Lost Land of the Volcano
BBC1, 1/3 Tuesday 08 September - 9:00pm - 10:00pm Last time it was Guyana, this time it's New Guinea. The BBC's naturalist-adventurers are off into the jungle again looking for weird creatures and awe-inspiring landscapes. Heading the team is George McGavin, the excitable insect expert who kisses beetles. Alongside him, Springwatch's Gordon Buchanan tries to film the island's birds. But the star is Steve "six-pack" Backshall, for whom no task is so dangerous it can't be done better with his shirt off. Backshall is a phenomenon - as happy scaling an underground waterfall as he is wrestling with snakes in the dark. His brief here is to explore an underground cave system - the kind of hellish-looking environment that has Backshall spluttering with delight. There's a scientific purpose, too, and they stumble on unknown species daily, as well as known ones that make your jaw drop. Before they've unpacked, they find a huge stick insect - more of a branch insect really - that has McGavin in raptures. Marvellous to watch.
radiotimes
