Life in the Extreme: Global Adventures and Family Journeys

Sidetracked: Thanks for chatting to us Steve. So, starting from the beginning, did you have an adventurous childhood?

Steve: Very much so, yes. My mum and dad are very adventurous people. Both of them worked for the airlines. They took us all over the world to India, Africa, Sri Lanka, and South America. They’re still very, very adventurous people, even now. They brought us up on a small holding surrounded by rescue animals so it was an adventurous childhood. That’s why I’m doing what I do now.

Did you know from an early age that you wanted to work with animals and conservation, or was that something that came later?

I knew that I wanted to work in this field, but not that I wanted to be in television. That came later.

What’s your strongest memory of being with an animal? And do you have a favourite?

In Antarctica, I was diving beneath a jade-green iceberg when a female leopard seal came in and flashed her teeth into the camera, did barrel rolls and pirouetted around the cameraman and me. That was an experience that I will never forget. And my favourite animal is the wolf. I’ve had several opportunities to film them in the wild and they’re always very challenging. They have so much in common with the dogs that we share our houses with, but at the same time they are essentially wild. I’ve always been fascinated with them for that reason.

You had a few adventures when you were growing up. Can you tell us about your attempt to cross West Papua?

I was in my early 20s, writing a guidebook on Indonesia for Rough Guides. West Papua belongs to Indonesia so I decided to extend my trip there by three months and attempt to be the first person to walk across the country. It was a spectacular failure. I had some extraordinary adventures and crossed through outback territory, meeting people that were still living a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle. But ultimately, it was a step too far for me at that age. I was yet to learn all the skills that I needed to lead an expedition of that magnitude, and ended up turning tail and not completing it.

Soon after this, you went on to launch your career in television. How did that come about?

I thought I was going to be a writer. I’d published several books and articles in the national press, but I was struggling to even pay my rent. It was so hard trying to get by. Then I had an idea. I got a camera and took myself out to Columbia, which was, at the time, the most scary, windswept place I could think of. I spent about a month in the jungle, filming myself catching snakes and spiders and scorpions and living rough in the jungle. I made a film of it, and sold it to National Geographic’s television channel, then spent the next five years working for them as their Adventurer-in-Residence.