to me and we're like a family to each other. So it's been an amazing journey. And then Pip came into the picture because Laura invited her to the Esquibo journey. And all of them are just wonderful lifelong friends now.

Chris Watson (13:50.349)
That's incredible. That's incredible. And I mean, let's jump into it then, because I did want to touch on some of the previous adventures, but seeing as we're talking about the Essequibo. So what was that? 72 days, 1000 kilometers, source to see. You had to find the source before you had to then descend that third biggest river in South America, in Guyana. Yeah. But I think more. Yeah, I think.

Did I read right that you hadn't done much kayaking or any kayaking and stuff before that you took that on? I've done the stand -up paddle boarding, but that's about as close as it gets. I think I might have been in a little kind of paddle on a lake boat once in my life before, but in my case, absolutely zero experience. And that was kind of important to me too. That's one of the things I love most about the expedition is that when you kind of get into this explorer mindset, you look at locations around the world that are remote and...

and you know, hostile and beautiful and incredibly hard to navigate. And it's all about whatever discipline gets you through that. And so I've never been stuck to one thing. I'm not just into paramotoring or just into swimming or just into running. It's literally whatever means is going to get me through that terrain that I need to.

so that was, that was a really good learning experience. So I think that's one of my biggest passions in life is just consuming and sucking up as much, as many new hard skills as possible. I just, I love that process. And so that really appealed to me to, to go from never having done this in my life before, to going down huge white water rapids, in uncharted, completely uncharted territory. I mean, we were barely getting any decent satellite imagery of locations there. Yeah.

So tell us about, so how did the idea of the Essie Key will come to be? What made you pick that? Well, it wasn't me, it was Laura. So she was, it was her idea. Well, it was actually Ed, Ed Suffolk. He had spent some time in Guyana on various exhibitions early on in his career and just fell in love with the place. And I mean, when you get a guy who's done the entire length of the Amazon.

Chris Watson (16:08.941)
And he says that this place is just the most insane that he's ever come across in his life. You know, you look up into the trees and you see five different species of monkey there and it's just bursting with biodiversity in life. And she, you know, she had a story from him and he had just dragged his feet on getting out there and doing that expedition. He knew about the river. He knew that there was, that the source was undocumented, which was crazy. It's the third largest river in South America, completely undocumented, no idea where the source was.

And said, well, hey, listen, if you're not gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And then just got in touch with both Pip and I and off we went. I think both Pip and I took all of about 15 seconds to hear our first initial burst about what it was about and said, hey, stop you there, thanks for coming. Did they not want to join it? He was very tied up in his own filming with Discovery Channel. So he was just absolutely rammed.

year on year on year with his own work. So it was just more about the availability of the opportunity to get out there. Yeah, some achievement, it really is. I think the logistics of that, because you had to collaborate with the Wai Wai indigenous tribe, didn't you? How do you make connections with a tribe like that, that are so disconnected from? Well, I suppose one thing I'll stop there is we didn't have to, it was a choice.

So I think that this is where the three of us wanted to do things differently is you see a lot of historical expeditions and great exploration journeys where it's very much chest beating flag planting. You know, we're coming to conquer in the unknown lands. And we just didn't want to do that whatsoever. And it was especially driven by Laura. She was hugely passionate, having done so much travel.

you know, to, to South America previously that she, she wanted this to be something of an international collaboration where we, we got in touch with the YY community. They're very, very, very far in the South West of, Bolivia and surrounded. There's no roads in or out to their community. It was completely cut off and remote. so to get there, you have to fly, by small aircraft, or you have to go along the river for weeks and weeks and weeks to get there. So.

Chris Watson (18:26.605)
beautiful community, incredible culture and traditions. And we managed to get in touch with them through a fixer who had been working in country for, I think, over a decade who knew about them. So yeah, we, we kind of had never had a conversation with them whatsoever until we stepped off that airplane into their village. and I think all of them took one look at three of us girls, you know, why British girls and thinking, you guys even have any clue what you're getting yourself into.

Were you aware of the story of Emma Kelty before that, the British kayaker who was, I mean, she was horrendous, she was actually kidnapped and she died at the hands of pirates in the Amazon and I think that happened not long before you had went away. Were you not worried about the dangers in that, like three women going out there with this indigenous tribe that you hadn't made contact with before? Was there any safety concerns or?

No, they weren't for us because the relationship that the fixer had with them was very strong and he knew the situation inside out. So we had, we were going on very good intel about what they were like down there. And when we arrived, they just blew us away with how absolutely phenomenally humble and welcoming they were. So yeah, we landed in a good position there. And yeah, they took us in, I think the first week of the expedition.

The three of us were really itching, itching, itching to learn from them. I mean, you're talking about people that for generations have grown up in the jungle, that as their backyard, it's their medicine cabinet, it's the pantry, it's the building materials. This is their entire life is living off what is surrounded by them. And they were having none of it. We took five YY guys, they're YY warriors, they call them, with us upstream to find the source of the river. And...

they just thought, no, their traditions were very, very different. I think this is where we had a wake up call as to culture and respecting other people's culture, is we came in there thinking, well, we want to learn. So you're going to teach us because of course you would, because we're from the Western world and women are wishing and getting in the forefront of many industries, which they historically didn't have very much access to. And so we just assumed that...

Chris Watson (20:51.022)
they were a part of that thought process, but of course not. And they have this beautiful tradition, which works absolutely incredibly for them, where the women have their roles, the men have their roles, and it's really harmonious. And there's not very much hierarchy there. So it's, yeah, it's a wonderful setup for them. And the women do go foraging, they do go fishing, they do a little bit of local hunting, but really it's the guys that go on these huge three week long expeditions in these dugout canoes up river to

find the meat to bring home for everyone, the entire community. And so, yeah, it was, it took a little while for them to understand. And we kind of broke that down for them by being very, very persistently sitting at the edges, watching them. My tactic was just to watch. And if they were doing something, I would literally copy it. Yeah. Keep doing it. And keep, if they said to us, you know, we want to clear out this area to make our camp, I would start the edges and I'll just get closer and closer and closer and start heavy lifting logs.

You know, eventually they turned around and they're like, wow, actually we see how passionate you are about this. We've just never come across it before. We've never had women wanted to do what we do. and by the end of it, they turned around and said, Hey, Nestle, listen, you know, we, we want to name you as our first female warrior that we've had in our community. And I was just so blown away and humble. I was like, my God, cause the reality was we were little jungle toddlers going in there. No matter how much we thought we knew about survival or the jungle.

No, it's incomparable to how these guys operate in that environment. And so we were slowly graduating our way up through their jungle schooling that they were giving us. Did they teach you stuff about the plants and the fauna? Did you find anything interesting out about that there? Because I can imagine it would be. Yeah, it was phenomenal. I mean, don't ask me that. I mean, they knew all the Latin names of everything out there. They were being so remote. Somehow they were so clued up about a lot of stuff, you know.

Obviously, materials had been, you know, snuck into there at some point. But yeah, they were phenomenal. It doesn't matter what was wrong with you, whether you had piles or whether you had what they called bloodshitting, whether you were nauseous, had malaria, anything, infections wrong with you. There was something for everything, for your fatigue and tiredness. It didn't matter what it was. But it was a big kind of wake up call because they would say to us, look at these two vines.

Chris Watson (23:18.766)
side by side in the jungle hanging down from this vast canopy above you. And obviously water is a big thing out there. A lot of the areas were swamped, so it was undrinkable. And they said one of these is pure drinking water. The other one is what we use to poison the ponds so that the fish come to the surface. They die and come to the surface. The side effect of...

having a few drops of that is that you get hallucinogenic and you get superhuman strength or you believe you have it anyway. He gave us an example of how that works and was one of these guys absolutely tanking it through this jungle after these birds that he was hunting. It was just hilarious. But yeah, they look identical. And so you have to be in, you know, decades of learning and understanding of that environment to see these subtle differences between everything and have this vast knowledge of

of everything you need to survive out there and it was just incredible. It's amazing that they're so welcoming and sharing that with you isn't it? That really is something considering they don't know you. Yeah it was just the role thing and it was just something that we weren't used to and they weren't used to because it was a different way around for us but they really did warm to us quite quickly after about a week or so and

And the respect that they had for us just getting in and out of the water, hauling these huge dugout canoes along, just giving every last drop of what we had in our tanks to support every bit of this expedition and understand and learn and just forge ahead with that. And I think that they just were, yeah, super respectful of that. And vice versa, we were blown away. I mean, these guys, one of them was called the Hulk and I don't care.

how many elite athletes you put in front of these guys, they will absolutely smoke them. They're about half my height and they are built like you cannot believe. I don't know where they get the strength they've got, but it's just insane. So did that try you, did it help you to kind of navigate to the source and then leave you be or were they with you when you started the descent as well? Yeah, so we had to,

Chris Watson (25:32.75)
There'd been a previous German expedition that had claimed that they'd found the source, but it turns out from the community that they'd just run out of money and had to leave because they couldn't continue the journey. It had taken them too long to try and find the source, and so they just found something that looked like the source, planted a flag, got a picture of all of them together and left. So they were a bit wary of us and finding the source of the journey, but we did eventually find it. And when we got there...

you know, had a beautiful moment. One of the guys, Jackson, you know, we're all, well, not us with beards, but the guys were looking quite scraggly with beards and, you know, being out for about two weeks out there looking pretty rough. And he got to just before we found the source and we knew it was the source that was the top of this hill. And he stopped and he said, can I have a few minutes please? And he got his razor blade out and clean shaved himself for showing respect because they live on the river, the Eskiva River. That's why we wanted to take them. It was their river and their source of life. And,

Yeah, he got up there and came out absolutely clean shaven and they paid their respects to the source of the river that they've lived on for generations. And on the way back down, we went back to their village. The way back down on the route was actually turned into a hunting party to try and get food for the community. So we were sitting there with live alligators who were kind of arms and legs tied down underneath our chairs as we were.

paddling in these dugout canoes and they were thrashing around and all sorts of other things. It was a bit heart wrenching, I think, for some of the girls because they on our, on our trails on the way back, on the way in, sorry, they, they would find tortoises and put them upside down and put a marker next to them so that they would still be alive on the way back a week later or a few days later. and so it was just a completely different way of thinking, but they, so they used it as a hunting party on the way back.

fishing, smoking, whatever they caught and keeping as much as they could alive, got to their village, took a quick reprieve there, and then swapped out to a couple of other guys, warriors that they had, to take from their village to the sea. So we always had YY with us, and that was important for us because, A, for our survival, we're relatively new to that, B, it was because of the international collaboration. We wanted, they were quite marginalized, and...

Chris Watson (27:56.494)
in their country and they were kind of thought as backwards, uneducated, primitive folk. And it just broke our hearts. They were also happened to be named by the government as responsible as the guardians for huge hundreds of kilometers of conservation area with no help, no support, no money, no funding, no nothing. And so for us, it was important that they came the whole way through so that we could say that you,

have found the source of your river. We happen to facilitate it and come along with you and you might have had some of the technology and funding, but we wouldn't have made it without you. And so they got press in their country. They got limelight, they got media, they got seen for once and respected across their nation. So that was hugely important. So yes, they came all the way through. That's great. Did you have to navigate any political concerns or noise?

particularly with it being an old British colony and like you say, the male adventure coming and planting flags. Did you get any static trying to do this at all? Not particularly. I think it was fairly easy running for us. We didn't have any major issues. The only issues that we had were the ones directly in front of our noses. So as we were going down the river, probably about, I think about halfway down, we went from uncharted territory where suppose,

according to anyone who knows anything in that region, no one had ever stood stood foot completely unexplored. And once we popped out of that sort of ancient world that we were in, we started seeing the slow creep of humanity upriver. So the mining, the dredging, the logging and pip.

was a journalist, she'd come from a journalistic background. So for her, it was really important to try and capture the stories along the way. And we obviously wanted to interview these people. And so, yeah, we, they brought us on board those big mining dredges. And we've gone into a few locations where they were doing illegal logging and got to actually speak to the people behind that, who are running those. And that there was a couple of occasions where we thought might get a little bit edgy.

Chris Watson (30:12.878)
But because we were three females, I think that people saw us as barely benign. And so Pip was able to get in there and ask some really hard hitting questions and just charm them a little bit and get out in time before any shit went down. Did any shit go down on the expedition? What was it, any hairy moments? Yeah, so not what you would expect though. So the tough thing for us, we're expecting, you know, of...

How's it going to be with the jaguars and the caiman? I mean, down river, those, those came in at absolute monsters and everywhere surrounded by them. And so we were just expecting, you know, in our minds that had elevated what the jungle is going to be like, something very, very different. And what we found was it was a very small thing. So, protozoa, bacteria, parasites, viruses, that sort of thing. And, you know, for me, a game changer.

and at nearly expedition ender was getting an infection on my foot. I'd put some tape, some duct tape over my foot because I started getting a few areas where my boots were rubbing and were constantly wet and muddy and in sand on the trek to find the source of the river. And I made the mistake of ripping it off too quickly and the hairs came out and those little areas turned into an infection that ended up huge, absolute massive on my foot. And all of a sudden,

I couldn't stand up every time I stood up. My leg first of all was like elephantitis. It swirled up massively. And so the pressure of standing up alone was crippling. It was absolute agony. I mean, I've just I've been through natural childbirth with no painkillers whatsoever. And I mean, this is up there rivaling it. So it was not fun. Pip got leishmaniasis. She didn't know it at the time out there, but it's a flesh eating parasite.

she had quite a battle actually afterwards, she had to go through a form of chemotherapy to get rid of it. And if it gets out of control, and you don't catch it in time, it can eat away at your face. So your soft palate, and that's permanent damage. And so it was it was stuff like that. At one point, they didn't know whether I had malaria or dengue fever. That knocked me out and wiped me out. So it was it was those little things that you don't look after. I mean, every single morning, we're out there.

Chris Watson (32:35.758)
every single evening to around our fire having our coffees or having our dinners and guaranteed either myself, people or would be laying over the others lap, trousers down with the other one trying to dig these little critters that are burrowed into our skin out with the lava living under our flesh, you know, is that kind of thing that just beats you down and possibly just.

the relentlessness, absolute relentless nature of it. But did you have an evac plan? Did you have an evac plan at any point? This is also where this is probably the hairiest thing about the entire expedition. So for months beforehand, Laura, Ed and I had been working to try and find a heli evac option. And no one in Guyana admitted to having a helicopter that was available that had a winch. Obviously, when you were in

primary virgin rainforest Amazon Basin region. That's the way out because it's so enclosed. It's so difficult. And so for a good third of the expedition, we and also the neighboring countries said they had no help for us. No winch. Sorry, no winch, no winch, no winch. I'm sure someone did. They probably just didn't want to get involved with it. And

So for about a third of the expedition, the most remote areas where it was completely uncharted and unknown, we had no option of evacuation. So had something gone down that was life threatening, the only way out is down river. That's it. Because they said to us, look, if you want us to land a helicopter, you need to cut an area of a football pitch down in the primary rainforest. I know we had a couple of changes to pick our way up a river, but hey, it's not happening. So.

You know, Pip had a really close call too. She was jumping over this massive log and Laura from behind just screamed, snake! And Pip, I've never seen her move so fast. I've never seen any human move so fast in my life, but it was a juvenile pit viper. And the trouble with them is that they don't control how much they inject when they're juvenile, but it was literally an inch away from her butt cheek. And it's funny to look back now, but had that got her.

Chris Watson (34:50.702)
That's a game -ender, isn't it? That's game over, really, if that happens. Absolutely. There was a lot of wake -up calls and I think one of the biggest lessons we took out of that journey there was the fact that complacency kills more than anything out there. So it's complacency with your personal admin. It's complacency with your injuries that you have and cleaning, keeping those clean.

It's complacency with thinking, well, nothing has gone wrong in a few days. So you start dragging feet, you start not really looking around, you're not having that super sharp awareness of your environment. And that's where the YY picks us up is they are born with that. They have the sixth sense too around them. So they don't just see what's in front of them. You know, in our Western world, we tend to kind of zone in and out of.

one sense at a time. So we're either listening to something and, you know, hearing stuff around us and conversations, and I'm not seeing what's around me because I'm so focused on just seeing you and listening and having this conversation now. Or, you know, it's just, it's tend to be one thing at a time, we kind of become complacent with the fact that we know that if something, someone needs their cell phone is gonna ring, it's gonna buy us an email or ping. So you get pretty lazy with that. And we've lost that ancient ability.

to engage all five of our senses in one go and have that 3D awareness of our environment around us at all times, naturally and effortlessly. And then they have that sixth instinct, which is a kind of knowledge that's passed down through decades of growing up in these environments, in these communities from the elders and their knowledge of understanding animal behavior, understanding the seasonal changes. And so if something...

just gut feel seen slightly off. They know that because that shouldn't be there or that sound happened or the seasonal changes happened at the wrong time. And so they just have this instinctual awareness all the time. And I could never, even if I tried my entire life to become that, I don't think I could. Because it's born into them. It's, you know, and it's something that from birth they're around this knowledge and soaking it up. So yeah.

Chris Watson (37:01.39)
I've probably gone on a massive tangent from whatever you did there. No, that's... Yeah, I was just trying to... It's just nice hearing the passion for it and the respect as well for the tribe and what they've done for the expedition. Rolling back a little bit, Ness, in terms of like provisions and foods and water and stuff, because I read that you said about them going hunting and I'm sure that there was a story in there, a sub -story about...

coming across a pig or a carcass or something? And also is that the photo that you've got on your site that you're carrying something in your bag? Yeah, so, yeah, that is, yes, a hog carcass. So, one of the, the day prior to us forming that carcass, one of the guys had shot two, two hogs.

And one had run off and he couldn't find it. But we stumbled across it the next day. I say stumbled, we stumbled, they didn't, they found it with their tracking ability. But yeah, so we came, it was by the time with I mean, extraordinary heat and humidity there, things go rotten very, very quickly. It's incredible how rancid stuff gets. So by the time we'd gotten to it, its stomach was completely bloated. And most of it was inedible apart from the

the muscle red meat that was on it. So they disemboweled it and took everything out that could possibly be a bit fraught and rotten. And they said, well, we've got to carry it somehow. So me being me, I'll take it back to camp. Sign me up. Trying to experience everything. And so we made this backpack that was made just out of the leaves and vines that were around us. And yeah, I took that back to camp. But what I didn't realize is that as a joke, they'd left.

the gland. I don't know if you've heard about the glands at the bottom, rear end. All right, okay. But it leaks an oil and you never smelt anything like it. It is horrendous. This is literally walking and retching continuously to camp. So, yeah, it's not surprising. I was relegated to the back of the line as we tried to find a base camp to sit for them.

Chris Watson (39:22.35)
settle in for the night. But yeah, there were some interesting things out there. So on our way upriver trying to find the source, we had stopped off on the side while the river was still fairly wide and we were just sat on a huge rock. A couple of the guys had just disappeared into this wall of green beside the river that was the jungle, just kind of melted into it. And a few minutes later, we hear this screaming and shouting and we're all looking around to each other.

And the older guy, James, who's kind of the lead of their group, he just had this glint in his eye and we're thinking, no, no, no, James, this is not right. There's so many voices out there. They've obviously come across others from another tribe. Something's going down. It sounds like people are killing each other. We need to help. And we're sitting there with our machetes and can we go, can we go, what can we do? Like what's happening? And he just sat back and he just chewed on a little stick and he just had this little wry smile. He just said, wait, wait.

And a few seconds later, one of the guys pops out with this huge beaming toothy grin and out pops his hand and he's holding an armadillo. And he drops that down and was like, okay, was that that noise for an armadillo? What the hell is going on with you guys? Turns out that they had been trying to stalk and hunt an armadillo who at the same moment was being hunted by a jaguar.

And so they all keep purged and they were trying to get rid of the jaguar in order to take down their prey that both of them wanted. But yeah, it was a clean shot straight through the head. I mean, phenomenal in the heat of that moment with everything scattering everywhere to get a shot. So, I mean, these guys are just phenomenal hunters. So Armadillo was on the menu for lunch and dinner. Wow. What did it taste like? Can you remember? I'm afraid.

It was a chewy, to be fair, it was somewhere between pork and chicken, I'd say. It was delicious, absolutely delicious. How did the pig carcass with the scent of glands taste? yeah, no, we'd thoroughly removed that by the time. That was incredible. I mean, you just think about your egg and bacon buttery breakfast at home. It's just brought out so many memories of comfort when we were in such comfort at the time. It was extraordinary.

Chris Watson (41:44.046)
I can ask. Yeah, big mood lifter. See on the journey, how much, see your camp at night, did you have to portage into or were you into the jungle? How much of it was straight on the water and then camping nearby and what was that like? We camped pretty much close to the water at all times. We would always try and find slightly elevated ground obviously, that's what we do when we're beside rivers and in jungles and we'd just keep an eye out as we went and we'd keep

keep our eyes on the clock and see what the time was. And whoever spotted a great spot, we're going to investigate it. If it was a slightly cleared area, that was fantastic. And yeah, it's just about going in and saying, well, looking above you, obviously, are there dead branches that could come down? Because there were quite a few storms and quite a few really howling windy days out there. So that's an awful place to be when you've got this ice scraper towering above you.

thick trees and half of them are broken and dead. So we camped along the river the entire way. The portages were just because of rapids. So there were some hairy locations where we would have to line our boats down these rapid systems and strap all our kit down as tightly as possible and just hope and pray that it popped out the other side in one piece. There was a couple of times that they...

They kind of turned over the boats and a few bits of equipment were lost. But for the most part, we would find, you know, bits of stuff in eddies that had caught the ant. So, yeah, it was, yeah, it was not too bad. Not too bad at all. And on the wild wildlife, did you come across any jaguars or see jaguar prints and stuff like that? Yeah, we did. So it actually took quite probably about a month, I think, into the expedition before we saw a jaguar for real. Yeah.

in person, it was quite a distance away and we're just paddling like maniacs to get anywhere close to it was just it was the most ridiculous thing to do. I think we're overexhausted and not thinking straight because it just pissed off melted into the jungle. Like, yeah, well, that was obvious, wasn't it? And but yeah, we when we're going up river, we're seeing prints on the banks. Quite often, we were hearing Jaguar in the jungle quite often. And one of the times I was kind of

Chris Watson (44:06.158)
forging the route ahead with Jackson. We were kind of blazing the trail through the jungle so that everyone else could follow the path. We used to all take turns in doing that because that's quite hard going on you, your energy levels. And we got to what we found would be a really nice campsite a little while before the rest. And so we just set up for fishing, probably about 100, 200 yards away from where we'd set up our camp. And...

Yeah, Jackson, we were having a huge laughing loads of fish out the water. He was fishing with line from his bungee line from his hammock. And it was all giggles until all of a sudden, you know, this guy just is warrior. This incredible jungle warrior just goes dead still and shock in his eyes. And I just got chills all down my spine and hairs going up all around me. Cause I know that that's not good when these hardened guys really don't.

care too much about Jaguar, they'd just be delighted to see them suddenly do that. And he said, well, listen, be quiet, be still for a moment. And he was just listening around him. He said, it's close. It's always says me it's close. And so yeah, I just I followed his lead. He kind of shoved me in front of him. And yeah, we headed straight back to campus quickly as we could, but as you know, decently as he said, I wouldn't normally be worried, but there's just two of us out here. And that was close.

said how close he just said very close. And then we get back to camp and the next thing I know, he feels far enough away that he just drops everything, starts pottering around, you know, the cans, the tins and the pots and getting camp ready and a fire source. As quick as that he's done. They're so used to it happening continuously. They just switch between high, high alert mode to just absolutely fine.

there was one occasion that I was in my hammock, at night and I woke up to the feeling of something underneath me and saw a shadow that looks as big as a cat going past. Now they'd warned us about this. They said, if you're going to come across Jaguar, it's going to be at night when everything's quiet and they feel comfortable enough to investigate, you know, their curiosity about what's there. and they said to us at the beginning, you're not lifting your hammocks high enough, higher, higher, higher.

Chris Watson (46:20.974)
And we said, well, what's the issue? You know, why do we have to, I can barely get into my hammer if you want it so high up. And he said, well, listen, if Jaguar come, they're going to go underneath. You're going to feel it. You're going to see it. And lo and behold, there you go. It was phenomenal. But I mean, we saw a, a, a half the eagle that had obviously tried to catch a snake in the river, a fairly substantial size snake, or on the banks of the river, probably. And the snake had fought back and curled around it and it was attacking and biting it as many times as.

So they were locked in this battle of wills and the snake was slowly trying to drown the happy eagle the happy eagle desperately trying to get these broken wings out and it was just I mean the stuff that you see there is just raw and phenomenal. It sounds phenomenal. It sounds phenomenal. What was it? What the noise is like at night? Was it was it alive? Yeah, if you're not used to that it takes a while. I mean eventually it becomes your lullaby that you crave.

to go to sleep. But it's just loud. It's wild. I mean, even during the day, but at night time, the one thing that really got me is I could never get used to, I can't remember what ants they were called, but they're pretty substantial size. I had sort of square heads, massive things. And, and there would obviously in the jungle, you've got a load of dead leaves underneath your hammer, you know, it's constantly falling and raining down. So whatever does go past you, you hear the little scuttles and you know, watching about ends.

All of a sudden, it's just wave of...

suddenly comes a new thing how it absolutely shit your pants something of a decent size under there and it's just like I remember. What the hell is that? And then Sean you're torched next to you and it's just thousands of ants just journeying their way through the jungle it's phenomenal absolutely phenomenal. There's probably things that you've come across have not been actually documented or discovered it's that it's that alive isn't it? Yeah well there was sort of gecko very

Chris Watson (48:21.294)
leafy raggedy looking gecko that James had found and he said, listen, we know this place inside. I've never seen this in my life before. I've, I've got a few books that I've managed to get my hands on and I've never seen this in any of them. I think this is a new species. So we're managing to document that for him and I should actually follow up and find out. So yeah, for them, it was a journey of exploration too. And you know, they were, they were also looking for signs of people coming illegally through the border from Brazil to try and

scout for minerals and the threat of people doing that in their region. So that was a really beautiful thing that they got out of it too. So completing the Essay Kibo then, how was that and where did it actually end? Because I know it comes out in Atlantic but did you come out into a village or what was it like completing it? No, it goes right past Georgetown, really really close to Georgetown.

It widens out to the point that you can barely see the inside. It's vast. It is absolutely vast by the time you get to the end. And yeah, it just got more and more built up as we got closer to the coast. So by the time we were on the coast, I mean, there was no wilderness really around us whatsoever. So it was an odd ending really. And we got out into the ocean and then went...

east along the coastline a little bit before we came out. And so we were out there in the waves and the roughness of that, which was beautiful and a bit of stormy conditions. But yeah, it was about halfway through the expedition. We left that true, pristine, untouched wilderness behind. And slowly, yeah, civilization. I mean, we went past what used to be, I think, the largest or the second largest mine in South America and had been long since abandoned. And it was just as

vast scar on the landscape. And it was just, it was pretty heart wrenching actually, because you look up into the trees right next to it, looking down into this vast mine were howler monkeys that just sitting up there with the families and you just think, wow, it's just this degradation of their wilderness is phenomenal. And actually, you talking earlier on just as an aside about the sounds in the night, one of the most freaky things is howler monkeys. I don't know if someone's listening to this and has never heard them before, please.

Chris Watson (50:44.846)
Google it and tell me that at four o 'clock in the pitch black in the middle of the most remote jungle with no escape Possible and you hear that tell me I'll have a look at that afterwards I think I know I think I know but I'll have a look I think just anything I mean I've been in the jungle once and in Vietnam and and that was alive and probably nothing like you know

what you've experienced, but it's just that noise. You just feel that crescendo. It just comes out and it gets a kind of odd, odd thing, like you say, but it becomes a bit of a lullaby after a while. But yeah, when you hear a random noise you've never heard before, you do shit yourself a little bit. Yeah. I think the jungle is one of those places where you just have to accept that you this pink, fleshy, hairless thing walking in the unhearing through that every single critter.

once a piece of. The hunter becomes the hunted very quickly as soon as the sun goes down. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. So, so I mean, that's a phenomenal achievement. It really is. How does that, because obviously the, so I'm jumping ahead a little bit. So first man out with Ed Stafford, Tai Wan, you're doing that solo because that's quite jungle terrain as well, wasn't it? How does it feel doing

a team expedition versus going and doing that solo and then in a competition essentially with Ed. Yeah, so I'd started out doing, you know, in the early days I tried to do a few solo things like the temp swim and I really enjoyed some of the, you know, I'd cycle across the Narmuk Desert solo on a flat bike, some of the most arid, remote and in hospital regions on the planet, baking, searing heats and I love that. I love that.

I was in my 20s and it was really important to me to do a couple of things that I was able to prove my limits to myself. And I think that a lot of people say, you know, well, that's just selfish. That's just, you know, going out and doing something for no particular decent reason. It's not about anything except you. And I say, actually, if you are younger or starting out in something, go for it. Absolutely go for it because you need to.

Chris Watson (53:00.398)
sometimes go through the personal development and growth. And it takes sometimes being out there solo. What I love about solo is that there is no other person around you to lift you up, to bounce an idea off of. You have to learn to trust in your own decision -making because no one else is there. And that is something that most of us are not used to on a daily basis because we constantly have this sounding board.

No matter who is it, whether it's family, whether it's friends, our work colleagues, it's constantly there. And so it's, it's a little bit nerve wracking, especially when you're in situations that, you know, your, your life is at stake and it is quite, you know, extreme to then learn to have to trust your decision making in that environment where it's not just a game. It's not just a project. It's not just, you know, something small that you can easily get yourself out of.

And that probably is one of the things that developed me most as a mature adult now, looking back. And I think that inner confidence came from that space. So I'm all for people wanting to be a bit selfish and go on a solo journey if you want to, because that is your space to develop yourself. And we all know the ripple effect once you've developed yourself, you're in a good space and give more to other people, your glass is full.

that ripple effect goes on indefinitely because you affect people who affect other people who affect other people. So I'm all for that. I don't think it's that selfish. That's right. That's amazing. The theme dynamics are phenomenal because I, you know, I love them just as much because you go on these journeys with individuals that become lifelong friends. It's a story that forever you will be able to pick up a phone or go and sit around a fire and laugh your heart out. It's stuff that nobody else will understand because...

You cannot explain what happens and how it feels on these expeditions. You grow and forge these friendships that are so deep so quickly because you're in such an extreme environment under so much pressure, pushing your physical and mental limits and emotional limits to extremes. You're exposed. You mean, we've done literally would walk up to Laura and I in the jungle and say, hey, guys, I'm so sorry to disrupt your bathing, you know, washing off in little paddle pool next to the.

Chris Watson (55:20.27)
next to the water of the Essequibo River and so that, but I just have to ask that I've got a tick somewhere. And I think I've got the body, but I think the head's still stuck there. And we're like, pretty, no worries. Like, let's, let's help you. It's, it's just, it's in my hoo -ha. In her butthole. You know, you've actually been through that with someone, you know, A, they owe you a hard favor. You're gonna do that and get it out.

But you become so close, you're constantly like, as soon as someone picks up the shovel, you know, they're going for a poo. It's just, there's nothing left that needs to be hidden whatsoever, you know, and you get so comfortable, so know each other so inside out. And that's why it's quite a shock for people coming back off of these expeditions is that reentry trauma into normal, you know, back into the civilized world and normal life is that everything's so over.

thought about and kind of, you know, things are so pristine compared to what you've experienced in that raw environment and that relaxed environment. And yeah, it can be quite, quite difficult, actually, that reentry process. So I'm all for teams too, because I just think that you can achieve most of the time a hell of a lot more when you've got this, you know, any collaboration around you, because I've got my skills, Pip's got her skills, Laura's got her skills, and they're so vastly different to each other. The YY.

just leverage so much for us. and so, yeah, you go a hell of a lot further with that. And I think it's really exciting because for me, as I said, I'm a sponge. I want to learn, learn, learn. I need new things in my life. I'm a bit of a screw loose nuts as well. So weird places, but for me, the whole point of life is not to get to an end goal. It's to continuously upgrade your fascination and your learning and your hard skills and your passion about things. And that.

that's not supposed to end. And for me, those team environments are an endless wonder to pick at, you know, with people bringing stuff to the table. So I love it. Although it can explode. Yeah. You know, there's, there's a thing about team dynamics and if they, if they're not chosen well, it can go extraordinarily long. And especially when you stuck out somewhere for weeks and months at a time with somebody who literally the way that they sip their drink.

Chris Watson (57:42.542)
rubbed you up the wrong way eventually. It's hard. You guys are getting away from that. But yeah, so I think that there's, there's call to try and craft the right teams. But at the same time, yeah, it's just phenomenal what very can bring to the table. So it's amazing that you've shared all that experience and just all still best of friends after that, because you think a long inhospitable journey, you might be ready to drown each other.

Well, they would pray quite a few times that we were ready to drown each other. Yeah, we were all up against our own battles. You know, I just come out of a very, very long term relationship. And I was a little bit like a catty that had been pulled back for a very long time. And then suddenly I left the relationship. I was just a million miles an hour. I wanted to do everything, learn everything, go everywhere, you know, and it was I was just relentless with that and probably hugely annoying. Laura.

had a six month old boy, a baby that she was leaving for two to three months, which was, I was not a mum at the time. I didn't understand that. So I wasn't able to empathize with her heart wrenching period of time that she was completely cut off from being with her child. And that was, that was a hard decision for her to make to do that. You know, and she struggled, she battled immensely with that. And, and PIP had her own stuff that she was going through and things that she wanted to achieve. So we were all.

really had our own mental health things that we were trying to overcome and processes that we're trying to to get a grip on during a really exhausting but wonderful journey. And so, yeah, it was it's a bit through that, you know, of course, you're going to have these friendships at last, but we did want to drown each other a few times. It's a phenomenal achievement. It really is considering. I'd imagine that the personal

conflict and turmoil like you say, leaving a little one and just, you know, it's a long time to be out there and it's a long time and such an uncharted terrain, but it's phenomenal that you just stuck together as a close unit, especially with the indigenous tribes. I mean, that, you know, it's really something. Yeah, it'll stick around with no memories for quite a long time. Something I wanted to ask, as you kind of touched on it earlier about testing.

Chris Watson (01:00:08.622)
limits and personal limits. So we can skirt it over the Namib adventure, what was it, a thousand kilometres or something like that across the desert, 50 degree heat. But there's a story where you fell unconscious at a lion kill or something. Did I read that right? Yeah, stupidity is where that source of that story. Yeah, so this is, I was all about trying to at that time.

figure out where the line was, because I'm very aware that, you know, scientists are proving that in general, when it comes to our mental and our physical capabilities, we are on average using only between 40 to 60 % capacity of what we are capable of. But, you know, through evolution and our survival instincts, you know, we have this, our brains tell us to stop well short of that to prevent injury.

to prevent any social issues that asked you from a community. So we have all of these things mentally and physically that we think we've hit that absolute limit, nothing left in the tank, zero on fumes, gone. And there's always more. And so I was trying to figure out where that was, what percentage was I? Where was 100? I have no idea, where am I at?

And so yeah, you're right. It was 50, the peak temperatures were around 50, 49 to 50 degrees Celsius. So, you know, looking out onto this vast, vast wilderness where, you know, there was quite a lot of canyons and it was really rocky. It was really arid, semi -desert region in the early stages of it. And I remember looking out and seeing one tree, one lone tree of this entire 360 that was around me because I was up at an advantage point. And.

Yeah, I went there and actually it turned out that the entire thing has this ticks that when you vibrate above the ground, trying to sit down or move underneath the tree, the ticks emerge from the ground by the dozen wherever you sat or located. So there's, there was no tree to really use. So anyway, I'd been pushing, pushing, pushing. The country had been suffering from drought for quite a number of years and I hadn't done my research and found out that most of the water sources I was trying to rely on were dry.

Chris Watson (01:02:26.702)
So I was very much pushing my limits and I was suffering badly with the temperatures and I was in lion territory, in lion territory there in the conservation regions you need what's called a lion warden.

Otherwise you aren't allowed permission to go through because you need to be kept safe. And so he was in a Land Rover probably between five and 10 kilometers ahead on, I think about five on average. We were chatting between the crew with me on radio, trying to give any updates on where the locations of those Lion Prides were. And it was late in the afternoon and I'd been pushing hard the whole day dehydrated and coming through a canyon and I got the call saying, hey, Ness, Ness.

Come in yes, he said listen you're gonna come out of this last bit of the canyon here And you're gonna go down the river bend and you're gonna turn right see a corner there Go up onto an open plane and you're gonna see on the right a fresh line kill signs of it because there are vultures and Jackals around there. So we believe that the line kill happened last night. We don't know where the lion are. So just be aware There'll be somewhere around there because they're not gonna leave that kill. They'll

coming back to it and take as much as they can from it. So the last thing you said to me before we left that day too was that I look like a very tasty antelope on my bicycle. I was like, pray be that they are fat and full and fed and have no interest in me, but I panicked. I didn't have any sense, you know, and this is the difference between fear and panic. Panic, fear is wonderful.

It keeps you alert, it keeps you aware of your surroundings and it tells you about something that you need to address. That's fine. It's really important to have that panic on the other hand is this uncontrolled, you know, everything just scatters, your brain scatters, your ability to function completely disintegrates. And that's where I found myself. And I've tried to get out of that canyon region and pass the lion kill as quickly as possible, which I should not have done because that pushed me beyond my ability.

Chris Watson (01:04:29.454)
ability to stay conscious and 200 yards from that line kill I lost consciousness. I must have not been responding on the radio and the line warden had instinctively come back to try and find me and locate me and he had found me apparently just wandering around aimlessly with no real awareness or consciousness just literally in a complete daze and so yeah he just packed me straight into the back of the the Land Rover and I had to take a day out to recover from that, get shots and

they shuffled all those vitamin B shots in my ass trying to give me a little bit more energy, make me up, hydrate me and get me back out there. But yeah, it was that was ego. That was panic. That was a lack of experience that was just me being absolutely daft. And, you know, it's, it is the only, I don't mind that it happened because the only way you go through these learning processes to become a bit smarter is to cock up and make mistakes. That's, that's how we grow, isn't it? There's no innovation without that. Yeah.

So exactly. And it's it makes for a great story that you're still you're still you as well. Thankfully, thankfully. Yeah, well, I'm here now. So it's funny. That's you know, it's phenomenal. As much as I'd love to pick your brains on it all evening, I'm just conscious of time as well. Nice because we have been on for. We need a second run of this. We need another session. We do. We do. Yeah.

And I'd love to chat to Laura as well. I know she's a busy family, she's in Costa Rica as well, I follow some of her stuff. She has got a phenomenal story, absolutely phenomenal. You must, must, must speak to her. And Pip 2, she's just incredible. Absolutely incredible. Well, maybe you can, you know, all being well, can give us an introduction and maybe we can get the three of you on actually and they'll do a bit of an adventure challenge. That sounds awesome.

So, I quickly just wanted to touch on very quickly just about the Rhino Horn trades, because you're doing a documentary on that. Is that okay to say it? I'm sure that is public, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've been thus far deliberately self -funding that, because I wanted control over what was filmed and how it was filmed. So yeah, that might change soon to include others to collaborate, but yeah.

Chris Watson (01:06:55.15)
Absolutely. So when can, when is it we're expecting to see that? Are you still, are you still filming it at the moment? Yeah. Yeah. So this one's being done a little bit differently. It's actually being filmed and documented over several years. the reason is I, there's, there's quite a lot of documentaries that are created about elephants and rhino and conservation. And you got to try and think about how do you tell an impactful story differently to what's been done before? Because.

I want this to transform how people see it and therefore transform their level of involvement in supporting the cause and really, you know, just having a story that's tangible to them, that's relatable. And so, yeah, there's quite a few things that I'm doing. One of the reasons for that is to understand the changes that are happening over an extended period of time in person with those same characters involved. So their journey through that.

We're also including quite a few interesting things. So one of the next stages is me going through armed anti -poaching training because I am Samafican, so I can hold a gun there. I can be trained up for that. And so that will allow me to get on the front lines with the anti -poaching guys and film for real. Otherwise, you know, having spoken to them before, they just didn't want to have legitimately any liability.

with bringing the likes of myself on the front lines there. Also, I want to understand their world. And to do that, I need to get my own boots down on the ground and I need to do that with them side by side, go through what they go through to understand that. Because you get a lot of anti -poaching rangers out there who, they don't get credit really for the level of work that they do. They're out there in Namibia, for example, Northern Namibia with the Black Rhino. Guys will go out for weeks at a time, solo or in pairs.

literally with everything that they need to survive with them and foraging and hunting from the land, acting as a bodyguard for particular rhino. So they live in this remote rough wilderness in Big Five territory with the lions, with the hippos, with the crocs, with everything, doing this extremely hard job, having to be on high alert at all times to do the job effectively. And so, you know, to really understand what people like that go through is otherwise it's just another story.

Chris Watson (01:09:17.102)
just, it's a far flung story from another part of the world. So to try and understand that better, I need to be that host that goes into it personally. So yeah, it's for many reasons. I mean, it's following the chain all the way from South Africa, which is the last final stronghold for rhino really in the world, all the way to the Far East. And there's, there's a lot to be included and a lot of investigative stuff. And so it's time. It's going to take time.

So I can't give you an answer as to when. I understand that. It's an amazing piece of work. So I will be following along that closely. So hopefully maybe catch up with you in due course when that is ready. Because there's a lot of stuff that I'd really like to ask that we don't have time for at the moment. But yeah, thank you for doing that as well and raising awareness and shining a light on that.

I had a guest, I'm not sure if you know Dr. Niall McCann. Yeah, yeah, not personally, I haven't met him. Yeah, so he's doing some fantastic work in the National Park rescue as well. I was talking to him fairly recently as well. So it's something I'm quite passionate about myself. So, yeah, thank you. So as we're kind of coming up on time then, two closing traditions that I've got on the show.

one of which is a call to adventure. So an opportunity for you to give a suggestion to listeners and viewers for something to do a bit more adventurous. And it doesn't need to be descending the S of kibo. It could be anything micro or macro. So what... come on. What about the Congo River? Go on. So what would your call to adventure be, Ness? So I think that I would do this a little bit differently in the sense that...

All of us have our unique adventures, our unique passions that we want to do. I don't care if they are literally trying, imagining and wanting to go to learn to climb at the nearest climbing center, or if it's on a medium or big adventure, I don't care what it is. But my call to everyone is to say, the hardest thing about adventure and exploration and all of these projects is getting to the start line. We just don't get to the start line because it seems...

Chris Watson (01:11:38.094)
insurmountable, it's so complex, we don't have time, we don't have money. So my call is to ask people to whatever that thing big or small is, make it so that there's no plan B. So book that course. Book the flight out even though you don't have the logistics or the funding in place. Just make something so that there is no way of turning back from what you have committed to. Just make that one hard commitment that forces you to go ahead with it. I don't care how big or small it is.

get to that start line. Because once you're there, momentum takes hold. You'll be fine. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. And then finally, the final section is a paid forward section. So an opportunity to raise awareness for any charities or worldly causes or projects. So what would your paid forward suggestion be? So mine, I think would be quite simple on this. Obviously we've just had a little

know, tip of the iceberg of what the the rhino investigation stuff I'm doing. I would really love it. Instead of just trying to find a cause to give money to these guys that are out in in southern Africa across the world doesn't matter where it is who are doing anti poaching or you know, trying to be conservation guardians for wildlife, especially in southern Africa. If you could find a way to get things like boots out to them.

equipment, clothing, shoes, that are military, you know, army grade stuff out to them. Because that is the big thing, you know, they're trying to do one of the most difficult jobs on the planet in terms of the length of time that they're out there, under the conditions that they're out there, literally trying to do survival of foraging out there, as well as look after these wildlife. And if you don't have the right equipment, that is just made a thousand times harder. So if you could...

just do a little bit of Googling and find where there might be anti -poaching units that you could just literally find a way to get a group of people and send some army equipment out there. Boots, clothing would be fantastic because they can do their job so much better with that. Excellent, excellent, very, very worthy. We'll get that listed in some details and put into the show notes as well. Thank you, thank you.

Chris Watson (01:14:04.046)
Thank you. I really enjoyed this before I forget because I'm a little girl will be very mad. So this book, my little girl Nina, Nina she's called she's only eight years old. But her favorite story is the Vivian surviving a rhino charge in Africa. I love that. Mine's is the Ese Kibo obviously. But

So I'm not allowed to say that's my favourite, right? So what is your favourite, what's your favourite story? That is so hard to choose. I quite like the astronaut in space one. The reason being, you know, he's coming down and just a brief one for everyone. He was coming down in the little, what do you call it? The Soyuz, the capsule? Yeah. Soyuz, capsule. Yes, when they come down to Earth. Flying through flames going...

Then the shoot comes up and he lands with the thumb back down to earth. And he's been up in space now looking at back at the earth and the universe. And he sees no manmade borders from up there. So he becomes this humanitarian. And when he lands down on earth, he sees, I think it's a rock, a blade of grass and a flower next to him. And the first thing he thinks to himself is I'm home. But he's in Kazakhstan or somewhere across the world. He's from America. That's not his home like we think of it. But.

you know, for him just saying that meant home. Planet Earth is home. It doesn't need to be in his backyard in America. And that sort of humanitarian perspective, really, I love that. I thought that was fantastic. Amazing. It's Ron Garan, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we kind of worked together quite a few years ago. So, yeah, he's a fantastic human being. Absolutely fantastic human being. Interesting. Interesting story. So I've been trying to get Ron on this show and he's...

But recently I actually interviewed Terry Burkett who is another astronaut who was the commander of the International Space Center for yeah and he was he had a similar story so yeah you've reminded me I need to go back to Ron because he did. He's got Ron on he is he will change your perspective on things forever these just give you this paradigm shift in how you see the world. He's a must.

Chris Watson (01:16:23.822)
Ness, this has been absolutely brilliant. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ever so much. So where can... Okay, well have a great weekend, please. We need to catch up after a little bit of time on the project. Absolutely. So where can people find out more about Nest Night before we wrap up? Obvious places, Instagram, search Nest Night, or go to the website, nestnight .com.

You'll find everything. Excellent. Excellent. Have a wonderful evening. And we'll bring it to a close. Thank you so much. Speak soon. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit AdventureDiaries .com slash podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to

cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul. Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.