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Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild Season 11 Episodes
Season 11 Episode Guide
5 Episodes 2020 - 2020
Episode 1
Iceland
45 mins
Ben spends a week on the private Icelandic island which is the home of single, retired former carpenter Hakon. After the rat race made him an alcoholic, retiring in the normally quiet shadow of an active volcano cured him, mostly enjoying the natural solitude of the wilderness and working on his self-built, fairly comfortable home. Yet Hakon regularly hosts visits from former city friends, notably a couple, and this time Ben, who proves quite handy and helpful, even overcoming his reluctance to try out a 'refreshing' morning seat batch in polar bear style.
Episode 2
Siberia
45 mins
Ben always wanted to visit Siberia, but is puzzled and worried by the rundown mess that welcomes him to the NE, where he spends a week o the Russian scientific research station founded by the retired discoverer of the defrosting of permafrost, which may boost global warming terribly. He convinced his son Nikita, who graduated as mathematician, to take charge. His city-raised wife runs the household, daughters only, yet their prefer tranquil life in the desolate wilderness. Nikita shows Ben the wonders and fragility of permafrost and the challenges of its research, with a project to slow it down by replacing 'monculture' taiga, which attracts heath, with grass-based steppes like those that sustained the woolly mammoth and his Pleistocene neighbors.
Episode 3
New Zealand
45 mins
Ben joins fellow Brit Lucy, husband Tim and their two daughters, a family who swapped their London home for a yurt on a woodland river on New Zealand's North Island.
Episode 4
Croatia
45 mins
Ben moves in with Croatian former Olympic athlete and multiple sports super-coach Nikola P., whose charges won many medals, before an unfair scandal made him retire disgusted. He gave away all his fortune and lives in a home he built alone and keeps fitting, now with Ben's help, in Croatia's hinterland forest. The villagers mistrust him and his only regular visitor, a teacher who became his lover. Yet Nikola also coaches the nearest town's sports club, which now miraculously produces multiple national champions. Ben needs time to get a grip on his complex psychology, combining hermit self-sufficiency -he breeds animals but can't slaughter them- with sincere caring for the world, especially durability, settling for simple satisfaction without luxury, even challenging himself at the expense of efficiency, with varying successes, like an open-air bathtub and muddy unfinished open air swimming pool. Ben experiences Nikola retains great shape on a wild cycling ride through the national park woods.
Episode 5
Oregon
45 mins
Ben visits an ex-photographer who lives an isolated life in the wilds of Oregon, harvesting weeds for nutrition. There, Ben experiences a Native American-inspired sweat lodge.