Previews
Australian Wilderness with Ray Mears Episode 3 airs Fri 27 October on ITV
Ray Mears continues his journey around the country of Australia. This third episode sees him travel to the ancient Nitmiluk national park in the Northern Territory, a stony wilderness created before the time of dinosaurs.
He begins his trip in a helicopter, where he gets a good view of the vast national park, which covers an area twice the size of London. He continues his exploration on foot, following the waterholes, which leads him to a dry forest where he finds parrots and cockatoos.
Ray passes groves of acacia and spinifex trees before he reaches the Katherine River. At the river, Ray has an encounter with a giant water monitor lizard and watches kookaburras hunting. He follows the footprints of the lizard into the river gorge and encounters an olive python, which has 10,000 muscles in its body. Ray travels further down the river and meets park ranger Jamie Brookes. Jamie explains that during the rainy season the Katherine River can flow at a speed of 40 kilometres an hour.
On their journey, Jamie shows Ray some stone paintings of the Jawoyn people. The amazing climax of Ray’s journey is when he watches 50,000 flying fox bats and the crocodiles that are waiting to catch them.
Australian Wilderness with Ray Mears Episode 3 (of 7) airs Friday 27 October 2017 from 8.00pm-8.30pm on ITV.