5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Welcome to the exciting, high-flying, wonderful, warm-wet world of Life on the Beach, Volume 5.
For the next 28 minutes we're going to put you on water skis.
Send you over to France for a hang gliding adventure.
Bring you back to Fiji for a tropical holiday.
Risk life and limb in a cave-ing adventure over on New Zealand's North Island.
Take you down to the Antarctic to go swimming with seals and to watch boy penguins woo girl penguins.
And stick you on a variety of different yachts and windsurfers and show you how to sail them.
All without leaving your favourite chair. Stay with us, relax and enjoy.
This is Life on the Beach.
Once upon a time there was an American called Ralph Samuelson.
Now this isn't him, but Ralph was credited with being the first person ever to successfully attempt water skiing.
A feat that he accomplished in 1922.
But in those days, Ralph's real skill probably lay in being able to find a boat that would go fast enough to tow a skier
and because nobody else had one, water skiing didn't really take off until the 40s.
And boy did it take off. After all it was the perfect sport for just relaxing with friends.
Even if some of them were firebugs.
Now check this guy out. I think it's really sad that the old fashioned courtesies have dried out.
Nice hat though. Very stylish.
Nowadays lots of things have changed. For one thing, boats are more common.
Any weekend at the appropriate location will reveal craft powered by the inevitable battery of monster outboard motors
or the reconditioned donk of a rusty old Monaro.
But also many people have thrown the skis away and are doing it in bare feet.
Tournament skiing is still very popular and includes events like the slalom
where competitors have to negotiate their way around six boys without falling over.
They start off with a long line, but as each heat is completed the line is progressively shortened, making it more difficult.
The winner is the skier who completes the course with the shortest line.
Ski races have been known to reach 160 kilometres an hour.
And a good skier on a jump can clear 60 metres, except for this bloke who's clearly cheating.
For so long we used to hear and read about man's dreams to fly like the birds.
Now of course he can. In fact, he's become quite good at it.
In France there's a town called Saint-Hilaire which has become a mecca for flyers and would-be flyers.
Every year it opens its doors and cliffs to flying freaks from all over Europe.
People gather to chat and fly, to walk the dog and fly, to dress up in crazy costumes and, well, fly.
It's the perfect spot for it. The cliffs are just right and the wind's just right.
They say that if you can't fly in Saint-Hilaire then you can't fly anywhere else.
A huge part of the week's festivities in Saint-Hilaire is the Icarus Cup.
Remember Icarus? He was the bloke who all those mythological years ago went for a fly
but got a bit too close to the sun and crashed when his wings melted.
The Icarus Cup is the perfect opportunity for flyers to slip into something more comfortable.
It's been going for 19 years now and each year it gets wilder and wilder.
Hand lighting has always had its ups and downs, especially in the early days
when its pioneers were often as successful as Icarus.
The main reason for all the mishaps was a lack of formal flying tuition.
In those days the teachers were students.
Now Saint-Hilaire has a pre-flight school and this has mostly taken the pain out of learning to fly.
Today's machines are also a lot safer.
They're designed to fly further faster and people are getting better at building them.
There are new flying machines being invented in garages all over Saint-Hilaire and this is one of them.
Is it going to fly? I'm not sure. Yep. I hope so.
There's one catch. If you invent something, you fly it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
This is an invention that did work. It's called a swift and it's known as a foot launch sail plane
to distinguish it from gliders that need a tow to get airborne.
Now this is my idea of hang gliding. It's safer, it's warmer and they serve drinks.
And you can take off from Australia and land pretty well anywhere you like.
We've landed in Fiji.
If you're a tourist you'll land in Nandi.
You'll land here because it's close to a lot of the main resorts and tour operators.
But you'll also land here because someone has realised that you're here to get away from it all.
Which means that you want to be as far as possible from Fiji's capital city, Suba.
A couple of days in Fiji will leave you in awe at the number of buses that fly the roads.
However, it's not until you get to Suba that you realise that this is where they all seem to terminate.
The fact that they got here at all was surprising.
Two other important Fijian struggles, politics and rugby, share the same piece of real estate.
While these yachts share a bay with several barges and a container depot.
But then Suba is a big city and we came to Fiji to escape big cities.
Once upon a time visitors were few and far between. Abel Tasman came for a visit in 1643.
150 years later Captain Cook dropped in.
Several years after Cook came the famous William Bly in a rover.
Having recently lost possession of the even more famous HMS Bounty to the infamous Fletcher Christian and Co.
Even the Fijians didn't think much of Bly. He was chased away by a canoe load of warriors.
Nowadays in a country where even Jimmy Swaggart is welcome the tourists is greeted with open arms.
In fact Fiji must be about the friendliest place on earth.
We all know about the hardships experienced by Tasman, Cook and Bly during long months at sea.
Nowadays people do it for fun. In fact we've found that the best way to get away from it all is to let this wonderful old ship take you.
She's owned by a company called Captain Cook Cruises and she's called the Rama Rama.
Built in Singapore in the 50s she was the Fijian Governor General's official yacht.
And she's enjoyed the company of most of the royal family including the Queen.
This is the ultimate life on the beach experience. Three days of cruising the islands in the best of company on a beautiful old sailing ship.
What romance.
Even the canvas accommodation on the beach is romantic.
Sort of a cross between a scout jamboree and a beach party movie. Except this is Fiji and that makes all the difference.
One of the lovely things about cruising the islands is meeting interesting people.
These villagers live on a group of islands called Weya and despite their isolation still put on a remarkable entertainment.
Or in Fijian, a meke.
The days start with a sunrise which you can check out from the comfort of your bed.
At night there's a bonfire on the beach and you can fool yourself with delicious food which has been wrapped in coconut leaves and cooked underground on hot coals.
This is called a lovo feast and that's sort of traditional Fijian fare.
If you wanted to stay away from the Rama Rama and on dry land you have a million choices.
This swimming pool belongs to the Sheraton.
The Sheraton is typical of the good resort accommodation available all over Fiji.
After all, Fiji has always been a favourite honeymoon destination.
Everywhere we went was comfortable, friendly and good fun.
This is the hideaway down on the coral coast in between Nandi and Sula.
Fiji is made up of 322 islands of which about 100 have people on them.
It's hardly surprising then when all this water surrounding little bits of land that so much of what there is to do in Fiji involves sailing and swimming.
There's lots of flights from Australia to Fiji or you can visit on one of the many cruise ships.
The best times are between April and November when the sun is almost certain to be shining.
One thing's for certain, you won't want to leave.
Summer, glorious summer.
Summer means life on the beach and the best thing for getting your beach gear to the beach is the Life on the Beach tote bag.
It's big enough to take just about anything including the Life on the Beach baseball cap.
One size fits all and perfect for keeping the sun off your face.
The Life on the Beach tote bag and baseball cap can very easily be yours this summer.
Simply check the order form with the full details.
Oh summer, glorious summer.
If a mountaineer climbs a mountain because it's there, a caver goes caving because it might be there.
The place is New Zealand's North Island at a cave the Maori's call Tomo.
But to our explorers Ross Clapcott, Nick Hopkinson and Dave Smith it's called the Lost World.
Their challenge over three days is to see how low they can go, to go beyond what has already been explored,
to discover new passages and to verify their belief that the Lost World is the world's most extensive cave labyrinth.
Oddly enough their most pressing concerns will be with the weather up top.
If it rains heavily the runoff from miles around will drain into the cave trapping or even drowning the men.
Radio waves cannot penetrate the rock so to keep in touch the men unwind telephone cables as they go.
At the other end is Ross' wife Astrid.
They descend 500 feet to a small cavern where they will spend their first night.
The next morning at a pre-arranged time they get a weather forecast.
What's the weather looking like up there?
I think we'll be in luck for the next three days.
What's the problem with the runoff? Nick wants to know who won the rugby.
I don't know, I'm not worried about the rugby, I'm worried about you three.
They decide to push deeper into the unknown.
Five hours on the second day they enter a stalactite cavern never before seen by human eyes.
Then there's trouble.
Astrid, this is Ross.
It's completely dead isn't it?
You know what that means.
The phone's dead and the water that blocks their retreat confirms that the lines have been snapped by a rising flood.
Suddenly their mission of exploration has become a life and death struggle for survival.
There's only one way to go now and that's down.
Time's running out, their supplies are limited and the water is rising at an alarming rate.
They have been underground now for 39 hours.
Sometimes the squeeze is so tight that they have to take a deep breath just to get through.
And sometimes it's the other extreme.
This huge cavern is so unexpected that Dave takes a tumble and plummets 20 feet into a deep bubbling sinkhole filled with freezing water.
There's nothing to anchor a rope to and the walls are too steep and slippery to climb so Ross and Nick jump in too.
They reach a dead end.
If there is a way out it's underwater.
Ross is an experienced diver and he takes a deep breath before plunging into the icy black.
For the other two, the wait for Ross to reappear is the longest three minutes of their lives.
The passage he's found is long and full of obstructions.
These eels are totally blind and they've been attracted by the vibrations of the swimmers.
They blunder on until finally one of them hears the sweetest sound they've ever heard.
Follow that frog.
Frogs aren't cave dwellers and there must be an exit nearby.
Hopefully it will be big enough for human beings.
They've been underground now for 77 hours.
They don't know where they are and nor do they care.
But they climb towards the huge light drenched exit knowing that they've made it and that they've survived against the odds.
If you've heard this lady before it might have been in a television commercial jingle or on the soundtrack to The Crossing.
Here's Jenny Forbes in a song she wrote called Dream On.
She come again with that same story, same love and glory, breathing salvation to her soul.
She come again with that far away looking on the love that he took was forgotten the very next day.
Going all the way in a movie theater so much better than what it is outside.
Now she gets messed up between bad confectionals.
Stories all mixing, mixing her mind.
She saw herself as being the lonely one.
She didn't see that she wasn't the only one.
So let her dream on, wander away, waiting around for a better day.
Dream on, wander away, waiting around for a better day.
Everybody learns from their misunderstandings, can't get so demanding.
But that's just the way that it goes.
Friends try and help, she'd say it, not your business cry.
For forgiveness that she'd love to decline.
She saw herself as being the lonely one.
She did not see that she wasn't the only one.
So let her dream on, wander away, waiting around for a better day.
Dream on, wander away, waiting around for a better, better, better, better day.
On, on, on, on, on.
La, la, la, la, la.
Oh yeah.
Friends try and help, she'd say it, not your business cry.
For forgiveness that she'd love to decline.
She saw herself as being the lovely one.
She didn't say that she wasn't the only one, yeah.
So let her dream on, walk away, yeah.
Waiting around for a better day.
Dream on, walk away.
Waiting around for a better, better day.
Dream on, walk away.
Waiting around for a better, better day.
Dream on, walk away.
Waiting around for a better, better, better day.
Better day.
In this edition of Life on the Beach,
we've already had a look at humans honeymooning in warm places like Fiji.
But there are creatures of the world like seals and penguins
who seem to favour the most barren, inhospitable of resorts for romance.
These seals, for example, are quite at home at the South Pole.
It's a bit chilly, but the neighbours are friendly
and it's a nice place to raise the kids.
Getting about on dry land is very hot work when you don't have any legs.
That's when these creatures cool off with a nice, refreshing dip under the ice books.
Once in the water, they're at home, and they look like they're at home.
King penguins normally share the polar caps with the seals.
The only reason they go through this is because they must breed on dry land.
This windswept Baltic landscape is a very popular place for king penguins to fall in love.
King penguins can recognise each other's call from a crowd of thousands.
Once couples are attached, they can always find each other again.
But if they're not attached, certain courting etiquette has to be adhered to.
There are things that girl penguins find particularly attractive in boy penguins.
For a start, you have to walk in a provocative sort of way.
If you're a really smooth operator, the woman of your dreams will follow.
But if you don't hit it off right away, keep your eyes peeled for some other calling damsel.
Often the competition can be a bit fierce and tempers get frayed.
Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
And, after all, there are plenty of ladies to choose from.
When boy and girl penguins do finally fall in love, the outcome is as wonderful to watch as nature ever gets.
It's not exactly a private romance.
Penguins huddle together for safety, which means that there are constant disturbances.
But the marriage is consummated and for five days they wait for the egg.
They wait together, never leaving each other's side.
When the egg is laid, they take it in turns to hatchet.
For 54 days, rain, hail or shine.
In 54 days, the chick will arrive and they will leave this barren landscape,
perhaps to join the seals at the polar caps, until next time.
Some people reckon that watching yachting is about as interesting as watching paint dry.
But watching is nothing compared with doing.
In fact, doing can sometimes be the ultimate in exhilaration.
You don't have to be a millionaire to own a yacht, because yachts come in all shapes and sizes.
You don't even have to be rich.
But it helps if you want to get behind the wheel of one of these.
This is the big league.
Expensive to build, expensive to run.
If you want to go faster, just throw money at it.
For all sailors, the timing of when to put certain sails up or take them down is absolutely crucial
and is dictated mainly by the angle of the wind in relation to the yacht.
The principle that makes the yacht able to sail against the wind is exactly the same as the one that keeps an aeroplane in the air,
because the wind blowing from in front of the boat actually sucks the boat along.
Unless the wind is right in front.
That's when everything starts flapping loudly and you stop.
But enough theory.
People sail for the competition.
People also sail to go places.
This is called cruising, and it can mean some very cheap and very special holidays in your own floating caravan.
Yep, there are people who reckon that watching sailing is as boring as watching paint dry.
And some of them are sailors.
But it's only because they'd rather be doing it.
But then, for that extra special thrill, there's the exhilaration of windsurfing.
There's nothing quite like standing on a narrow, out-of-control plank with nothing between you and the storm
and a flimsy piece of sailcloth.
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Well, that's the end of the world tour.
We hope we didn't exhaust you too much.
Coming up are a few details about how you can do some of the things you've just seen.
But for now, thanks for watching.
And keep your eyes open for the next edition of Life on the Beach.
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