I do see a lot of the hard end of ecology, and my feeling is that we live on a super-exciting planet but a super-fragile one.

My faith isn't very churchy, it's a pretty personal, intimate thing and has been a huge source of strength in moments of life and death.

Never depend on those luck moments – they are gifts – but instead always build your own back-up plan.

Textbook survival tells you to stay put. Stop. Wait for rescue. Don't take any risks. But there'd been a whole host of survival shows like that and I didn't really want to do that.

The lesson is, the rewards in life don't always go to the biggest, or the bravest, or the smartest. The rewards go to the dogged; and when your going though hell, to the person who just keeps going.

For me, my training is a key part of my work as so often my life has depended on being able to move fast and haul myself up and out of something fast!

One thing I know for sure: it is only by doing what we fear that we can ever truly learn to be brave.