Flying to the Ends of the Earth (2005) s01e02 Episode Script
Australia and Papua
1 See the cattle at the end of runway, - are they going to be a problem for us? - No.
On our crowded planet, there are still beautiful and little known wildernesses.
But for the determined adventurer, there is a way to reach them.
Oh, my God.
I've just seen the airstrip! Ooh! I'm Arthur Williams.
I used to be a Royal Marine but seven years ago, I was paralysed in an accident.
Then I learnt to fly and regained my spirit of adventure.
Yee-hoo! Now I want to see how far the plane can take me.
Not enough oxygen for me.
Stall warner.
Tackling some of the globe's tiniest and most dangerous airstrips Whoa, whoa, whoa! .
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meeting the people who've made their home at the ends of the earth Good job! .
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and exploring the world that only flying can reach.
I've walked on ground that nobody has ever walked before.
This time, I'm in Australia and the Indonesian island of Papua.
This is a land of mind-boggling distances, epic landscapes and intense isolation that has shaped the people who live here.
I'll be journeying deeper and deeper into the wild, meeting farmers slogging it out in the merciless desert, a real-life Swiss Family Robinson on their own desert island and Christian missionaries risking life and limb to bring the word of God to the untouched villages of Papua.
The vast majority of Australians live on the fertile east coast.
Here in the desert bush of northern Australia, you can fly for hours without seeing evidence of humanity.
Lake Nash is one of the largest cattle stations in the country.
It's 30,000 times the size of an average British farm.
Fred Hughes is the boss and only 27 years old.
Up here, you really get a sense of the scale of the place, it just seems to go on and on for miles.
Yeah, it certainly does.
And if you wanted to nip down to the nearest pub, how far would you have to go? It's about 120km.
And the nearest restaurant? About 220.
Would you mind if I take control? - Absolutely.
- Brilliant, thank you.
This thing flies beautifully, Fred.
Yeah.
It's not just distance that makes the plane so important here.
For three months of the year, this desert landscape floods and the only way in and out is by plane.
In this hostile landscape, Fred keeps 42,000 beef cattle.
His house sits alone, surrounded by a sea of desert and cows.
There's the strip, sort of, heading down that way.
Righty ho.
- Yep, speed's good.
- Yeah.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- Have you got the rudder all right? - Yeah.
- OK, full power? - Yep, full power.
There we go.
Fred runs the station with his wife, Sarah.
They've only been in charge here for the last two years.
Welcome to Lake Nash, Arthur.
Hi, Sarah.
Lovely to meet you.
I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to a nice cold one.
Just a nice English stout? - Yeah.
Have you got some? - No.
- Oh! Don't build me up just to break me down like that, Fred.
'English beer or not, 'I want to find out more about the life they've chosen in the outback.
' Did you two grow up on farms? - Yeah, we're both fifth generation.
- And how did you meet? We met at a beef cattle expo actually in 2009 so Yeah, I think it was love at first sight.
Yeah, the first time I met Sarah, I said, "I think I'm going to marry this girl," so Really? You said that on the first date, "I'm going to marry you?" No, No, I didn't say I said it to myself.
And what's day-to-day life like being so remote? We don't really feel that remote to be honest, Sarah's mum and dad are nice and handy which is great.
They're only about five or six hours drive away -- but it's good we can pop over there.
I love it.
"Five hour's drive away, we can just pop over.
" Just an afternoon drive.
'Tomorrow will be my first chance to see 'how farming works on a grand scale.
' Everyone, this is Arthur.
Arthur's in the heli with me today.
'Today, Fred's team are mustering 1,000 head of cattle, 'bringing them in for vaccinations and branding -- 'but with a station this size, 'they don't just do it on horseback or motor bikes 'It's farming for the Mad Max generation.
' Because the land is so arid, the cattle roam far and wide looking for vegetation.
- Do you see all that dust kicking up there? - Yeah - That's all the cattle going in the water.
- Wow.
Ah, Fred, this is awesome.
- Good fun, eh? - Wow.
With another helicopter already working the cattle, we land to help out on the ground.
So, we're just going to go down and see.
We've got cattle coming from two directions meeting up and then it's just a short walk from there into the yard.
The station's other helicopter is in the thick of it, chasing a bull that has broken away from the pack.
He gets as close to the bull as possible, trying to persuade him back to the herd.
Wow, bloody hell.
He's really got to know - the dimensions of his aircraft, doesn't he? - Oh, yeah.
That's phenomenal.
There's a lot of dangers involved, like he's only got to clip a tree with that tail rotor and that machine's going to go out of control.
Jeez.
Yeah, wow.
Heli-mustering was started by Vietnam War vets.
Ten people die doing it every year.
It takes incredible skill and, with the nearest hospital over 100 miles away, the pilot needs to get it right.
With the straggler returned, we find ourselves in the midst of a bovine lake.
I've never seen so many cows in one place in my life.
It's just like you're in the Wild West.
I want to know what it takes to keep the farm working in such an unforgiving environment.
Resilience and resourcefulness, they're probably be the two things.
We had a terrible drought last year and things get tough, there's no question about that, so you need to find that inner strength to get through those times.
How hard is it, mentally, to cope with the effects of drought? Ah, look it's Yeah, it's very, very tough.
There's been plenty of, you know, depression and suicides throughout the bush but, you know, you've got to get through it and it will rain eventually and you pull together and And you know, Sarah and I leaned on each other and got through it.
All of the guys that are working out here, really remote -- does morale get an issue with them? Morale is, like, obviously the most important thing in any operation and that's why it's important to foster the right attitude that you'll always put up with someone who's a little less experienced, not quite as handy, if they're good for morale.
If you've got someone in there wide-handing or backstabbing, you need to sort that out.
Does it ever get to boiling point? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's You know, when people are living and working together all the time -- it's not like you clock off after work, you go out and you see your mates and have a beer.
You're here having a beer with the same people you're working with, so that's why it's so important to stamp out any brush fires when they start.
Tea break over and another cow makes a run for it.
With the heli otherwise engaged, we join the pursuit.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Wow.
That is amazing.
He's just wrestled it.
He's just tied it up with his belt.
See you, mate.
You should learn your lesson for next time.
The team will be along shortly to pick up the rebellious cow -- but now, with almost all the other cattle rounded up, the musterers in the air and the crew on the ground work together to bring the cows into the yard.
Before helicopters, this 12 hour job would have taken at least a week.
This elaborate ground-to-air ballet has transformed the life of cattle farmers like Fred.
Despite all the challenges and hard graft, his love for his land and his life is clear.
Do you ever take it for granted? Yeah, it's a great life and that's why people love being out here -- cos it's exciting and it's rewarding.
Do you think there's anything else there that would give the same sort of job satisfaction? No, I don't think so.
It's a great team and a great life out here.
Next, I'll be meeting some of Fred's neighbours who've been living off the land for thousands of years.
'I'm in Lake Nash, 'one of Australia's largest cattle stations.
' Morning, everybody.
'Breakfast is an essential part of station life 'and it's Luca's job to make sure 'the crew go to work on a full stomach.
' Where are you from, Luca? I'm Italian.
I come from Italy.
In Italy, it's very different.
In Italy, in the morning, just coffee, espresso, or maybe some biscuits and here the guys want They would like just steak.
How well do you think it would go down if you gave the guys here, on the station, a typical Italian breakfast? I think they'd kill me.
With the inevitable indigestion looming, I head out to the pens with Sarah.
And like life out here on the station for yourself, everybody works so hard.
Do you get in amongst it as much as the guys do? I don't know, I seem to get stuck in the office a bit more than I'd like these days but I love nothing more than to get out on my horse and get amongst it all with everyone.
One vital job is checking whether any of the cows are pregnant and the only way to do this is by internal examination.
Happily, I can't reach, so I'll just be watching as Sarah gets stuck in.
Make your way through down to the fallopian tubes and to the ovaries, and I find out whether they're in calf or not.
And is this one pregnant? - This one's calfy! - Oh, good.
That's good news.
Yeah.
Calfy! And you enjoy this kind of work? - Love it.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
When I came out here, I was expecting to find a totally macho environment, but Sarah is one of 15 women working on the station.
Has it always been like that? No, there's been a huge change, you know, probably over the last ten or 20 years that there's a lot of jillaroos in camps now.
I know back in my dad's sort of day, his sisters were, you know, more in the house and that was their place, but I think women are a huge part of .
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any beef operation nowadays in Australia.
Arthur, I was just going to get in the car and I just want to show you something.
I picked up a little friend.
Oh, no.
You're a sod! - Right, so obviously - Not a fan of spiders? No, not a fan of spiders at all.
Jesus, that's the biggest flipping spider I've ever seen out It's not going to jump, is it? I would see a snake, scorpion, velociraptor than a spider! Especially one that big.
All right, it's just an Achilles heel of mine.
Even in a land this big, there are neighbours.
Just a few miles from the station is the Aboriginal community of Alpurrurulam.
Relationships between the indigenous population and cattle stations have often been conflicted but Fred and the people of Alpurrurulam coexist happily and he's agreed to introduce me to some of their elders.
Maxi! So, Max, this is Arthur.
- Hi, Maxi.
- Hey, Arthur.
How's it going? - Yeah, good.
How are you? - We also got Reggie.
Good to meet you, Max.
'As a neighbourly gesture, Fred slaughters a cow 'every few weeks to give to the community.
' How are we going to cook this beast? 'Maxi and the guys are going to show me 'how to cook beef the traditional bush way.
'I grabbed the chance to get my hands dirty.
' Will you let me know if I'm going too deep or anything? Growing up, my father really impressed upon me the importance of, if you kill an animal, you eat it, and you've got to cook it and you've got to prepare it and you shouldn't be squeamish about it.
If you're prepared to go have a burger, you've got to be prepared to put in the dirty work, as it were, hands on.
I don't know whether you've ever seen a steak that big before.
I'm starving.
It's well over lunch-time.
The steak goes straight into the fire.
Not what I was expecting, but at least it saves on washing-up.
How do you like your steak, Maxi? A bit rare? Well, I think we should get this off then.
And, Maxi, this just cleans the meat, does it? Ah, yeah, that's really good.
That's really good actually.
Hey, Maxi, do you ever? You don't Like, the generations that follow you, like your kids, do you ever worry that they'll leave this bush life behind? Right.
If you could live anywhere in the world, Maxi, where would you live? Despite the discomforts, Fred and Sarah chose to move out here whilst Maxi and the people of Alpurrurulam have decided not to leave.
For both of them, the scale of the land, and the independence it brings, vastly outweighs the harshness of their surroundings.
But for some, the bush is not remote enough.
700 miles north-east of Lake Nash lies Haggerstone Island where one family live alone.
Here, it's not the barren desert but the shark-infested waters that make it so inaccessible.
To get there, I fly to Horn Island.
From here, it's another flight along the coast.
'Seasoned pilot Andre Van Ginkel was born on an airfield.
'Hopefully his experience will help' Bloody Nora.
'.
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because landing this 70-year-old de Havilland Beaver 'on an tiny island strip will not be easy.
' What a beautiful old girl, Andre.
She just seems to elegantly climb up.
The weather is really coming in.
I can't actually see anything out front now.
Have you ever had any panics out here? You always panic.
Never complacent, are you? No, no, no.
- That's Haggerstone in the background there.
- Wow.
It looks like paradise.
If I'm going to get a chance to explore this desert island, we're going to have to negotiate a difficult landing.
This wind is going to be pretty tricky.
There's no room for error.
Overshoot, or undershoot, and we'll all end up in the Pacific Ocean.
Andre's really working the controls.
Beautiful.
Good job, Andre.
Yep.
Sometimes you get lucky.
The final leg is a short boat ride from the airstrip to Haggerstone itself.
Roy Turner moved here with his wife Anna in 1985.
Back then, it was uninhabited jungle.
They lived in tents with no running water or electricity.
They built everything by hand and raised their family here.
Anna and their children spend a lot of time on the mainland, Roy lives here all year round.
Today, the kids are home as well.
- Roy - Hey! - .
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hello.
Where have you been? We've been waiting for you for weeks.
I know, it's a long, long journey.
- Here we are.
- This is something else.
'Roy's house is far more luxurious 'than the island shack I expected, 'but he still has to contend with some serious wildlife.
' What's the story behind this? Well, the crocodile actually grabbed someone and we rescued the someone then we went hunting the crocodile.
The head's just over on the bar here.
So, that crocodile's head had somebody's arm in its jaw? - Arm in it.
Yeah.
- How did it not take their arm off? I jumped on it and put a finger in its eye, and it let go.
And that was that.
So, it all ended up being a happy ending.
It could have gone the other way.
Was there any point in the building of this of getting to the point where you're at now where your, sort of, determination flagged for it and you thought, "This is too hard.
" I remember getting pretty lonely at some time, thinking Having a good cry up the end of the beach thinking of what I'd done.
So, it was the sacrifice.
So, what did you do before the island then? I was a sheep shearer, a hard worker, I played a bit of guitar.
Took off with the guitar to the South Pacific, somehow or other, landed in New Guinea because of the hunting.
I loved hunting -- loved wild adventure.
Eating wild duck two or three nights a week and deer, and chasing unattached girls everywhere, you know.
No television, no rules -- it was just the greatest place in the world.
How did you end up coming out here? Everybody thinks, "Well, I'd like to have something on an island.
" Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe I got this as a getaway .
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but it became way bigger than I thought it would.
And it has become a lot bigger.
A few years ago, Roy took a gamble and started selling his dream of the simple life to paying guests.
Now, the Murdoch family and the super rich pay £400 a night to get a taste of perfect isolation.
We have so many rules "You can't go here.
" "You can't go there.
" "You've got to do this.
" There's just so many restrictions and rules.
When you come to Haggerstone, that all falls away.
It's just a feeling of freedom AND space.
No people.
A space with no people -- that's hard to find.
Life in Haggerstone is as much about what goes on underwater as above ground.
Roy's son, 19-year-old Sam, is taking me spear fishing.
I'll give you a go of one of these.
Happy days.
It depends on your aim but, hopefully, we'll get something.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with my aim.
Are there any particular nasties around here or anything - that's going to want to try and eat me? - Erm Yeah.
There are sharks.
When you're spear fishing, there's always times when you'll shoot something, say, on the edge of a reef somewhere and you'll have a shark come up and take the fish off you.
- Really? - Yeah, it happens a lot.
Especially as you go further and further out.
The family try to be as self-sufficient as possible and catching dinner is part of that.
Theoretically, it should be easy.
The sea is teeming with fish but they all seem to see me coming.
Until finally I've got a little ripper.
That's not bad going, eh? I can now say I've done harpoon fishing in the Australian islands.
Despite my glee, one little fish won't feed us all -- so we head out with Roy and his daughter, Tash, to go hunting for something a little more substantial.
Part of the fun is to go out and get what you're going to eat -- and when it's that fresh, you've got to be a real bad cook to ruin it.
16-year-old Tash grew up on the island.
She's been catching fish since she could hold a line.
Today, we're looking for red emperors.
When you finally get a bite, do you snap it to try and? No, you have to wait.
You have to wait just a little bit longer and then they start pulling, - and that's when you start to - Ah! Tash, when you go back to boarding school, what do your friends make of the stories you tell them of what you did with your holiday? On the occasional chance that I get to bring someone back, I love it.
I just love to, kind of, share And what do they make of it? Their mouths are open quite a lot of the time.
I'm waiting for beginner's luck to kick in.
It hasn't worked yet.
Oh, wow.
I've never seen a fish that big in my life.
Finally, I've got a bite too.
This is making him work for it.
Yeah, this is working for dinner like I've never done before.
That's coming close now.
- Yeah.
- Good job! Roy is a, kind of, high-end hunter-gatherer.
He catches and grows much of his own food, but he can also fly in supplies when he wants to.
Even if life here is not exactly slumming it, I do wonder how it is growing up somewhere as lonely as this.
Sometimes you feel like you're missing out on the You know, the, sort of, young life.
There's usually not an abundance of girls out here.
Yeah.
No, I gathered that.
Yeah.
- Or anyone, to be quite honest with you.
- Yeah.
You're up here and you're on your own.
- That's the only thing I thought about as a teenager.
- Yeah.
- So - Of course you did.
You just feel like you're sometimes missing out on something, but when I'm in the city, I feel like I'm missing out on here, so Do you, honestly, in your heart of hearts, think you'll come back and settle here? Not No, not in the same way that Dad's done.
When I'm 45-50 years old, I think I could do this as a lifestyle but while you're young, you have to do - You have to, yeah.
- .
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your own thing.
Planes allow Roy to follow his fantasy of living in luxurious seclusion.
Where I'm flying next, only 300 miles north of Haggerstone, planes are having quite a different effect -- opening up remote tribes to the outside world.
Papua is renowned for its natural beauty, unique wildlife, isolated tribes and vast, dense jungle.
Centuries of inter-clan conflict has led to thousands of tiny communities choosing to live as inaccessibly as possible.
It's estimated that Papua is home to half of the world's uncontacted tribes but some of these villages have embraced aviation and now Papua boasts over 200 tiny dirt strips.
Strips that have been carved out of the jungle to serve remote villages and, with no other way in or out, it's their only link to the outside world.
I'm flying with a group of very different aviators -- pilot missionaries.
Papua, Indonesia -- one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.
For the next few days, I'm flying with David Holsten.
Born in Colorado, he has been flying supplies and bibles to villages in Papua for the last three years.
If you guys could just watch the tail.
He is one of 20 missionary pilots who fly every day except Sundays into the jungle.
The Missionary Aviation Fellowship was founded in the aftermath of World War Two and has been operating in Papua since 1954.
It was originally conceived as a way to transport zealous missionaries, determined to convert the locals.
Papuan tribes with their animist beliefs and reputation for cannibalism were a key target.
Nowadays, MAF have diversified and provide a passenger, cargo and medical service.
But the word of God still comes as part of the package.
Today we're flying supplies to Mamit and Okbap, two tiny villages an hour's flight or a month's walk away.
Pre-flight procedure with MAF does have an unusual element.
We look to you for strength and for wisdom, Jesus.
Amen.
Thanks, appreciate that.
I want to know what motivates David and the other Missionaries.
Are they actually doing good? And how do the people who live at the end of the runway feel about it? Our first destination is a small village called Mamit, home to two missionaries.
There's a couple here, Wes and Esther Dale, who have been serving in Papua for 20-something years.
We fly in a couple times a week and they kind of live right in the middle of it.
And they deal with kind of a never-ending flow of problems.
There's health issues, domestic issues, husbands who leave their wives or small children who are raising their siblings.
Flying over the heavy green canopy is mesmerising.
Trees reach the horizon with no sign of a clearing.
It's eye-poppingly beautiful but for a pilot looking for a safe landing, a little on the scary side.
You can start to see the bigger mountains poking out - from above the haze out there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- In the distance.
David, is it safe to say Papua's got a bit of a reputation for being a hard place to fly in? Yeah, there is on average about ten accidents every year in Papua, two or three fatal accidents too.
This mountain was enclosed in you know, covered up with cloud, and an aircraft kind of flew right into the side of the mountain.
And it's an easy thing to do, cos it's the first large peak - That's right.
- .
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that we've encountered for quite a few miles.
- Up here you can see the white metal.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, total loss of life.
There are similar scenes like that.
- All over.
- Scattered.
Do you put a lot of your fate in the hands of God, as it were? Do you believe that, you know, "If my time flying in Papua is up, then it's up"? When something comes along that I have no control over, I believe that, you know, that's from the hand of God and I'm not going to fight that.
So there's a level of peace that comes with that.
As long as we don't get to Mamit and you're like, "Right, if the airplane's meant to land, it's meant to land!" Hey, we're going to do the best we can to pull all this off - as safely as we can.
- Of course, of course.
This is Mamit.
There's the airfield.
There's the little runway.
It's tiny, just cut out of the side of this mountain.
Committed now.
Ah, that's amazing! Welcome to the jungle.
I'd never get bored of doing this.
Wes and Esther meet us off the plane.
We've brought in pipes for the village's new project -- a hydroelectric generator.
Wes, if you didn't have aircraft, then, it would be impossible to get all of these materials? - No, we wouldn't even have kerosene lamps.
- Yeah.
I like the extravagance of having electricity, I really do.
Wes and Esther have helped build much of the village's infrastructure but they don't just do handiwork.
They teach a bible school and have spent years translating the gospel into the local language.
So then, Esther, where's this dodgy floorboard we need to fix? This is the one the boy went through on Thursday.
'Esther has asked me to help her fix the floor of the village school where she teaches.
' And fix this one at the same time.
Yeah, sure, alrighty.
- That's it.
Woo-hoo! - OK.
- Take that! - Skills! - This is how I take out my frustration.
- Yeah.
My plan for my life was to live in New Zealand and to become an artist.
That was my plan and God's like, "No, you're going HERE, of all places", so it's only His strength.
He gives me the love.
I just love those kids so much that I keep coming back, even though I think, "Argh! they drove me nuts yesterday!" - But no, I keep coming back cos they're so precious.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you ever feel like you've bitten off more than you can chew? Oh, definitely.
Definitely, yeah but I'm reminded in the bible that the Lord gave five loaves and two fish to feed 5,000 and I'm like, "Lord, I've got my five loaves and two fish and there's 5,000 people here.
" Esther, obviously your belief, your faith is everything to you but do you ever have any slight reservations about imposing that on other people? Well, the thing is, to me, it's not my morality and I don't feel like I'm imposing my morality.
I get it all from the Bible.
If it's not in the Bible, I say it's a matter of opinion.
Do you think that you would be out here in the village if you didn't have any faith but you still wanted to do the same amount of good? No, I don't think I would be.
- Is it God that brings you out here? - Yeah, definitely.
Definitely yeah.
I don't think See, I mean, if I came out and managed to make them live for 70 years, what good would that if they die and then they go to hell? You know, to me, at least if they know God, they can go and spend eternity with Him and that's a lot longer than 70 years or 50 years or 20 years or whatever they're going to live here.
Right, let's get some more nails in.
That's it.
The bible school pupils have prepared a traditional feast of roasted pig in our honour.
The local diet consists almost exclusively of sweet potatoes, so this is a huge privilege.
And this is something of a special occasion? Oh, yes.
Only on special occasions.
I mean, sometimes they will cook just vegetables in the ground, - but it's not, there's no fanfare.
- Yeah.
And nobody gets excited but today they've got pork in there - and that is the ultimate.
- Yeah? They love their pork.
- What is this? - This is a very long panadanus fruit but you're not going to be able to eat it like this.
You have to squeeze all the juice out and then they'll scoop it up and eat it with great enthusiasm.
- Any good? - I've never eaten it.
I've always questioned how clean the hands were that scooped it - but Wesley said it tastes like nothing.
- Oh, really? Not as nice as tomato sauce! It's interesting, it's like the men are just waiting to be fed.
That's it.
That's it.
That's what they do best! Wesley lectures them from the book of Genesis where God says the curse for the women is the pain and the childbirth and the men's is the sweat of their brow, and he's like, "You should be sweating, you should be working hard.
" Pak Womi.
Pak Womi is one of the village's most devout converts to Christianity.
What do you do day-to-day? You are crying because you are happy? For all the epic scenery, it's difficult not to feel a sense of claustrophobia.
Unlike the Missionaries, Pak Womi and the villagers have no option to leave.
However hard life may be, they cannot afford to live elsewhere.
Next, I'm flying further into the highlands to Okbap, to find out what one village made of the missionaries when they first arrived from the skies.
I'm in Papua, in Indonesia, flying with David Holsten -- a Christian missionary pilot.
OK, Arthur, do you want to have a go at it here -- flying? So, after we get past this cloud, - we're going to roll the airplane to about a 30 degree bank - OK.
.
.
and then, in a couple of minutes, I'll go ahead and take controls and get prepared for landing.
There's a pretty significant dichotomy that exists between, kind of, the "haves" and the "have nots", you know? Those who have airstrips -- schools are built, clinics are built, they get the supplies that we fly in.
Villages that don't have an airstrip, maybe because of their location -- it's impossible to have one, they literally live generations in the past.
How do you feel about bringing your beliefs in and wiping out the, sort of, cultural signature of these places? You know, kind of, the white missionary coming in and saying, "You can't do any of these things, "you need to do life the way I do it," I don't think that's been around for a long time.
Honestly.
Some of the missionaries who've come out here in the last ten or 15 years, there are maybe elements of their culture that they even try to incorporate into their own lives.
You know, I have friends who said, "Oh, you pierce your nose? Let me do that.
" And they'll do that and walk about with a feather in their nose.
- Would you walk around with a feather in your nose? - Me? No way.
- Why not? - It hurts.
Looks good though.
Yeah, I've got nothing against the look of it, I just can't imagine how much that has to hurt, so With Okbap's tiny airstrip approaching, it's too late to pull out.
Committed to land.
Committed now.
There's a big, big cliff rain forest in front.
We are going to land this airplane and -- if a pig runs out onto the middle of the runway, we're going to kill the pig.
So, that's what we have to do.
Brake pretty quickly now, cos you don't want to go into the end.
Amazing, amazing.
My Father, mike-echo-charlie on the ground, Okbap.
It took the villagers years building this airstrip by hand.
It's tough negotiating it in a plane, let alone a wheelchair.
I've never Ey-up.
I've never seen a slope on a runway, like this, ever before.
Yeah, this a 22% portion up here.
Yeah.
I'd like to bring you down to meet a gentleman by the name of Pak Robert.
He's lived here in Okbap since the days before there were any missionaries who came into here.
When the missionaries arrived in 1973, the villagers had a strong belief in spirits, hunted with bows and arrows and knew little of the outside world.
I want to find out how they feel about the huge changes that have come with the arrival of Christianity.
Robert, had the aircraft, helicopters and missionaries not arrived, what would the village be like today? What did you make of it when you first saw the aircraft coming in? That is incredible.
What did you make of the man that came out of the helicopter? Did people want to keep their traditional way of beliefs? 'Robert wanted to introduce me to his older brother, Uria.
' Hello, you must be Uria.
'He has been paralysed below the waist since childhood.
' What is? How hard is that in the village? Is it very hard for you to get around? It's not the easiest of place.
Uria, have you seen a doctor? Medically, what's wrong with your leg? Uria, have you tried a wheelchair before? Is it better with a crutch? A crutch is probably better than a wheelchair, right? It's hard to comprehend the changes the village has undergone since missionaries first flew in.
But Uria's story is a powerful reminder of how stubbornly remote life here still is.
For some, planes have made isolation a lifestyle, a choice -- but for others it remains an inescapable, and sometimes, harsh reality.
Next time, I'm in the great northern wilderness of Canada.
- And now we're a boat? - Now we're a boat.
We've gone from a plane to a boat.
Go on, let's have a whiff.
Jesus Christ! It smells great to bears, so that's what matters the most.
On our crowded planet, there are still beautiful and little known wildernesses.
But for the determined adventurer, there is a way to reach them.
Oh, my God.
I've just seen the airstrip! Ooh! I'm Arthur Williams.
I used to be a Royal Marine but seven years ago, I was paralysed in an accident.
Then I learnt to fly and regained my spirit of adventure.
Yee-hoo! Now I want to see how far the plane can take me.
Not enough oxygen for me.
Stall warner.
Tackling some of the globe's tiniest and most dangerous airstrips Whoa, whoa, whoa! .
.
meeting the people who've made their home at the ends of the earth Good job! .
.
and exploring the world that only flying can reach.
I've walked on ground that nobody has ever walked before.
This time, I'm in Australia and the Indonesian island of Papua.
This is a land of mind-boggling distances, epic landscapes and intense isolation that has shaped the people who live here.
I'll be journeying deeper and deeper into the wild, meeting farmers slogging it out in the merciless desert, a real-life Swiss Family Robinson on their own desert island and Christian missionaries risking life and limb to bring the word of God to the untouched villages of Papua.
The vast majority of Australians live on the fertile east coast.
Here in the desert bush of northern Australia, you can fly for hours without seeing evidence of humanity.
Lake Nash is one of the largest cattle stations in the country.
It's 30,000 times the size of an average British farm.
Fred Hughes is the boss and only 27 years old.
Up here, you really get a sense of the scale of the place, it just seems to go on and on for miles.
Yeah, it certainly does.
And if you wanted to nip down to the nearest pub, how far would you have to go? It's about 120km.
And the nearest restaurant? About 220.
Would you mind if I take control? - Absolutely.
- Brilliant, thank you.
This thing flies beautifully, Fred.
Yeah.
It's not just distance that makes the plane so important here.
For three months of the year, this desert landscape floods and the only way in and out is by plane.
In this hostile landscape, Fred keeps 42,000 beef cattle.
His house sits alone, surrounded by a sea of desert and cows.
There's the strip, sort of, heading down that way.
Righty ho.
- Yep, speed's good.
- Yeah.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- Have you got the rudder all right? - Yeah.
- OK, full power? - Yep, full power.
There we go.
Fred runs the station with his wife, Sarah.
They've only been in charge here for the last two years.
Welcome to Lake Nash, Arthur.
Hi, Sarah.
Lovely to meet you.
I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to a nice cold one.
Just a nice English stout? - Yeah.
Have you got some? - No.
- Oh! Don't build me up just to break me down like that, Fred.
'English beer or not, 'I want to find out more about the life they've chosen in the outback.
' Did you two grow up on farms? - Yeah, we're both fifth generation.
- And how did you meet? We met at a beef cattle expo actually in 2009 so Yeah, I think it was love at first sight.
Yeah, the first time I met Sarah, I said, "I think I'm going to marry this girl," so Really? You said that on the first date, "I'm going to marry you?" No, No, I didn't say I said it to myself.
And what's day-to-day life like being so remote? We don't really feel that remote to be honest, Sarah's mum and dad are nice and handy which is great.
They're only about five or six hours drive away -- but it's good we can pop over there.
I love it.
"Five hour's drive away, we can just pop over.
" Just an afternoon drive.
'Tomorrow will be my first chance to see 'how farming works on a grand scale.
' Everyone, this is Arthur.
Arthur's in the heli with me today.
'Today, Fred's team are mustering 1,000 head of cattle, 'bringing them in for vaccinations and branding -- 'but with a station this size, 'they don't just do it on horseback or motor bikes 'It's farming for the Mad Max generation.
' Because the land is so arid, the cattle roam far and wide looking for vegetation.
- Do you see all that dust kicking up there? - Yeah - That's all the cattle going in the water.
- Wow.
Ah, Fred, this is awesome.
- Good fun, eh? - Wow.
With another helicopter already working the cattle, we land to help out on the ground.
So, we're just going to go down and see.
We've got cattle coming from two directions meeting up and then it's just a short walk from there into the yard.
The station's other helicopter is in the thick of it, chasing a bull that has broken away from the pack.
He gets as close to the bull as possible, trying to persuade him back to the herd.
Wow, bloody hell.
He's really got to know - the dimensions of his aircraft, doesn't he? - Oh, yeah.
That's phenomenal.
There's a lot of dangers involved, like he's only got to clip a tree with that tail rotor and that machine's going to go out of control.
Jeez.
Yeah, wow.
Heli-mustering was started by Vietnam War vets.
Ten people die doing it every year.
It takes incredible skill and, with the nearest hospital over 100 miles away, the pilot needs to get it right.
With the straggler returned, we find ourselves in the midst of a bovine lake.
I've never seen so many cows in one place in my life.
It's just like you're in the Wild West.
I want to know what it takes to keep the farm working in such an unforgiving environment.
Resilience and resourcefulness, they're probably be the two things.
We had a terrible drought last year and things get tough, there's no question about that, so you need to find that inner strength to get through those times.
How hard is it, mentally, to cope with the effects of drought? Ah, look it's Yeah, it's very, very tough.
There's been plenty of, you know, depression and suicides throughout the bush but, you know, you've got to get through it and it will rain eventually and you pull together and And you know, Sarah and I leaned on each other and got through it.
All of the guys that are working out here, really remote -- does morale get an issue with them? Morale is, like, obviously the most important thing in any operation and that's why it's important to foster the right attitude that you'll always put up with someone who's a little less experienced, not quite as handy, if they're good for morale.
If you've got someone in there wide-handing or backstabbing, you need to sort that out.
Does it ever get to boiling point? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's You know, when people are living and working together all the time -- it's not like you clock off after work, you go out and you see your mates and have a beer.
You're here having a beer with the same people you're working with, so that's why it's so important to stamp out any brush fires when they start.
Tea break over and another cow makes a run for it.
With the heli otherwise engaged, we join the pursuit.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Wow.
That is amazing.
He's just wrestled it.
He's just tied it up with his belt.
See you, mate.
You should learn your lesson for next time.
The team will be along shortly to pick up the rebellious cow -- but now, with almost all the other cattle rounded up, the musterers in the air and the crew on the ground work together to bring the cows into the yard.
Before helicopters, this 12 hour job would have taken at least a week.
This elaborate ground-to-air ballet has transformed the life of cattle farmers like Fred.
Despite all the challenges and hard graft, his love for his land and his life is clear.
Do you ever take it for granted? Yeah, it's a great life and that's why people love being out here -- cos it's exciting and it's rewarding.
Do you think there's anything else there that would give the same sort of job satisfaction? No, I don't think so.
It's a great team and a great life out here.
Next, I'll be meeting some of Fred's neighbours who've been living off the land for thousands of years.
'I'm in Lake Nash, 'one of Australia's largest cattle stations.
' Morning, everybody.
'Breakfast is an essential part of station life 'and it's Luca's job to make sure 'the crew go to work on a full stomach.
' Where are you from, Luca? I'm Italian.
I come from Italy.
In Italy, it's very different.
In Italy, in the morning, just coffee, espresso, or maybe some biscuits and here the guys want They would like just steak.
How well do you think it would go down if you gave the guys here, on the station, a typical Italian breakfast? I think they'd kill me.
With the inevitable indigestion looming, I head out to the pens with Sarah.
And like life out here on the station for yourself, everybody works so hard.
Do you get in amongst it as much as the guys do? I don't know, I seem to get stuck in the office a bit more than I'd like these days but I love nothing more than to get out on my horse and get amongst it all with everyone.
One vital job is checking whether any of the cows are pregnant and the only way to do this is by internal examination.
Happily, I can't reach, so I'll just be watching as Sarah gets stuck in.
Make your way through down to the fallopian tubes and to the ovaries, and I find out whether they're in calf or not.
And is this one pregnant? - This one's calfy! - Oh, good.
That's good news.
Yeah.
Calfy! And you enjoy this kind of work? - Love it.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
When I came out here, I was expecting to find a totally macho environment, but Sarah is one of 15 women working on the station.
Has it always been like that? No, there's been a huge change, you know, probably over the last ten or 20 years that there's a lot of jillaroos in camps now.
I know back in my dad's sort of day, his sisters were, you know, more in the house and that was their place, but I think women are a huge part of .
.
any beef operation nowadays in Australia.
Arthur, I was just going to get in the car and I just want to show you something.
I picked up a little friend.
Oh, no.
You're a sod! - Right, so obviously - Not a fan of spiders? No, not a fan of spiders at all.
Jesus, that's the biggest flipping spider I've ever seen out It's not going to jump, is it? I would see a snake, scorpion, velociraptor than a spider! Especially one that big.
All right, it's just an Achilles heel of mine.
Even in a land this big, there are neighbours.
Just a few miles from the station is the Aboriginal community of Alpurrurulam.
Relationships between the indigenous population and cattle stations have often been conflicted but Fred and the people of Alpurrurulam coexist happily and he's agreed to introduce me to some of their elders.
Maxi! So, Max, this is Arthur.
- Hi, Maxi.
- Hey, Arthur.
How's it going? - Yeah, good.
How are you? - We also got Reggie.
Good to meet you, Max.
'As a neighbourly gesture, Fred slaughters a cow 'every few weeks to give to the community.
' How are we going to cook this beast? 'Maxi and the guys are going to show me 'how to cook beef the traditional bush way.
'I grabbed the chance to get my hands dirty.
' Will you let me know if I'm going too deep or anything? Growing up, my father really impressed upon me the importance of, if you kill an animal, you eat it, and you've got to cook it and you've got to prepare it and you shouldn't be squeamish about it.
If you're prepared to go have a burger, you've got to be prepared to put in the dirty work, as it were, hands on.
I don't know whether you've ever seen a steak that big before.
I'm starving.
It's well over lunch-time.
The steak goes straight into the fire.
Not what I was expecting, but at least it saves on washing-up.
How do you like your steak, Maxi? A bit rare? Well, I think we should get this off then.
And, Maxi, this just cleans the meat, does it? Ah, yeah, that's really good.
That's really good actually.
Hey, Maxi, do you ever? You don't Like, the generations that follow you, like your kids, do you ever worry that they'll leave this bush life behind? Right.
If you could live anywhere in the world, Maxi, where would you live? Despite the discomforts, Fred and Sarah chose to move out here whilst Maxi and the people of Alpurrurulam have decided not to leave.
For both of them, the scale of the land, and the independence it brings, vastly outweighs the harshness of their surroundings.
But for some, the bush is not remote enough.
700 miles north-east of Lake Nash lies Haggerstone Island where one family live alone.
Here, it's not the barren desert but the shark-infested waters that make it so inaccessible.
To get there, I fly to Horn Island.
From here, it's another flight along the coast.
'Seasoned pilot Andre Van Ginkel was born on an airfield.
'Hopefully his experience will help' Bloody Nora.
'.
.
because landing this 70-year-old de Havilland Beaver 'on an tiny island strip will not be easy.
' What a beautiful old girl, Andre.
She just seems to elegantly climb up.
The weather is really coming in.
I can't actually see anything out front now.
Have you ever had any panics out here? You always panic.
Never complacent, are you? No, no, no.
- That's Haggerstone in the background there.
- Wow.
It looks like paradise.
If I'm going to get a chance to explore this desert island, we're going to have to negotiate a difficult landing.
This wind is going to be pretty tricky.
There's no room for error.
Overshoot, or undershoot, and we'll all end up in the Pacific Ocean.
Andre's really working the controls.
Beautiful.
Good job, Andre.
Yep.
Sometimes you get lucky.
The final leg is a short boat ride from the airstrip to Haggerstone itself.
Roy Turner moved here with his wife Anna in 1985.
Back then, it was uninhabited jungle.
They lived in tents with no running water or electricity.
They built everything by hand and raised their family here.
Anna and their children spend a lot of time on the mainland, Roy lives here all year round.
Today, the kids are home as well.
- Roy - Hey! - .
.
hello.
Where have you been? We've been waiting for you for weeks.
I know, it's a long, long journey.
- Here we are.
- This is something else.
'Roy's house is far more luxurious 'than the island shack I expected, 'but he still has to contend with some serious wildlife.
' What's the story behind this? Well, the crocodile actually grabbed someone and we rescued the someone then we went hunting the crocodile.
The head's just over on the bar here.
So, that crocodile's head had somebody's arm in its jaw? - Arm in it.
Yeah.
- How did it not take their arm off? I jumped on it and put a finger in its eye, and it let go.
And that was that.
So, it all ended up being a happy ending.
It could have gone the other way.
Was there any point in the building of this of getting to the point where you're at now where your, sort of, determination flagged for it and you thought, "This is too hard.
" I remember getting pretty lonely at some time, thinking Having a good cry up the end of the beach thinking of what I'd done.
So, it was the sacrifice.
So, what did you do before the island then? I was a sheep shearer, a hard worker, I played a bit of guitar.
Took off with the guitar to the South Pacific, somehow or other, landed in New Guinea because of the hunting.
I loved hunting -- loved wild adventure.
Eating wild duck two or three nights a week and deer, and chasing unattached girls everywhere, you know.
No television, no rules -- it was just the greatest place in the world.
How did you end up coming out here? Everybody thinks, "Well, I'd like to have something on an island.
" Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe I got this as a getaway .
.
but it became way bigger than I thought it would.
And it has become a lot bigger.
A few years ago, Roy took a gamble and started selling his dream of the simple life to paying guests.
Now, the Murdoch family and the super rich pay £400 a night to get a taste of perfect isolation.
We have so many rules "You can't go here.
" "You can't go there.
" "You've got to do this.
" There's just so many restrictions and rules.
When you come to Haggerstone, that all falls away.
It's just a feeling of freedom AND space.
No people.
A space with no people -- that's hard to find.
Life in Haggerstone is as much about what goes on underwater as above ground.
Roy's son, 19-year-old Sam, is taking me spear fishing.
I'll give you a go of one of these.
Happy days.
It depends on your aim but, hopefully, we'll get something.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with my aim.
Are there any particular nasties around here or anything - that's going to want to try and eat me? - Erm Yeah.
There are sharks.
When you're spear fishing, there's always times when you'll shoot something, say, on the edge of a reef somewhere and you'll have a shark come up and take the fish off you.
- Really? - Yeah, it happens a lot.
Especially as you go further and further out.
The family try to be as self-sufficient as possible and catching dinner is part of that.
Theoretically, it should be easy.
The sea is teeming with fish but they all seem to see me coming.
Until finally I've got a little ripper.
That's not bad going, eh? I can now say I've done harpoon fishing in the Australian islands.
Despite my glee, one little fish won't feed us all -- so we head out with Roy and his daughter, Tash, to go hunting for something a little more substantial.
Part of the fun is to go out and get what you're going to eat -- and when it's that fresh, you've got to be a real bad cook to ruin it.
16-year-old Tash grew up on the island.
She's been catching fish since she could hold a line.
Today, we're looking for red emperors.
When you finally get a bite, do you snap it to try and? No, you have to wait.
You have to wait just a little bit longer and then they start pulling, - and that's when you start to - Ah! Tash, when you go back to boarding school, what do your friends make of the stories you tell them of what you did with your holiday? On the occasional chance that I get to bring someone back, I love it.
I just love to, kind of, share And what do they make of it? Their mouths are open quite a lot of the time.
I'm waiting for beginner's luck to kick in.
It hasn't worked yet.
Oh, wow.
I've never seen a fish that big in my life.
Finally, I've got a bite too.
This is making him work for it.
Yeah, this is working for dinner like I've never done before.
That's coming close now.
- Yeah.
- Good job! Roy is a, kind of, high-end hunter-gatherer.
He catches and grows much of his own food, but he can also fly in supplies when he wants to.
Even if life here is not exactly slumming it, I do wonder how it is growing up somewhere as lonely as this.
Sometimes you feel like you're missing out on the You know, the, sort of, young life.
There's usually not an abundance of girls out here.
Yeah.
No, I gathered that.
Yeah.
- Or anyone, to be quite honest with you.
- Yeah.
You're up here and you're on your own.
- That's the only thing I thought about as a teenager.
- Yeah.
- So - Of course you did.
You just feel like you're sometimes missing out on something, but when I'm in the city, I feel like I'm missing out on here, so Do you, honestly, in your heart of hearts, think you'll come back and settle here? Not No, not in the same way that Dad's done.
When I'm 45-50 years old, I think I could do this as a lifestyle but while you're young, you have to do - You have to, yeah.
- .
.
your own thing.
Planes allow Roy to follow his fantasy of living in luxurious seclusion.
Where I'm flying next, only 300 miles north of Haggerstone, planes are having quite a different effect -- opening up remote tribes to the outside world.
Papua is renowned for its natural beauty, unique wildlife, isolated tribes and vast, dense jungle.
Centuries of inter-clan conflict has led to thousands of tiny communities choosing to live as inaccessibly as possible.
It's estimated that Papua is home to half of the world's uncontacted tribes but some of these villages have embraced aviation and now Papua boasts over 200 tiny dirt strips.
Strips that have been carved out of the jungle to serve remote villages and, with no other way in or out, it's their only link to the outside world.
I'm flying with a group of very different aviators -- pilot missionaries.
Papua, Indonesia -- one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.
For the next few days, I'm flying with David Holsten.
Born in Colorado, he has been flying supplies and bibles to villages in Papua for the last three years.
If you guys could just watch the tail.
He is one of 20 missionary pilots who fly every day except Sundays into the jungle.
The Missionary Aviation Fellowship was founded in the aftermath of World War Two and has been operating in Papua since 1954.
It was originally conceived as a way to transport zealous missionaries, determined to convert the locals.
Papuan tribes with their animist beliefs and reputation for cannibalism were a key target.
Nowadays, MAF have diversified and provide a passenger, cargo and medical service.
But the word of God still comes as part of the package.
Today we're flying supplies to Mamit and Okbap, two tiny villages an hour's flight or a month's walk away.
Pre-flight procedure with MAF does have an unusual element.
We look to you for strength and for wisdom, Jesus.
Amen.
Thanks, appreciate that.
I want to know what motivates David and the other Missionaries.
Are they actually doing good? And how do the people who live at the end of the runway feel about it? Our first destination is a small village called Mamit, home to two missionaries.
There's a couple here, Wes and Esther Dale, who have been serving in Papua for 20-something years.
We fly in a couple times a week and they kind of live right in the middle of it.
And they deal with kind of a never-ending flow of problems.
There's health issues, domestic issues, husbands who leave their wives or small children who are raising their siblings.
Flying over the heavy green canopy is mesmerising.
Trees reach the horizon with no sign of a clearing.
It's eye-poppingly beautiful but for a pilot looking for a safe landing, a little on the scary side.
You can start to see the bigger mountains poking out - from above the haze out there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- In the distance.
David, is it safe to say Papua's got a bit of a reputation for being a hard place to fly in? Yeah, there is on average about ten accidents every year in Papua, two or three fatal accidents too.
This mountain was enclosed in you know, covered up with cloud, and an aircraft kind of flew right into the side of the mountain.
And it's an easy thing to do, cos it's the first large peak - That's right.
- .
.
that we've encountered for quite a few miles.
- Up here you can see the white metal.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, total loss of life.
There are similar scenes like that.
- All over.
- Scattered.
Do you put a lot of your fate in the hands of God, as it were? Do you believe that, you know, "If my time flying in Papua is up, then it's up"? When something comes along that I have no control over, I believe that, you know, that's from the hand of God and I'm not going to fight that.
So there's a level of peace that comes with that.
As long as we don't get to Mamit and you're like, "Right, if the airplane's meant to land, it's meant to land!" Hey, we're going to do the best we can to pull all this off - as safely as we can.
- Of course, of course.
This is Mamit.
There's the airfield.
There's the little runway.
It's tiny, just cut out of the side of this mountain.
Committed now.
Ah, that's amazing! Welcome to the jungle.
I'd never get bored of doing this.
Wes and Esther meet us off the plane.
We've brought in pipes for the village's new project -- a hydroelectric generator.
Wes, if you didn't have aircraft, then, it would be impossible to get all of these materials? - No, we wouldn't even have kerosene lamps.
- Yeah.
I like the extravagance of having electricity, I really do.
Wes and Esther have helped build much of the village's infrastructure but they don't just do handiwork.
They teach a bible school and have spent years translating the gospel into the local language.
So then, Esther, where's this dodgy floorboard we need to fix? This is the one the boy went through on Thursday.
'Esther has asked me to help her fix the floor of the village school where she teaches.
' And fix this one at the same time.
Yeah, sure, alrighty.
- That's it.
Woo-hoo! - OK.
- Take that! - Skills! - This is how I take out my frustration.
- Yeah.
My plan for my life was to live in New Zealand and to become an artist.
That was my plan and God's like, "No, you're going HERE, of all places", so it's only His strength.
He gives me the love.
I just love those kids so much that I keep coming back, even though I think, "Argh! they drove me nuts yesterday!" - But no, I keep coming back cos they're so precious.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you ever feel like you've bitten off more than you can chew? Oh, definitely.
Definitely, yeah but I'm reminded in the bible that the Lord gave five loaves and two fish to feed 5,000 and I'm like, "Lord, I've got my five loaves and two fish and there's 5,000 people here.
" Esther, obviously your belief, your faith is everything to you but do you ever have any slight reservations about imposing that on other people? Well, the thing is, to me, it's not my morality and I don't feel like I'm imposing my morality.
I get it all from the Bible.
If it's not in the Bible, I say it's a matter of opinion.
Do you think that you would be out here in the village if you didn't have any faith but you still wanted to do the same amount of good? No, I don't think I would be.
- Is it God that brings you out here? - Yeah, definitely.
Definitely yeah.
I don't think See, I mean, if I came out and managed to make them live for 70 years, what good would that if they die and then they go to hell? You know, to me, at least if they know God, they can go and spend eternity with Him and that's a lot longer than 70 years or 50 years or 20 years or whatever they're going to live here.
Right, let's get some more nails in.
That's it.
The bible school pupils have prepared a traditional feast of roasted pig in our honour.
The local diet consists almost exclusively of sweet potatoes, so this is a huge privilege.
And this is something of a special occasion? Oh, yes.
Only on special occasions.
I mean, sometimes they will cook just vegetables in the ground, - but it's not, there's no fanfare.
- Yeah.
And nobody gets excited but today they've got pork in there - and that is the ultimate.
- Yeah? They love their pork.
- What is this? - This is a very long panadanus fruit but you're not going to be able to eat it like this.
You have to squeeze all the juice out and then they'll scoop it up and eat it with great enthusiasm.
- Any good? - I've never eaten it.
I've always questioned how clean the hands were that scooped it - but Wesley said it tastes like nothing.
- Oh, really? Not as nice as tomato sauce! It's interesting, it's like the men are just waiting to be fed.
That's it.
That's it.
That's what they do best! Wesley lectures them from the book of Genesis where God says the curse for the women is the pain and the childbirth and the men's is the sweat of their brow, and he's like, "You should be sweating, you should be working hard.
" Pak Womi.
Pak Womi is one of the village's most devout converts to Christianity.
What do you do day-to-day? You are crying because you are happy? For all the epic scenery, it's difficult not to feel a sense of claustrophobia.
Unlike the Missionaries, Pak Womi and the villagers have no option to leave.
However hard life may be, they cannot afford to live elsewhere.
Next, I'm flying further into the highlands to Okbap, to find out what one village made of the missionaries when they first arrived from the skies.
I'm in Papua, in Indonesia, flying with David Holsten -- a Christian missionary pilot.
OK, Arthur, do you want to have a go at it here -- flying? So, after we get past this cloud, - we're going to roll the airplane to about a 30 degree bank - OK.
.
.
and then, in a couple of minutes, I'll go ahead and take controls and get prepared for landing.
There's a pretty significant dichotomy that exists between, kind of, the "haves" and the "have nots", you know? Those who have airstrips -- schools are built, clinics are built, they get the supplies that we fly in.
Villages that don't have an airstrip, maybe because of their location -- it's impossible to have one, they literally live generations in the past.
How do you feel about bringing your beliefs in and wiping out the, sort of, cultural signature of these places? You know, kind of, the white missionary coming in and saying, "You can't do any of these things, "you need to do life the way I do it," I don't think that's been around for a long time.
Honestly.
Some of the missionaries who've come out here in the last ten or 15 years, there are maybe elements of their culture that they even try to incorporate into their own lives.
You know, I have friends who said, "Oh, you pierce your nose? Let me do that.
" And they'll do that and walk about with a feather in their nose.
- Would you walk around with a feather in your nose? - Me? No way.
- Why not? - It hurts.
Looks good though.
Yeah, I've got nothing against the look of it, I just can't imagine how much that has to hurt, so With Okbap's tiny airstrip approaching, it's too late to pull out.
Committed to land.
Committed now.
There's a big, big cliff rain forest in front.
We are going to land this airplane and -- if a pig runs out onto the middle of the runway, we're going to kill the pig.
So, that's what we have to do.
Brake pretty quickly now, cos you don't want to go into the end.
Amazing, amazing.
My Father, mike-echo-charlie on the ground, Okbap.
It took the villagers years building this airstrip by hand.
It's tough negotiating it in a plane, let alone a wheelchair.
I've never Ey-up.
I've never seen a slope on a runway, like this, ever before.
Yeah, this a 22% portion up here.
Yeah.
I'd like to bring you down to meet a gentleman by the name of Pak Robert.
He's lived here in Okbap since the days before there were any missionaries who came into here.
When the missionaries arrived in 1973, the villagers had a strong belief in spirits, hunted with bows and arrows and knew little of the outside world.
I want to find out how they feel about the huge changes that have come with the arrival of Christianity.
Robert, had the aircraft, helicopters and missionaries not arrived, what would the village be like today? What did you make of it when you first saw the aircraft coming in? That is incredible.
What did you make of the man that came out of the helicopter? Did people want to keep their traditional way of beliefs? 'Robert wanted to introduce me to his older brother, Uria.
' Hello, you must be Uria.
'He has been paralysed below the waist since childhood.
' What is? How hard is that in the village? Is it very hard for you to get around? It's not the easiest of place.
Uria, have you seen a doctor? Medically, what's wrong with your leg? Uria, have you tried a wheelchair before? Is it better with a crutch? A crutch is probably better than a wheelchair, right? It's hard to comprehend the changes the village has undergone since missionaries first flew in.
But Uria's story is a powerful reminder of how stubbornly remote life here still is.
For some, planes have made isolation a lifestyle, a choice -- but for others it remains an inescapable, and sometimes, harsh reality.
Next time, I'm in the great northern wilderness of Canada.
- And now we're a boat? - Now we're a boat.
We've gone from a plane to a boat.
Go on, let's have a whiff.
Jesus Christ! It smells great to bears, so that's what matters the most.