Australian Wilderness with Ray Mears - Season 1

Twenty million years ago the sea bed erupted to create the great limestone cliffs of Ningaloo. In the rocks, Ray encounters the fossils of giant prehistoric sharks, before swimming with their modern descendants, the whale sharks, out on Ningaloo reef.

On the waterways of Kakadu, Ray meets the fearsome salt-water crocodile and stays with an aboriginal family who share with him the secrets of farming with fire and creating meals from the bush.

Ray visits a landscape which was old before the dinosaurs walked the earth. He flies over fantastic rocks and hidden waterfalls, through towering gorges to see a prehistoric sight.

Kangaroo Island is the wild jewel in Australia's crown. In the bush, Ray meets an echidna - the only mammal with a real beak - but it also lays eggs. Ray discovers that the creature is an ancient bridge between reptiles and mammals.

On the rugged Dampier Peninsula in North West Australia incredible tides have shaped the land and the wildlife. The rough seas are home to dolphins, and Ray watches a mother and her calf hunting in the surf, seeking food that the tide has churned up. A trip to an island of shells brings Ray face-to-face with one of the world's biggest oysters - but there is no time to explore the island further, as the tide is roaring in again...

Ray explores the Flinders mountains. He meets three different species of kangaroo, while Australia's largest bird of prey, the wedge-tailed eagle, soars over head.

Ray follows the Frankland River into the heart of Walpole Forest - two hundred square kilometres of wooded wilderness in Western Australia. The forest is 65 million years old, and has always provided food and shelter for aboriginal people. Ray is seeking out giant trees, and the creatures that live among them. He starts out his journey by canoe and meets Gary Muir, a local guide and conservationist. Ray learns from Gary that the river was once used by loggers to transport jarrah wood, which is so hard it was used as cobbles for London streets in Victorian times. Ray strikes away from the river to look for giant tingle trees, and meets some well camouflaged geckos along the way. Some tingles can be 24 metres in girth, and they grow alongside karri trees, which are some of the world's tallest!