The Conservation Without Borders team have been on the road for quite a while now on the Round Britain Climate Challenge. The weather had messed up the flying schedule, wind limits for paramotors being quite stringent, and commitments for filming a documentary with ITV had also broken up the flow. Despite all this, the team had made it from Scotland to Cornwall via Wales and we took the chance to pay them a visit, delivering banana bread, wine and offering to be general dogsbodies for a few days to take some of the pressure off.
Our meeting point was to be the service entrance of the Eden Project where we would be spending the night on site, ahead of a press call the following morning. This had been organised by the Eden Project team, Tim Smit being a very welcome supporter of Sacha’s ventures.
We arrived at 18:00hrs, the rest of the team delayed elsewhere. We were shown to what was the works canteen and offices, which would provide an excellent workspace – indoors with light and power – the recipe for success. To make best use of the time we set up the tent in the Mediterranean Biome, a real privilege. Getting to the Med in these Covid times is a challenge so this was a more than suitable substitute. Having this to ourselves was slightly surreal. Next to arrive were Sacha and Louis, the website wrangler. Kit started coming out boxes and we saw for the first time the ritual of the set up for a mobile, top quality production facility and the sheer range of equipment required to get the message out, edit stories, and vlogs for newsworthy content. The remainder of the production team were delayed, charging up two of the electric vehicles. Fast charging points in Cornwall are at a premium and the summer rush of staycationers has put even more pressure on the supply. Ben and Josh made it, finished the IT set up and got to work.
With an expedition this long, indeed longer than expected, there will always be personnel who come and go and the other pilot and aerial cameraman, Dan Burton had taken a few days out to get a damaged tooth sorted. Thankfully, home for Dan was just over the border in Devon. Our offer was taken up, (while the press call took place), to go and fetch him which also involved dropping off two petrol powered paramotors. This would release a lot of room in the support vehicles.
On our return a story was brewing. Just on the northern edge of the Eden Project an experiment was underway. A geothermal bore was being drilled that, if successful, would use superheated water to provide power for the whole site and eventually provide significant surplus that could be sold back into the grid. Sustainable energy of this type fitted in perfectly with the climate heroes story that are the backbone of the Round Britain Climate Challenge. We got a detailed briefing on the outside of the perimeter fence but for filming it and doing a proper interview, the cameras would really need to be inside. This required Sacha, Ben and Josh going through the site induction process and being kitted out in the approved PPE. As is often the case with filming, they disappeared inside and seemed to stay there forever. A couple of times it looked like they were finished, only to set up at a different angle. Eventually they appeared, very pleased with a novel story told by a willing and eloquent interviewee.
Back to the ‘behind the scenes’ side of the Eden Project for packing up. Then we had a late request for photos of the vehicles in the Eden Project setting. There was no time left or anyone around to arrange to get the vehicles moved to ‘front of house’ and so the team had to be very creative as we drove our three vehicle branded convoy backwards and forwards in the service yard.
Home for the night was the Cornwall Beaver Project, tucked away in a pretty valley on the line between St Austell and Truro. No works canteen and Biome this time, but the barns were still welcome. While the edit suite was unboxed, again, Dan got on with preparing an excellent Spaghetti Bolognese. As is often the case with pretty countryside, especially in Cornwall, there was no wi-fi to hook into and barely a phone signal depending on your network.
Louis got to work on the unglamorous but essential task of unloading one of the vans, resorting the kit, extracting the rubbish and reloading in the quest to find the optimum means of packing.
The beavers lived down the hill and had started to reshape the landscape, creating a local wetland which was becoming richer and more varied with both plant and animal life. They are best seen in the evenings and early morning. As we had missed the evening slot the cameras would have to be out and in place at silly o’clock in the morning.
That next morning we woke to find Ben and Josh back from the great beaver hunt – footage safely captured. Today was going to be the last good flying day for a while – weather was coming and the plan was take in Land’s End and St Michael’s Mount as a minimum. The team was going to be staying at the Beaver Project for two nights which was a help but to cover that ground the vehicles would need charging – hopefully without a queue of holiday makers waiting to charge their Tesla’s. Ben and Josh went off to do that and Dan made calls to his paramotor mafia to arrange take off and landing fields that would work with the 30 minutes of flying time available from Sacha’s electric powered paramotor.
It was then that we left them, having a few people to see in Cornwall before fighting our way back up the M5 to Nottingham. It was indeed a good flying day and the photos below show that the objective was achieved. Dan Burton doing his usual excellent job of capturing Sacha in the air. You can see more on the official CWB Round Britain Climate Challenge website by clicking HERE.
