Wildlife Cameraman, Gavin Thurston
The Travel Diaries
Holly Rubenstein
4.5 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2021
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, I’m joined by multi BAFTA & Emmy-winning wildlife cameraman, Gavin Thurston. Over the last 37 years, Gavin has worked on some of the most famous nature documentaries ever made, like Planet Earth and Blue Planet, most often with his long time collaborator, Sir David Attenborough.
Gavin, ordinarily, spends most of the year travelling, and he’s covered every corner of the globe - its deserts, polar ice caps and deepest sea.
He’s a fantastic raconteur, so this had to be a “long haul” feature length episode.
We talk about his incredibly close shave while filming gorillas in the Congo, what it’s like to be the very first person to see and film previously undiscovered new species of wildlife and film them, the terrifying time his submersible failed at 1000m deep below sea level, and what it’s like spending so much time working with the legend that is Sir David Attenborough.
Destination Recap:
- Durdle Door, Dorset, England
- Devon Coast, England
- Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo
- Hallo Bay, Katmai National Park, Alaska, USA
- Sumatra, Indonesia
- Costa Rica
- Antarctica
- Turkmenistan
- England
Gavin’s book ‘Journeys in the Wild - The Secret Life of a Cameraman’ is out now. You can follow him on Instagram @thegavinthurston.
Thank you to The Nautilus Maldives, your luxury bohemian hideaway in the Maldives, for their support today. A highly personalised, immensely private ultra-luxury island resort with just 26 beach and ocean houses and residences, where every experience is tailored to you. Where nothing is fixed and anything is possible. Where you are free to set your own beat; free to do – and to be – as you please.
You can find out more about The Nautilus Maldives here.
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To find out who’s joining me on next week’s episode, come and follow me on Instagram, I’m @hollyrubenstein - I’d love to hear from you.
If you can’t wait until then, there’s always the first three seasons to catch up on, from Michael Palin to Rick Stein, and Poppy Delevingne to Raymond Blanc.
Thank you so much for listening, and I’ll be back next week.
Today’s episode was recorded during the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown. It was produced by Holly Rubenstein.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. |
| 0:09.3 | I'm Holly Rubinstein. |
| 0:10.8 | I'm a travel and entertainment journalist and here each week I'll be speaking to a very special guest about the seven chapters in their life's travel diaries. |
| 0:19.9 | From their earliest childhood travel memory |
| 0:22.6 | and the first place they fell in love with to their hidden gem and what's at the top of |
| 0:27.3 | their travel bucket list. We'll be uncovering their adventures around the world and the travel |
| 0:32.3 | experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives. On today's episode, I'm so excited to be joined by the wildlife cameraman Gavin Thurston. |
| 0:42.9 | Gavin is a multi-Bafta and Emmy winner, and over the last 37 years, |
| 0:48.3 | he has worked on some of the most famous nature documentaries ever made, |
| 0:52.1 | like Planet Earth and Blue planet, most often working alongside |
| 0:56.1 | Sir David Attenborough. Normally Gavin spends most of the year travelling and he has covered every |
| 1:01.2 | corner of the globe. It's deserts, polar ice caps and its deepest sea. I'm sure you'll agree he is a |
| 1:07.9 | fantastic raconteur and so this had to be a feature-length long haul episode. |
| 1:12.8 | We talk about his incredibly close shave while filming gorillas in the Congo. |
| 1:17.6 | What it's like to be the very first person to see and film previously undiscovered new species of wildlife. |
| 1:24.3 | The terrifying time his submersible failed at 1,000 metres deep below sea level. |
| 1:30.0 | And what it's like spending so much time working with the legend that is Sir David Attenborough. |
| 1:35.5 | All that and much more coming up on the Travel Diaries. |
| 1:42.1 | Gavin Thurston, welcome to the Travel Diaries. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you? |
| 1:50.3 | I'm very well, thank you. Thank you very much for asking me. I look down the list of your previous guests and even if I'm at the bottom of that list, I'm extremely flattered that you've wanted to spend the time chatting to me today. |
| 2:01.4 | I have been so excited about this like we've been discussing. I have so much that I am excited |
| 2:08.0 | to ask you about. So I know it's really my pleasure. And I've caught you in a rare moment |
... |
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