Original subtitles

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: A Perfect' Planet'.

Our secret weapon

is...a hovercraft.

And it's beautiful.

Argo! I can't feel my hands.

- Whose idea was this? - (LAUGHS)

(GRUNTS)

(WIND GUSTS)

I'm wearing two pairs of socks, two pairs of trousers, thermals,

thermals on top, two pairs of jumpers, three coats, two hats.

Er, so I think I should be all right.

Look what I just found under my mask.

(ROCKFALL)

Just keeps getting better.

Right in the wrong spot.

DAVID: To tell the story of our Perfect Pl net,

the team behind the series

filmed in some of the remotest places on Earth.

And few places are more isolated

than Ellesmere Island.

Here, the opportunity to film arctic wolves in the polar night

is cameraman Rolf Steinmetz’s dream of a lifetime.

ROLF: We have a lot of luggage.

This is a major expedition.

And there's one piece of luggage

that is very, very special to me. And it's...

It's actually this book

jimmy Brandenburg.

It's 30 years old. It's from the '80s.

And when I saw this book the first time,

it really triggered a dream

to become a wildlife cameraman.

And this was the shot.

It's unmatched to this day.

And when I saw it,

I just wanted to experience it myself.

To go to Ellesmere now

and to film wolves is...

...is my biggest dream coming true.

If I'm honest, I'm not just excited about this shoot,

I'm also a little bit anxious.

I haven't worked in minus-50 degrees,

and actually trying to find wolves

in darkness in the polar night is something

that has not even been tried by anyone.

Ellesmere Island lies just 500 miles from the North Pole.

In winter, the sun doesn't rise for four months.

The temperature regularly drops to minus-50 degrees...

...making it one of the coldest places on Earth.

ROLF: It's such an unreal place. It's like a...like a frozen dream.

There's so much space.

It's really like a different planet.

The wolves here can range for thousands of miles

across the frozen landscape.

ROLF: If you look at that landscape,

how vast it is,

you can imagine how hard it is to find the wolves,

a white animal in a white landscape.

One wolf has a radio collar,

but this kind of telemetry only gives a rough direction to explore.

The fjord is just to the south,

so I think the best plan is cut across on the ice and see if we can find a way up.

The team race towards the wolf's last broadcast position

and get lucky.

They find the whole pack,

and something never seen before.

This is so incredible.

(LAUGHS)

A herd of hundreds of arctic hares

are under attack from Rolf's white wolves.

(LAUGHS) Wow.

We found our...

...our pack of seven wolves,

in their full beauty, which is amazing.

Filming the new behaviour ramps up the pressure on Rolf.

Oh, God, the situation is just right in the wrong spot.

Rolf is well known for his self-criticism.

You're amazing, but I'm stupid, unfortunately.

Luckily, we had two cameras, because my camera didn't work at all.

The camera just froze up, figuratively and literally.

And I haven't really been able to sort out what the issue is.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

We'll take this camera back and thaw it out

and see if we can figure out what's wrong with it.

ROLF: This is a crazy start.

I mean, we...we...we couldn't... We...

We didn't really expect to film hunting behaviour.

And the first thing we film is hunting, so...

It's pretty amazing.

A day later, the wolves disappear

out of range of the telemetry.

Now I think we realise how hard it will be to find the wolves if we don't just

run into them.

And with this new reality dawning on the team,

they get a sudden reminder

of the dangers of operating in Ellesmere's extreme conditions.

While trying to get on the snowmobile earlier,

I slipped forward and hit the throttle and, of course, at this temperature

a plastic throttle lever is really, really brittle

and it just shattered and broke off.

So here we are, 200s from home,

and I no longer have a throttle

to make the sled move.

Fortunately, we have some crafty folks here with us

that have cobbled together a little bit of a throttle pull cord

that I can try to simultaneously yank on

while also holding on to the handlebar,

but it's a reminder, I guess, of just how easily things can go from being OK

to being bad very, very quickly.

(ENGINE STARTS)

ROLF: If the Kiddos don't work out there, it can change quite quickly

from everything's under control to out of control.

This day was really brutal.

We have no clue where the wolves are.

So that's a bit worrying.

The temperatures are dropping now

and it's serious.

That was well clone back here.

That was not easy.

And it was bloody cold, honestly.

Well clone.

My whole arm and shoulder's cramped up

through the last hour and a half of driving.

But it worked.

But there's no time to lick wounds.

After a few hours' sleep, the search for the white wolves will have to begin again.

Thousands of miles away in Mongolia,

an even greater challenge is about to get going.

There are few things more daunting for a wildlife film crew

than the prospect of finding an extremely rare animal in a vast area.

But that is the mission in Mongolia '5 Gobi Desert -

to film the wild Bactria camel,

an animal numbering less than 500

in a wilderness of half a million square miles.

We're all loaded up. We've got 40 cases of gear, we've got nine vehicles.

We're off, we're heading to the Gobi.

Setting off from the capital of Ulaanbaatar

is a five-day journey to reach the edge of the Gobi.

With so few wild camels left,

the crew know that just spotting one will be difficult enough.

So, with the odds against them, they decide on an unscheduled stop.

We've driven - I don't know,

what? - 600 miles from Ulaanbaatar, across the Altai Mountains,

and we are now at the beginning of the Gobi proper.

The wild camels are still probably about 200 miles that way

before we should start to see them, but we've stopped off en route...

...at this place. This is Mother Mountain, which is culturally significant

across the whole of Mongolia.

People come here to pray. And, interestingly...

...the mountain is shaped like a wild camel, with two humps,

so we have come to pray for camels.

And hoping for a bit of divine assistance is worth every step to the top.

So, we've said our prayers to the mountain.

Somewhere out there there's some wild camels,

so it's time to go and see if we can find them.

It's slow going,

but these camping trucks will double up as the team's home

for the next five weeks.

1,000 miles later,

the convoy reaches the Gobi and makes camp.

Wow. Well, we have woken up on our first morning,

and it's about an hour and a half before sunrise and, rather foolishly,

we let the fire go out last night, so it's a cool minus-20 in here.

Everything is frozen solid - toothpaste, hot sauce for breakfast,

even the PA’s pee bottle, so that's nice.

Outside, the Mongolian team are getting things warmed up...

...starting with their truck.

(ENGINE FAILS TO START)

The vehicle of our ranger...

...it is completely frozen.

The fuel line's completely frozen, so they've got a blowtorch

under the fuel line

to try and defrost it before we can get going, so...

Yeah... That's nice and safe, isn't it?

Meanwhile, assistant producer Toby is contemplating

another weather-related issue.

I've just come out to go to the loo.

And the toilet tent has blown away in the night.

I'm going to have to try and find it.

But in the meantime, it means that I'm slightly exposed.

(ENGINE STILL FAILING TO START)

(ENGINE STARTS)

Ay!

Finding a scarce animal in an area the size of Belgium

is clearly no small task...

...but impossible

without the help of local researchers.

Each day the team scour thousands of square miles.

It's a huge area and there's only 450 camels,

so it really is a bit like a needle in a haystack.

A truly enormous haystack.

- 450 camels. - (LAUGHS) Yes.

28,000 square miles. Easy, yeah?

And when scanning the horizon for camels, mistakes are all too easy.

Another bush.

A bush. Sorry.

Often there's not even a bush to look at.

- See anything? - Nothing.

Another hill climbed.

Another trail followed.

Another dead end.

Thankfully, the experts remain positive.

I hope we can see them soon. Yeah, yeah.

Two weeks since leaving the UK.

Just hoping that we haven't...been slightly overambitious on this one.

Getting slightly worried it might actually be impossible.

- Hmm... - Good support there. Thanks.

We'll get it, we'll get it.

- We'll get it. - We'll get it.

In East Africa, another team

are about to face an equally daunting assignment.

Lake Nation in Tanzania

is one of the world's roof most toxic bodies of water.

Yet once every few years, when the center dries out,

it's brought to life by thousands of breeding flamingos.

But to reach the colony out in the middle,

there's only one way to cross this soft soda sludge.

It's finally here. Our secret weapon

is...a hovercraft.

And it's beautiful.

Having shipped it from the UK, Darren is keen to test that all systems are go.

(WHIRS)

Getting it off the trailer is one thing,

but at least the hovercraft's fans that give it lift are working well enough.

(COUGHING)

(DARREN LAUGHS)

Come on, guys, what do you think?

We know she works.

But maybe some of these guys' lungs don't now.

125 miles away, on the edge of Lake Nation,

cameraman Matt Bernhardt is trying to camouflage his hides.

Those are our blinds,

so you can't camouflage those on the flat.

And the best thing that we can do

is actually turn them into a little cluster of flamingos.

It's pretty cool, huh?

Hide complete, all that's needed is transport out to the colony.

And after a ten-hour cross-country journey,

Darren arrives with his secret weapon.

And it's an instant hit.

It's the new local tourist attraction.

You like it?

The first job is to get the hovercraft into service and plot a route out

to the nesting flamingos.

The volcanic spring water is soon replaced

by a crust of razor-sharp salt crystals.

And for a machine that relies on a relatively delicate blow-up bottom,

that's a problem.

So here we are, out on the soda, and this area here

is probably the best example of how incredibly harsh this stuff is.

I mean, it is...awful.

So what we have here are the plates of dried-out soda

which form on the mud substrate underneath.

And it just batters the hovercraft.

We just cannot travel across this stuff.

It's impossible.

If I was to skim my hand across that, I would cut it to shreds.

But crossing the soda crust is the only way out to the colony,

so Matt and Darren have to hope for the best.

Unfortunately, the best position for his flamingo-covered hide

has a rather soggy floor.

Until the eggs hatch and the chicks F ledge,

Darren and Matt will use the hovercraft to commute out to the hide,

where Matt will spend the whole day,

then negotiate the darkness back to camp.

Each day, it's off at sunrise,

and then 12 hours simmering in the mud.

When the mud dries, it leaves massive amounts of salt,

very scratchy, nasty and aggressive salts.

But sitting shin deep in toxic sludge

is a price worth paying for the view.

And Matt is soon rewarded with the birth of a chick

right in front of his hide.

(CHICK CHEEPS)

(CHEEPING)

(CHICK CHEEPS)

The daily commute, however,

is taking its toll on the hovercraft.

And it's left the team grounded at just the wrong time.

- (ENGINE FAILS TO START) - Oh, come on!

On the other side of the planet, the Oceans team have just arrived

in the Galapagos Islands and are on their way to a quarantining facility.

Galapagos is home to many unique species.

And to keep it that way, the authorities

keep a very close eye on what people bring to the islands.

What they're looking for is any sign of any potential contamination,

any material in, like, the Velcro of a bag,

or sand or soil in the bottom of your shoe...

...basically, anything that could contain biological material,

because if any seed gets on the island and takes hold, then it could be

catastrophic for the wildlife...

...the problem being that when you've got 40 cases of kit,

all of which regularly travel the world to pretty much any conceivable habitat,

it's a very long and tedious process.

They're going to check your shoes, check your clothes, shake it.

- Wow.

They're going to go through my underwear.

- Yeah. - Good job it's all clean!

They will know all your secrets.

We've had all the bags checked.

There's no sign of any contamination, which is good.

But just to make doubly sure, now all of our personal bags, all of our clothes,

anything like that, basically sticks in the deep freeze for 48 hours.

Two days later, the team collect their equipment and clothing.

They are now ready to set out for Ferdinand Island,

the location of the shoot.

- "Come to the Galapagos," they said. - Yeah, right.

- "See the beautiful sunshine," they said. - Don't forget your umbrella!

Never leave home without it.

It's a 24-hour journey to the uninhabited and volcanic island of Ferdinand.

This seemingly barren landscape is home to two incredible lizards...

...the land iguana

and the marine iguana.

And there are two parts to their story

that cameraman Richard Colombo has wanted to film

since he first came to these islands 25 years ago.

And on A Perfect Manet, he got his chance.

Driven by powerful currents,

the cold Pacific Ocean slams into Fernandez’s shores.

The marine iguanas must brave these waves every day,

because these are the only lizards in the world

to get all their food from the sea.

Their journey through the big surf is what Richard and the team are here to film...

...but from underwater.

It looks fairly benign from the surface here, but underneath it's really shallow.

And there's all these really sharp rocks with lots of jagged edges.

So if we were ta ken by the wave,

it would cut us up really badly, I think.

- Whose idea was this? - (LAUGHS)

I'm a glutton for punishment. Did you know?

The waves are certainly punishing.

With these dangerous conditions,

extra protection is clearly needed for Richard and dive buddy Rafael,

so what better than surf helmets?

It isn't long before Richard realities what he's up against.

The relentless churning of the water makes it difficult to stay the right way up,

let alone film the iguanas.

In between the waves, the iguanas briefly appear.

But Richard barely has time to line up a shot

before the iguana disappears behind another wave.

In the violent surge, the iguanas have learned to hold on to the rocks...

...a trick Richard is quick to copy to avoid being swept away.

That, however, only leaves one hand to film with.

But with adrenaline carrying him through,

Richard is able to get perfect shots of iguanas in the surf.

I don't need to go to the gym for months after that!

Well clone, mate. Good job.

Back in Mongolia's Gobi Desert,

it's taken the team two weeks to spot their first camel.

But unfortunately, it spotted them first.

Very far away.

Poaching has made the surviving camels very nervous,

and once they start running, they can keep going for miles.

(WIND GUSTS)

And when winter winds kick off,

all signs of camel vanish.

So, for about the last 24 hours, we've been experiencing the Gobi winds.

It's been gusting up to mph all night,

and the temps have probably been down to almost negative-50 with the wind-chill.

We just have to hunker down. We can't film in this.

When the gale eases, the search reveals new hope.

We've got a load of fresh camel tracks here.

Ana' all tracks head one way -

towards the even more remote, mountainous Southern Gobi.

The team must decide if they should follow.

Do you think that landscape

- is likely to be better for us? - I think...

More camels and closer encounters?

What's your gut telling you?

Because of the wintertime, we need to see some snow to see camels.

To survive in this waterless desert, the camels depend on finding snow.

So, with none in sight, the team decide to try their luck

in the icy mountains to the south.

Sure enough, there's snow, and plenty of it.

Our route is taking us through

a sort of mountain pass, but the big trucks

we don't think are going to be able to get through these holes,

so we're filling the holes with rocks.

But even with road repairs, the terrain soon becomes too much for the trucks

and the team are forced to go on without them,

leaving them somewhat more exposed to winter conditions.

It's been down to minus-25 over the last week,

so a very thin canvas tent will be a whole new experience in the Gobi Desert for us!

I'm wearing currently two pairs of trousers, thermals, thermals on top,

two pairs of jumpers, three coats, two hats.

So I think I should be all right.

(WIND WHISTLES)

- All right, Eddie? - Oh, I'm terrific, yeah...

Really terrific.

Oh...

I'm all cosy.

I'm not. I'm cold. Really cold.

As Dyadic predicted, with snow come camels.

The signs are everywhere.

But having traveled so far, they can't risk anything ruining this chance.

The camels don't seem to like the cars, so now we walk.

We've been walking for about five miles now.

And hiking across this landscape, it really does give you

a new-found respect for the camels.

We've seen some camels way out on the plain here,

but in order not to scare them, John's going to head out on his own.

Yeah. Yeah, I can see him.

- He's, urn... He's... - Going to south.

Yeah, he's going to the south. He's just this side of the ridge.

- The camels go to john. - The camels are coming to john?

e Yes!

(WALKIES-TALKIE BEEPS)

JOHN: Can you grab the bags and come down to where I am now, by these bushes,

and we'll see if we can't slip down into the oasis?

This is just amazing. It's hard-fought,

but the reward is so worth it,

because right now we're about 100 metres away

from some of the rarest and hardiest mammals on the planet.

What a privilege.

DAVID: The team film behaviour very few people have seen...

...rare images of one of the world's most endangered creatures.

Once widespread across Central Asia,

this uninhabited desert is the wild camel's final home.

Were it not for Acadia’s team, it might have disappeared altogether.

But because of their work, we may yet save this icon of the Gobi.

In Tanzania, at the edge of Lake Nation,

the damage to the hovercraft is being assessed.

So, here's a damaged skirt.

Its blow-up bottom has literally been ripped apart.

We've trashed 52 of these that now need to be repaired.

It's like traveling over sandpaper.

So, what do you do when your hovercraft needs replacement skirts

and you're in the middle of nowhere?

Enter the local Maasai tribe,

well known for their needlework skills.

These guys do just the most amazing bead work,

you know, stitching beads onto rawhide, leather.

Yeah.

They should be able to do these pretty quickly.

There are only a few places in the world that specialist in hovercraft maintenance,

and Lake Nation is now officially one of those hot spots.

So if you're in the need of any hovercraft services, you know where to go.

Two days [a tel; and after a [of of serious sewing,

the hovercraft is ready to ride again.

So, these are the final product.

The, rem...Maasai women have been working for two days now

repairing around about 50 to 60 of these skirts.

You can see where the damage was, but they've clone a beautiful job.

And, hopefully, this is going to get Pole Pole back on the water again.

Pole Pole. That means slow in Swahili!

(WHIRRING)

That's more like it.

You look like the new... Tanzanian bobsleigh team!

(LAUGHS) Yeah.

And getting back on the lake couldn't have come at a better time,

as the chicks are now on the move.

(SQUAWKING)

Sadly, the new hide position is no drier,

though perhaps it's not quite as toxic.

I'm in a luxury palace of a blind, compared to the ones we had on the soda.

We have an enormous creche of

hundreds of thousands of birds just pouring into the lagoon from the salt mud,

just constantly chatting to each other.

The printed flamingos around the sides

relax the birds amazingly and actually I think

act almost like a magnet for them.

Without those, I don't think we stand a chance

of working from a blind quite like this.

But the massive creche attracts some unwelcome visitors.

Predators - marabou storks.

To do justice to the behaviour that will soon follow,

Matt knows he'll need Darren's help.

Mate, how quickly can you scramble out here?

- MATT: just firing up the drone now. - OK, see you soon. Bye.

These marabous, they know exactly what they are doing.

Soon, thousands of panicked chicks are on the move,

desperately trying to avoid the predators.

And it's a scene that will live long in Matt's memory.

We just had this unbelievable interaction

between the creche here and some marabou storks.

I mean, it was literally like...

...war had been declared.

I mean, that's one of the...the...

...the...most amazing, and frightening,

and freaky wildlife scenes

I've ever, ever seen.

And believe me, I've seen a few.

And few places are more challenging than Lake Na tron,

but, to quote Matt,

if you can deal with the acrid and sulfurous stink of the soda,

the stinging eyes and the chemical attack on your legs,

then you could be rewarded

with one of the greatest spectacles on Earth.

Back in the Galapagos,

with one iguana story in the can,

the team go in pursuit of another.

On the shore, [and Iguanas have to battle a very different force.

Each year, these dragons of the Galapagos

migrate up to the top of Fernandez’s active volcano...

...a journey of ten days across razor-sharp lava,

before descending into its heart to lay their eggs in the ashy floor.

It's this behaviour Richard and the team plan to film.

And the scale of the expedition

is one that's rarely been attempted in the Galapagos.

To increase their chances of success,

they've enlisted the help of Galapagos expert Tu DE Roy,

one of the few people to have been to the bottom of Fernandez’s crater.

To reach the top takes the crew ten grueling hours.

When they finally arrive on the rim, the experience doesn't disappoint.

I can't believe it.

It's absolutely awe-inspiring.

I just can't believe the iguanas

actually manage to navigate down these slopes into the bowl of this volcano.

More people have been into space than to the bottom of Fernandez’s crater.

But that is exactly where Richard and the team must go

if they're to film the nesting iguanas.

After searching for four days,

Tu/ finds just one passable route down, but it's far from easy.

Assistant producer Toby wants to be clear with everyone what is at stake.

(IN SPANISH)

The team heads out across the crater rim

to where Tu/ found the route down.

As they enter the lip of the volcano,

the sound of rockfall is all around.

(ROCKFALL)

Rockfall!

Regular earthquakes make the crater walls very unstable.

If something were to happen now, the team will be on their own.

Any rescue here would take days to organist.

Not far away, some iguanas are making their own descent,

disturbing the loose surface as they go.

[fa creature only a sixth the size of a person can start

a deadly avalanche of razor-sharp rocks,

what can a whole film crew do?

It's clear the crew are going to have to be extremely cautious.

Just keeps getting better.

On the steepest slopes, the equipment needs to be lowered with ropes.

With rocks falling all around, the longer they're on the slopes,

the greater the risk of an accident.

But when one misstep can start an avalanche,

hurrying is impossible.

Finally, the prize of the crater floor is in sight.

Look, just below there is where the iguanas are nesting.

We're very close to it now.

All that lies between them is a stretch of loose lava

that has cascaded down the slopes...

(FLIES BUZZ)

...sadly crushing one iguana in the process.

After a nine-hour descent,

they reach the crater floor.

We're actually in the crater now,

surrounded by these vertical walls.

It's been epic, but it was terrifying.

I just can't believe we really made it down here.

Sometimes I doubted that,

you know, we would actually make it.

And there they were - iguanas,

using the warm volcanic ash to incubate their eggs.

The word dragon has been used many times, but it does somehow bring up that feeling,

because you're in such a hostile, such an UN...inhuman kind of place.

It's so basic, so raw, so real,

and to them it is home.

We tried to figure out how many people have been here.

We've come up with maybe 30.

That's not very many for all of history.

RICHARD: My God, what an incredible place this is.

It's such a vivid feeling to be constantly challenged

by the forces of nature like that.

But they have to do this every year in order to survive.

I'll never forget, for as long as I live.

What an adventure! What an adventure.

On Ellesmere, with the wolves nowhere to be seen,

Rolf is determined to capture the beauty of the landscape with a drone.

We just can't get the thing in the air.

Um, the motors, they have physically frozen solid.

The team resort to manual manipulation.

- We're warming it up. - (LAUGHTER)

Its lights are flashing.

- Must be doing something good. - I think it's excited.

And the drone's not the only thing that's freezing.

Look what I just found under my mask.

A plan to warm up the drone with a hairdryer and duffel bag could mean

the world record for the coldest flight is still on.

Success!

Fingers crossed, it works.

Let's do it.

But the cold soon takes its toll on Jesse,

the drone operator.

Argo! I'm sorry, I can't feel my hands.

ROLF: I think we have to drift to the right a little bit more.

We can fly towards the big mountain. I can get the...

- Argo! - ...the big mountain, you know...

- Yeah. - ...like more centered.

JESSE Argo! My hands!

Come on, it's coming, it's coming. You just fly straight, Jesse.

But I'm losing my sensation in my hands, Rolf. Let's...

KIERAN: Roll on it.

-JESSE: Let's record. - ROLF: Come on, do it.

KIERAN: This feels like a totally different planet. It's really crazy.

ROLF: OK, and I think now we could do a forward view.

KIERAN: Yeah.

ROLF: Perfect, Jesse. You can go a bit slower. If you can, go a bit slower.

JESSE: My fingers are hurting.

Argo!

KIERAN: That looks really cool.

It's incredible.

With no sighting of the wolves in weeks,

the team decide to follow their prey instead.

Muskoxen.

And the tactic pays off.

The herd is being shadowed by the wolves.

(MUSKOX GRUNTS)

They are very close to a herd of muskoxen there

and something might happen.

Rolf is in the perfect spot

to capture the first arctic wolf hunt ever filmed in the polar night.

There was some good stuff, I think, if I got it in focus.

With the shots in the can, there is a magical experience for Rolf...

...one he's dreamed of since he was a child.

It doesn't get better than this.

Oh, my God. This is an absolutely...

...dream of a lifetime.

Honestly, you are the most beautiful living being I've ever seen.

Incredible.