06 November 2011
This Summer Treefrog was approached by ITV requesting their assistance with a new series the Adventurers Guide To Britain which will be aired November 22nd at 7:30pm.
The six part series will be hosted by Gethin Jones and Charlotte Uhlenbroek who are in search for places only those with the true spirit of adventure will experience. Our mission aim was to source a tall tree, with amazing views, teach them to climb it and secure themselves for the night in the hope to see Bats arrive for their early morning feed. Now this was a challenge we couldn’t resist.
Our initial task was to source a suitable location within South West, after many discussions between myself, Jez and the Production Team a final decision was made that Dunster Forest would make the perfect site with a majestic English Oak being the perfect tree looking out across pastures land, ancient woodland and the Bristol channel.
The big day arrived...... myself and Jez started the day by removing any dangerous hanging limbs and then proceeded to give Gethin a crash course in traditional climbing techniques, no ascenders or foot loops just good old fashioned body thrusting, whilst Charlotte took the opportunity to go horse riding on Exmoor National Park.
We went back to basics by teaching Gethin how to set the line in the tree by rope throwing and working up the tree having two ropes and multiple changeovers as he went till we were both at the top. I explained that a good competition climber could make the top of a 65ft tree in under a minute Gethin was going to need some practice! As a reward for reaching the top we taught Gethin branch walking, the art of making your way to the extremities of the trees canopy for a really good birds eye view.
Myself and Jez had been onsite since 7.30am and it was now getting on for 16.00pm without any real break. Gethin and the crew had to take advantage of a gap in the rain to get some more shots in the village. Whilst they were gone we set one of our tree boat hammocks in the crown for the purpose of surprising Charlotte on her return from horse riding so they could both do a bit of bat detecting.
Once snug in there hammocks both Gethin and Charlotte ready and waiting for the Bats, using a bat detector they were listening out for and with the aid of nightvision lenses hoping to try and see the pipistrelle bat which is the smallest of our native bats.
Finally at 23:00 they called it a wrap and we had to pack up deep in the forest with only a couple of torches!
As any of you climbers reading this will probably know when you have multiple climbers in the tree you have numerous lines in the tree all with cambium savers in.... you can guess the rest, the penultimate line got stuck in a tight fork and with the rope jammed at 65ft and both torches being used by the camera crew it was a nice ascent back up the top for me in the pitch black! All that was left was a good bye, high 5’s all round and the end of a 22hr day, 16hrs of filming and we were then informed by the production staff that should amount to roughly 4-5min of footage! Was it worth it? - Definitely
If you want to see Treefrog in action tune in to ITV19:30 first week in November for episode one and join us for our debut to prime time Television!!
Been there, climbed the tree, bought the hoodie...
