We took a boat to Molly’s shelter today. And the boat was called Nathan. Probably the best name you could give to anything…
 

One of the most annoying things about being on a shoot is the variety of workload in your day. At one moment you can be worked like a dog and the next you are sitting around waiting for something to happen, twiddling your thumbs like a bum in central park. There is no middle road – it is all to the extremes. And today was a case in point as we spent the morning waiting to see if an owner of sick dog would turn up. Eventually he did and then it was all go as we stormed in to film what Marc (the producer) said would be “a quick operation” after the long day of filming yesterday (we visited a place called the Butterfly Farm and it was absolutely brilliant – I fulfilled one of my life dreams to touch a sloth. It was so cute and reminded me of why they are such amazing creatures: a species that has evolved to sleep). This “quick operation” wasn’t anything of the sort and turned into a six-hour epic. Yes, six hours! Luke and Annie (an Australian vet volunteering for WVS) worked like troopers removing eight tumours from a female dog. And as I write this the two of them are still laboring away at the Amazon CARES’ clinic performing a surgery on a cat with a bad eye. They are both wonders to behold.
 

A sad day today as the dog with the tumours that Luke and Annie worked so hard to save unfortunately passed away whilst we were filming. They’d brought it with us on the boat, which we’re taking down the amazon, to make sure that it got the utmost care, but very sadly the surgery was too much for her. I feel deeply sorry for both Luke and Annie as they tried their utmost to help her. I guess that’s the downside to the job that sometimes you can try with all your might, but it’s still not enough.

Spent the late afternoon trying to film pink dolphins. They’re elusive little creatures, popping up here and there and we managed to see a few, but they were too quick for the camera.
 

After that we ploughed down the Amazon filming Luke and Annie on the boat. And were lucky enough to catch the most amazing sunset. See the pictures below, which speak for themselves:
 

 

The day of filming the manatees and I got to swim with them once the filming was all done. It was an absolutely brilliant experience and Marc (the producer), Annie (the other vet) and myself could have stayed in there all day. It has been a great trip and venturing down the amazon will stay with me for years to come.
 

Only two weeks ago I was in Peru sailing down the Amazon and now I’m in Nepal staring up at the majestic Himalayan mountains. What a crazy life…

So we’ve finally arrived in Pokhara – our base for the next ten days – and I can’t wait to begin filming. This trip is going to involve a lot of flying and we had a great 25mins flight this morning from Kathmandu to our destination. It was a bit bumpy but not too bad after I decided to put my ipod on loud and close my eyes. It blurred out the terror of it all.
 

 
The worst is to come though, a flight through the mountains to Jomsom. If you do a quick wikipedia search it comes up with the following:

“Jomsom Airport: the most dangerous airport in the world.”

Can’t wait. Apparently (and this is from a more reliable source than wikipedia) the plane can only fly very early in the morning to avoid the wind and when it lands it looks as if it is going to crash into the mountain before tipping over the edge onto the runway. As I said I can’t wait!
 

We all woke up slightly the worse for wear today as last night was spent out celebrating Simon’s birthday – an interesting night at a bar called the Busy Bee. Their house band played classic tracks like “Smoke on the Water” and “Paranoid” and we were all fairly impressed with the guitarist.
 

 
But despite this we all had work to do and spent the morning filming a veterinary training course for large animals and the afternoon filming the rescue and rehabilitation of injured birds of prey. It was a good day, although I think I shocked the rest of the crew by showing off my running skills when the camera batteries died and we had to get them from the bag. I sprinted over to the car and was highly energetic. It was probably the fastest I have moved all series…
 

So the day of the flight arrived and I was absolutely petrified. The flight was very early in the morning and for this reason we were all very tired, waking up at 5am. I was sitting in the departure lounge looking tired and trying to put the flight to the back of my mind when the guys came up with my Nepalese name, Sloth, because I looked like a sloth with little sleepy eyes and curled in arms. It runs in complete contradiction to my energetic display from yesterday, but all in all it’s probably quite apt. And sloths are also my favourite creature so I’m pretty happy.
 

 

 
The plane was worse than I hoped – it looked like it had been built by the Wright Brothers. But we arrived safely in Jomsom and it was actually an absolutely stunning flight with the mountains looming above us. The landing came upon us pretty quickly, but the pilot had it in control and we touched down smoothly. The only problem now is that we have to fly back in a couple of days. Oh no…
 

One the most stunning places I’ve ever been.
 

 

 

 

 

Today I ran back to the hotel and now I’m shattered. Not attempting that again.