BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks podcast.

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take

with them if they were cast away to a desert island.

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

I hope you enjoy listening.

Music Radio Music

My cast away this week is the naturalist, broadcaster and author, Steve Baxchall.

His BAFTA-winning programmes bring viewers of every generation closer to nature.

From kids series Deadly 60 via the spectacular Blue Planet Live to the pleasures of Springwatch.

Though if you've only seen the latter, you might be surprised to discover what this naturalist

action hero gets up to when he's not keeping an eye out for badges or filling you in on bird

life in the Chilterns. His big break arrived when National Geographic offered him the post of

adventurer in residence and he's been taking on the most grueling challenges and toughest environments

on earth ever since. He ran a marathon in the Sahara, has swum cage free with great whites,

Anacondas and crocodiles and earned a red berry by completing the Israeli Special Forces

selection course at the Negev Desert Bootcamp. Despite many near death moments, he broke his

back while rock climbing and almost drowned while kayaking in Bhutan. His appetite for adventure

is as keen as ever, though finding it is increasingly tricky. He says,

it's one of the things that sets us apart as a species, our desire to understand,

to push back new frontiers. There is an assumption that all of that was done years ago,

that there is no more exploration to be done, but there is. You just need to look a lot harder

...