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ah
this is one of the most remote places
i’ve ever filmed in
i’ve ever been to it’s it’s really
miles from anywhere 100 miles that way
100 miles that way 100 miles that way
there’s nobody at all so very few people
actually come here
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getting into the colony has been the
biggest challenge of this shoot carrying
all of our kits
over to the colony it’s about two
kilometers away from where we camp
but we can’t drive right up to a sea
economy obviously
so we have to walk about 400 metres
clamber over a rock
and then our last passage is a crawl
which is right in the
in the thick of the colony there’s seals
either side and
we need to keep nice and low so that we
don’t start all those seals
seals rear up when they’re threatening
each other
something breaking the horizon or
standing tall is is aggressive to them
so that means that we’ve had to crawl
hands and knees
across it’s only about a 50 meter
stretch and it’s across sand it looks
quite benign
but it’s not at all benign
it’s not sand it’s gravel and bits of
seal bone
and it’s really fairly unpleasant the
first time we did it
my knee blistered and skinned and was
just
really very painful our delightful
camera assistant
rowan fashioned me some very good knee
pads which have been a godsend
but um it’s uh yes it’s not been the the
nicest commute to work
when the wind blows here it’s unreal it
absolutely has and it gets kind of
channeled between these two big
big rocks that we have to crawl past
it’s like
loads of little needles in your hands
and any any skin that’s
that’s exposed and it just really does
sandblast you as you’re crawling in
it fills your ears even trying to
breathe you inhale and you get a
mouthful of
sound and nose full of sand yeah it’s
horrible and the seals and the jackals
they’re just dealing with this
pretty much every day that’s what life’s
like here
it was pretty astonishing to watch seals
just hanging out on the beach lying down
with sand whipping right over them and
the jackals coming through the jackals
are small
they’re just getting a face full of sand
it must be grim
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the jackals are great they are they’re
really curious
they’re very pretty animals they’ve got
very beautiful
little faces fine features and lovely
markings on their back they’re beautiful
the hyenas are something else they are
probably the most eccentric animal i’ve
ever seen
they wear kind of bonkers striped
leggings
and a big baggy jumper they’ve got a
really bohemian look they’re like
nothing else
and they are huge they’re so much bigger
than the jackals i think they weigh
10 times as much something like that
it’s really impressive
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it is heartbreaking to see a to see a
seal pup
get taken when you first arrive you look
at the you look at the colony and there
are
there’s a sort of pup blanket all over
the all over the place
but you do start tuning in on an
individual
you you spot one and you follow him and
you watch him puddling around and
looking for his mom and calling and it’s
it’s hard it’s hard to watch
the other day there was a there was a
pup down on the beach and to be honest
it looked dead and there was a jackal
prowling around
and it went up to this just bag of
bones and uh gave it a sniff and
it didn’t nothing happened and it just
just left it just walked away
and as the jackal moved off and just saw
its chest
rise up and it had a little breath in it
and it was alive and it just either
slept through it or held its breath
it’s nice to think that it just held its
breath while that jackal came up um
and then he just stuck his head up
looked around
potted off so followed it and it went in
amongst all the different females
the females when it’s not their mum the
pop’s not sure it tries to look at
anything
female’s barking out again no go away go
away you’re not having any milk for me
makes its way around and then goes up to
another level you just
gonna get a shout out again um but it
was it’s mom it went up to him it’s like
with reunion and he got to suckle so
you know without that he had no chance
so it’s great it was great to get that
moment
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