The Final Countdown. Land Of The Lost Volcano.
Good Morning Peeps,
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Did you manage to catch the programme last night.
This time the crew were packing up their equipment and the base camp, on the outer slopes of Mount Bosavi..
Meanwhile, Steve climbed up the steep slopes and over into the crater of the extinct Volcano, where he began to set up a new camp.
The scientists intended to work from inside the crater to find out what animals had developed in there since the last eruption many thousands of years ago.
This crater is 9,000 feet above sea level and it is so large that it generates it’s own climate.
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While everyone else is going down into the crater, George travels by helicopter to visit the island of New Britain and see what he can find there.
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The volcano on that island is erupting and everything is blanketed with ash, the air stinking of sulphur.
It looks so desolate that you could not imagine anything being able to exist in such an alien looking landscape.
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Suddenly a Brownie Kite goes flying by the crater, pieces of red hot rock shooting up past it into the air, and George is fired with enthusiasm for the search for living creatures.
He digs out a massive Rhinoceros Beetle larvae and then a fully grown adult beetle.
It was rather magnificent actually, but I don’t think I would be in such raptures to have it crawling over MY hands.
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There are some hen-like bird, called Megapodes, which need the active volcano to hatch their eggs.
They bury these anything up to two metres down in the warm ash and leave them to incubate
They hatch out as very well developed young, who never see their parents at all.
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There are even large crabs scavenging about in the ash too.
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As night settles the red hot larva looks like a fireworks show. Very stunning.
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Soon though, it becomes to dangerous to stay there because huge red hot rocks are landing nearby, and there is too much danger of being injured or possibly killed by them.
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He decamps back to the rim of Mount Bosavi to see what insects he can discover up there.
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Steve, meanwhile, has made contact with a local tribe who live upon the mountain slopes.
The old men of this tribe remember the days when they were Cannibals, eating the flesh of their enemies.
They said that it was not a religious thing at all, it was just a source of valuable protein for them.
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Eventually they gave permission for the crew to enter the crater after everyone had walked under a magic stick.
So off they went.
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It was such a damp place, with clouds rising up from the crater bottom, and dangerously slippy underfoot, but they are fired by their curiosity about such an untouched place.
In quick succession they find a tree climbing kangaroo and weird stinging trees, which have little stinging hairs under the leaves.
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One piece of the film was gruesome to watch.
Steve finds some big vines wrapped around a tree and he breathes upon the surface with his hot breath.
Instantly there are lots ot leeches rearing upwards in search of a warm animal host.
Urrghh!
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We eventually see Gordon and two scientists, searching for creatures to classify and film.
He also finds tree kangaroos. Most appealing creatures with very long nails.
The most wonderful thing of all is that none of these creatures have had any previous knowledge of man.
When they are picked up and handled they are like pet cats. They just lie placidly in someone’s arms and get stroked and scratched in a most chilled fashion, perfectly happy to be there. It is magical.
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Soon everyone in camp is feeling very ill and exhausted.
They have had an outbreak of intestinal worms, so they all take medicine to kill parasites.
The camp is also full of those horrible leeches, feeding on everyone.
Nasty, nasty, nasty.
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George is still up on the crater rim filming insects.
He lays out a big white sheet and switches on a lightbulb at night to attract insects within a couple of hundred feet of it.
He is inundated with the number and variety of moths that arrive. His face and hands are covered by them.
He finds an unusual one which secretes a nasty tasting fluid from it’s thorax when it is agitated, so of course he picks it up and it gets annoyed, so it visibly secretes. So George tastes the secretion.
He is mad….and yes it does taste horrible!
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Gordon had left cameras in the forest to film whatever passed by, and they soon see what looks like a giant rat moving past in the night.
They go hunting for it and eventually discover The Bosavi Wooly Rat..
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It is huge, and so chilled out that it sits with them and just grooms itself placidly. Quite unafraid.
Gordon strokes and scratches it, he is totally thrilled and says that it is just like a puppy.
Amazing stuff.
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If you are interested you can now read more about Mount Bosavi in blog 1, and blog 2
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The scientists are desperately hoping that Mount Bosavi will become famous as a priceless resource, full of information and unknown species, just like a Garden Of Eden.
They are trying hard to have it protected before it is destroyed forever.
It is truly irreplaceable, and the loggers are only twenty miles away now.
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Are you paying attention Gordon, and the rest of you politicians worldwide?
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J.
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