Name: Alistair MacKay Role: Producer / Director

Following our epic flight and our even more epic queue waiting in Johannesburg airport –(waiting to pass through customs and get our kit checked) we finally arrived in our hotel rooms at about 2am. It had been nearly 24 hours since we had started our journey from Glasgow and we were all pretty tired. You can imagine our delight therefore at having to be ready to be picked up at 5am the next day to start our African adventure.

Our guide and driver for the trip turned out to be a giant of a guy and almost looked like a lion himself with his thick dreadlocks. His name was T.J. and we had expected to be in his minibus with other international travellers but it turned out that it was just going to be us with him for the trip. This was a blessing as it gave us more room for all our camera kit.

We set off on our road trip heading north to Botswana. As a group of four we were now in T.J’s hands. We had an itinerary of where we would be each night but that was it. We had no idea what was going to happen where or even when. With Niall as cameraman and myself as director, we were going to have to be on standby most of the time on this trip ready to film anything that happened to our two intrepid explorers Janice and Donald. This was a real challenge for us as a crew as there would be no second chances to capture the moment and we had to be ever vigilant with our two cameras always set and ready to film anything that happened.

I explained to our contributors at the onset of the trip that if they noticed or experienced anything for the first time they should tell us immediately so that we could film their reaction to what was happening around them as it happened. This was especially true for Donald whose furthest trip prior to Africa was from Ness to Ireland. It wasn’t long before the heat of the day began to hit us and as we arrived at our first pit stop we started to apply the sun cream. It was a few hours later that Donald declared to all that that was the first time ever he had put sun cream on and of course he forgot to tell us that at the time so we hadn’t captured this pinnacle moment on film! We soon began to get hungry and thought surely it must be time for lunch especially as none of us had breakfast that morning. We looked at our watches and it was only 9am! It was at that point I realised we had a long day and an even longer trip ahead of us!

We saw our first group of wild animals as we were driving on our way to Botswana when we came across a troop of monkeys crossing the road and then some strange insects none of us had seen before that were the size of our hands at the border post. They turned out to be armoured crickets which looked pretty fearsome but were in fact harmless. The real highlight of the first day though came in the early evening when we were heading to our camp for the night in Botswana. Beside the road was a small herd of elephants no more than 20 metres away. It was an incredible moment for all of us and whilst I am sure it is a usual occurrence for the locals, it was amazing to be so close to such huge animals especially when we got out of the vehicle to film them!

The trip as a whole was quite arduous for us as a team mostly due to lack of sleep. Most mornings we were up and on the go again at 5 and it was usually midnight before we bedded down. For Niall and I we had the added bonus of having to be up and ready to film Janice and Donald getting up every morning which was usually met with cries for us to go away or words of that effect! The first night was a surreal experience for us all as we went out on an unexpected night drive on the back of open top 4x4s into the thick African bush looking for lions! For the most part we just got covered in bugs of every kind as we drove along and every now and then we would see eyes shining back at us from the bush but it was difficult to make out what animals they were. However, there was no mistaking the elephant we nearly ran into in the dark and luckily Niall managed to get a shot of it as it disappeared quickly into the bush.

Sleeping in tents with the knowledge that wild animals were all around us took a bit of getting used to especially when there were no fences to prevent animals wandering through the camp. Lion tracks had been found in the camp that night and as we climbed into our sleeping bags we could hear the sound of an elephant munching on trees close to where we had pitched our tents. Most nights on the trip you would wake up to the noise of something crawling around your tent and it was usually a quick scramble for the head torch to see if it was something that was inside the tent or not!

The trip was an amazing experience for all of us. There were many close encounters with the wild animals and it was thanks to our guides and T.J. that we managed to get such fantastic footage. T.J. was very patient with our filming requests and was ever willing to help us during our filming. He was a valuable source of local knowledge and natural history and greatly added to our African experience. It is very hard for me to pick a favourite moment from the trip as there were so many. Highlights though have to include our unexpected encounter with the rhino in Zambia escorted by guards carrying AK47s. For us as a team we had to be very careful being so close to such a dangerous animal and trying to film what was happening at the same time especially in the short time we had. I think Janice’s and Donald’s inability to speak at that time summed up the moment! Also, our escape from the notorious killer monkeys that Donald managed to annoy in our camp in Zambia which chased us for what seemed like eternity has to be one of the surreal and funniest moments of the trip. There is footage which looks like something from the Blair Witch project and which may make an appearance on the site very soon, so watch this space!

It was a pleasure to film the programme in Africa and it was largely thanks to Janice, Donald’s and Niall’s commitment and goodwill as a team that made the trip a success. There are so many moments and images which we filmed over the ten days which unfortunately never made the final programme but there will be extra footage available on this site so keep an eye out for the video updates!