Oar-inspiring at 95
Attenborough refuses to take easy way to shore
SIR David Attenborough is 95 years old but he is not ready to give up his oars just yet.
The naturalist and TV presenter insisted on rowing himself back across a Croatian lake after filming scenes for this weekend’s exploration of water plants for BBC1’s The Green Planet.
He was moved by the beauty he encountered at the Falling Lakes in Plitvice, a world heritage site, where waterfalls tumble into an aqua pool.
And after delivering an introduction he refused to let producers take the oars.
Show boss Mike Gunton said: “I was with him in the boat, partly because I’m directing him but also because he’s out in the middle of the lake and I’ve got to be careful that nothing goes wrong.
“So I actually rowed out to the location, to where we were doing the filming, and then he took over.
“When we’d got the shots, I said ‘OK David, we’ve cut. I’ll get in and row us back’. He said, ‘Oh no, no, that’s fine. I can row.’ We have this sort of competitive thing about who’s the best rower.
“I was a rower when I was at university so I think I’m quite good. But he wasn’t having any of it. He rowed us all the way back, about a third of a mile. I was very impressed because that’s not a racing skiff, that’s a heavy old rowing boat.”
In the show Attenborough also gives a demonstration of how a Venus flytrap prevents itself from wasting energy by snapping shut on raindrops.
They filmed on the River Avon in Wiltshire in June where the pretty white and yellow water crowfoot was putting on its best display for 20 years.
Attenborough declared there was nowhere else in the world that he would rather be.
Gunton said: “You think of all the things that he’s done in the world, all the things he’s seen. But to be sat in a little punt … surrounded by these extraordinary plants, for him was utterly wonderful. And it was a lovely moment.”
Using high-tech time-lapse cameras to what goes on in the plant world, the show’s debut was a huge hit with younger viewers and has already been watched 5.5million times.
Gunton said: “We did wonder – are we going to get people to come and watch plants? And the good news is that they have.”
The Green Planet is on BBC1 tomorrow at 7pm.