1:59

I get out the apps and I have a look

2:02

to see what kind of hikes are in the area. So

2:04

today I've got to do a book

2:06

event. And so I figure I'll

2:09

max the situation and do a hike in the area

2:12

and I just see what's around.

2:14

And I found this hike that

2:16

I've wanted to do for a while. And

2:19

it's goes around Ellersborough

2:22

and Chequers Court, which I understand

2:24

is one of the houses for the prime minister. I'm

2:26

interested to see that, but what I like about

2:28

it, it's circular. You start and

2:31

there's no going back, especially if you

2:33

get halfway, you might as well keep going because

2:35

it's just as long to walk back the other way. So

2:38

I like that sense of a journey. My

2:41

favorite is a point to point, particularly

2:45

where you get off at a train station and then

2:48

you walk to another train station. There's this

2:50

wonderful sense of completeness

2:53

and around the world I've found websites

2:56

and apps where they specialize

2:58

in point to point train train hikes. So

3:02

that's my absolute favorite. Actually my absolute

3:05

favorite is pub to pub walks

3:07

where I can stay overnight and I have

3:10

spent inordinate amounts of time researching

3:13

best pub to pub hikes around the

3:15

world, many of which

3:17

do exist here in the UK. So

3:20

probably

3:20

done about three or four in

3:22

my time, but I've never been to this

3:25

area, to the Chilterns. I

3:27

think it's called an area of outstanding

3:29

natural beauty, which I think is a draw

3:31

card in and of itself. That's

3:34

sort of the ideal scenario pub to pub

3:36

pub me along the way that today hike and

3:39

it makes me feel expressionist.

4:01

I have done, I would

4:03

say literally, I hate using

4:06

that word, but hundreds of hikes around the

4:08

world. So Jordan was wonderful.

4:11

Just sort of crisscrossing across Wadi

4:14

Rum with a Bedouin Shepherd for

4:17

five days. And it was mostly just for

4:19

his jokes. It

4:22

was, and I just love the desert. I love

4:24

being in barren landscapes where

4:27

there's this sort of crunchy realness

4:30

where you have to go and dig deep

4:32

into a different

4:35

type of reservoir of patience

4:38

and discomfort

4:41

with the heat and thirst

4:43

at times. It feels very original.

4:47

I've done a fair bit of hiking across the Australian

4:49

desert and there is nothing like sleeping

4:52

on the ground under

4:54

the stars. Again,

4:57

it sort of just feels so original.

5:01

So much about hiking is about finding

5:04

congruence.

5:05

Being out in nature, a lot of people say they

5:07

feel like they belong and they feel this

5:10

sort of, you know, feelings like

5:12

awe and so on. And there's so much science

5:15

now that explains why that is the case.

5:18

So one little study

5:20

that I really like is the idea of so

5:23

much in nature involves fractals, these repeated

5:26

patterns. So the petals in a flower,

5:28

the concentric circles

5:32

in a tidal pool, tree trunks,

5:34

fern fronds, these beautiful repeated

5:36

patterns. And our retinas also

5:39

work to fractals. And when we

5:42

see these patterns in nature, there's

5:44

this congruence that happens in our brain where

5:47

there's a match up and that creates

5:50

this wonderful spontaneous sense

5:52

of belonging. There's

5:55

countless studies like that, but that one I think is

5:57

really lovely. It's

6:08

such a beautiful time of year to be doing this because

6:11

the flowers are still out and everything is

6:13

so green and there's

6:15

this warmth coming out of the

6:17

earth. And

6:20

so, yeah, it just feels very,

6:22

very alive. It's

6:26

so interesting, you know, coming from Australia

6:28

where there's this massive expanse and

6:31

the horizon is unfathomably

6:33

far away, especially if you get up with some height.

6:37

But in the UK, everything's brought

6:39

in closer, you know. The fields

6:42

are smaller. It's

6:45

sort of like a tapestry, you know, of

6:47

all different layers and details.

6:53

That kind of contrast is wonderful. I love

6:56

sort of experiencing different types of horizons

6:59

in different countries that I go to. But

7:01

always, I have to get up high. You know, I

7:04

want to see where I've come from and

7:06

I want perspective always.

7:28

Walking in nature, if we want

7:31

to reduce it to that, has been a little bit of

7:33

a really intuitive

7:35

coping mechanism for what has

7:37

been a lifelong journey

7:40

with anxiety. So

7:43

I remember my 21st birthday, I dragged

7:46

my friends up a mountain and that

7:48

seemed like a completely normal thing to do. But

7:52

yeah, just to sit up there and

7:55

watch the sunset, that was my 21st. But

7:58

since then... I've

8:00

traveled a lot since I was 18 and

8:03

really I travel

8:06

to hike, to see

8:08

the world on foot, go

8:10

to villages that maybe a lot of people

8:12

wouldn't get to. I use hiking

8:15

as a way to transport

8:19

and it's my way, yeah, of

8:23

seeing the world. So I travel to

8:25

hike and I hike when I'm, you know,

8:27

to travel. I

8:35

did a bunch of hikes over a three year

8:37

period following the footsteps

8:39

of philosophers and poets and scientists who

8:42

were trying to navigate a way

8:44

to live in a world that was, you

8:47

know, turned upside down for various reasons,

8:49

you know, from industrial period or from wars

8:51

and so on for my latest book,

8:54

This One Wild and Precious Life. And so there's a few

8:56

that I did there that really felt

8:58

like a wonderful excursion because I was

9:01

absorbing the mindset of these

9:03

wonderful writers. So whether it was Nietzsche, Wordsworth

9:07

up in the Lake District. But

9:10

I did an awesome one from St

9:13

Ives to Penzance along the pirate sort

9:15

of trail, along the coast there. And that

9:17

was a classic pub to pub one, really wonderful

9:20

pubs along the way. I would say that

9:22

when I head out for a hike, mostly I,

9:25

well, often I have a problem I'm wanting to solve.

9:28

So, you know, I used to do this

9:30

when I was a kid, you know, if I was stuck on a maths

9:33

problem, I used to be obsessed by maths. So I would head

9:35

off and walk and by the time I came back, I

9:38

would be able to solve it if not having had solved

9:40

it already. And this is something that writers

9:42

and philosophers and poets have done for

9:45

years. Nietzsche used to walk with a piece of

9:47

paper and a pencil stuffed into

9:49

the top of his walking stick. And

9:51

he'd pull it out and write down his thoughts as he went.

9:53

And a lot of thinkers and writers

9:55

have done the same thing. I

9:59

use voice notes. as I'm walking

10:01

along to track my

10:04

thoughts because there's this incredible opening that comes

10:06

about from walking. But the different landscapes

10:08

will also dictate different feelings.

10:12

Deserts will get me extremely

10:15

expansive and I

10:17

go deep into sort of the

10:20

point of life. Mountains

10:23

will get me quite euphoric and

10:27

often I have to dance back down the mountain.

10:30

You know I quite love that feeling of having

10:32

achieved something and then you're descending again

10:34

with something, having worked something

10:37

out along the way. I

10:53

think from having fairly

10:55

severe anxiety over the years, nature

10:58

has been my

11:00

grounding. You know it's kept me

11:02

very grounded and you

11:05

know I developed bipolar

11:07

disorder, what was called manic depression,

11:10

before there was much information on it and

11:12

much understanding other than to give you really

11:15

intense medication, which I

11:17

was on for a lot of my 20s

11:19

and I think I naturally had to form

11:22

ways of coping through

11:26

intuition and going into nature

11:28

just worked. It just gradually evolved

11:30

that way and you know

11:33

it's been a big part of my journey to work out why

11:35

and how. You know I don't want

11:37

to just accept my feelings around it, you know

11:39

we live in a world where we need proof. So

11:41

that's been a big part of it but as

11:44

I've delved into where the

11:46

world's at at the moment with all the kinds

11:49

of fragmentation, the

11:51

climate crisis, nuclear threat pandemics,

11:54

you know everything

11:57

that's going on which is the basis of my book. about

12:00

going on a journey to find a path through

12:02

it. And what was funny was as I was

12:04

writing the book, I was getting very overwhelmed.

12:06

I was feeling everything that so many people are feeling

12:09

about this topic or all the topics, all

12:11

the things. And to cope, I would take

12:14

off to go and hike, to be able to process

12:16

my thoughts and calm down and get

12:18

perspective on what really mattered. And

12:21

it was through that that I suddenly realized, and there's

12:23

a bit in my book where I actually described

12:25

the moment when it happened, and I went, oh

12:27

my God, this is the path. Because

12:31

when we love something hard enough, we

12:33

will fight to save it. There's all those wonderful

12:35

stories of the 50 kilo woman who can lift

12:37

a car off her child, you know?

12:40

And stories of sporting teams,

12:42

of the underdog, and they're the losing

12:44

side, and there's 30 seconds before the siren,

12:47

and they come out of nowhere with this kamikaze

12:49

energy because, you know, they

12:51

wanna win this, you know? They're

12:54

sick of being the underdog. So

12:56

human nature has that capacity. And

12:59

I think that when we go into nature, we

13:02

get that feeling of congruence, that sense of belonging,

13:04

the attunement. That we're

13:06

part of a flow, we're part of something bigger, we

13:09

feel held, we don't feel so alone.

13:12

Things make sense. And then

13:14

we wanna fight to save

13:16

this one wild and precious life. And

13:19

so that became the through line for me.

13:21

It was the through line for my own personal

13:24

journey with anxiety and

13:26

despair. And then I

13:28

realised it can become the through line for

13:31

everything, really.

13:38

I quite love the rhythm of these and the noise

13:41

that it makes as it opens and closes.

13:48

I do love it when

13:50

a bird or a dragonfly or a butterfly

13:52

follows you for a bit. You can sort

13:54

of almost feel a curiosity. I don't know if I'm

13:57

making that up, but.

15:59

We need to engage in

16:02

collective action and we need to come together

16:05

and heal that aloneness that

16:07

we're feeling

16:16

Okay, so We're

16:18

just coming through Just

16:21

have a shaded bit and there's a big field

16:24

and what do you know a? Wapping great

16:26

mansion, and I'm guessing

16:29

that is checkers Yeah

16:33

for sure I'm yeah,

16:35

I'm pretty sure that's checkers the country residents

16:38

of the Prime Minister I don't

16:40

know how lived in it would be pretty

16:42

nice spot. He's got a lot of sunshine

16:44

going on there He'd

16:47

be protected from

16:48

the wind and

16:49

A lot of serious tourists

16:51

get to walk around the edges of the estate

16:54

at this path actually winds its way around

16:56

the property It

16:59

goes along this little bridal path and

17:01

then back down to where we started

17:14

a Lot of people ask

17:16

me you know What's your favorite

17:18

hike and my answer is the next one because

17:21

I have not had a bad one You know it

17:23

can be pelting down with rain. It could be snowing

17:25

it can be like sideways Just

17:28

wind that you know blows me off the path, and

17:30

I will still have a fabulous time, so

17:32

I kind of like that testing

17:35

of the unknownness testing of uncertainty

17:37

in many ways hiking is a way of building resilience

17:40

for real life for the rest of life and You

17:43

know it's a fairly direct metaphor.

17:45

You know if you can go into a scenario

17:48

and accept whatever Situation

17:50

is going to come about and

17:52

knowing that it will be an adventure

17:55

you know My

17:57

dear friend Tim taught me this phrase

17:59

you know Sarah keep the camera rolling

18:02

which is to say just go and

18:04

see what happens next you know the story hasn't

18:06

finished and hiking

18:08

is so much about that one foot

18:11

in front of the other right from you

18:13

know planning out the hike is you

18:15

you get there you see what happens you

18:18

look at there always be a hike to

18:19

do it wherever you are in the world

18:21

and if you take the attitude that it

18:23

doesn't really matter how perfect

18:25

it is you know it'll it'll

18:27

unfurl as it needs to and the thing about hiking

18:30

is you just start you just start and you

18:32

start walking and the magic

18:34

you know it does its job

18:37

on you so you just start walking if

18:39

it's 20 minutes and you know I've looked

18:41

into the studies on this there's been 40

18:44

to 45,000 studies that

18:46

have been done on the benefits of

18:49

walking nature hiking mostly

18:51

done out of Japan and South Korea where they

18:53

take this stuff really seriously and hiking

18:55

is part of their their health

18:58

policies but

19:01

yeah mostly it's

19:03

just being out there in nature seeing

19:06

the patternings putting one foot in front

19:08

of the other hi good

19:10

morning it

19:14

naturally just does its job on

19:16

your physiology on your mental health

19:19

on the connections that go on in your brain

19:22

prefrontal cortex and

19:25

yeah it's it's actually a real relief to know you

19:27

don't have to do much more than that other than

19:29

just start walking very

19:47

appropriately we finished series 3

19:49

of the light bulb world with that simple message

19:52

just start walking

19:54

you might be amazed at the benefits it

19:56

brings you those around you and even

19:58

the planet So

20:01

that's it for Series 3 of A

20:03

Life More Wild. We'd like to say

20:05

a massive thank you to everyone who's taken

20:07

us walking over the past few months and

20:10

we hope you've enjoyed the company of astrophysicists,

20:12

wild swimmers, activists and more. We'll

20:15

be back next year, but in the meantime you can

20:17

always revisit Series 1 and 2 or

20:20

follow us on Instagram to see what we get up to at Canopy

20:22

and Stars when we're not wondering about our site.

20:25

Thanks for listening and we'll see you for Series 4

20:28

of A Life

20:28

More Wild. Thank

20:32

you.