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You are in: Berkshire > Entertainment > Outdoors and Attractions > Features > Burghfield boy moves in with the natives

Olly Steeds

Berkshire explorer Olly Steeds

Burghfield boy moves in with the natives

Berkshire resident and intrepid explorer Olly Steeds has just returned from the far reaches of West Papua were he spent months with two indigenous tribes. He's been telling BBC Radio Berkshire about his adventures.

Intrepid explorer and Berkshire resident Olly Steeds has just returned from West Papua after spending months with two indigenous tribes.

Along with his partner Mark Anstice, Olly lived with both the Kombai and the Mek Tribes and followed them in their day to day routine learning about their culture and following their customs.

The pair were in Indonesia filming a new TV show called 'The Lost Tribes' to be shown on The Discovery Channel. Their objective was to seek total immersion in an isolated culture with histories of tribal war, sorcery and witchcraft.

Now safely back home, Olly spoke to BBC Radio Berkshire's Phil Kennedy about his adventure.

You can click here to listen to the full interview or read on below for extracts.

"I think the real explorers are the people who are pioneering the future knowledge of our planet, they're the ones who are pushing back the frontiers of understanding, I really wouldn't call myself an explorer I'm more of an adventurer and a journalist rather than an explorer.


"It's an incredible privilege, I count myself so lucky, I can't believe a boy from Burghfield ended up travelling the world and that someone is paying for me to do it. I keep pinching myself and waiting for someone to come to the door and say 'we've booked somebody else' but so far so good.

You start your new show called 'The Worlds Lost Tribes' Are there dwindling numbers of tribes and how do you go about trying to find one?

"There are so few groups, I think the only places where people are living such an isolated traditional life like the Mek tribe who we stayed with last summer were in West Papua and parts of the The Amazon

"So it's very difficult to locate them and find a way in which they are happy for you to move in with them and lodge with them and for them to basically be our teachers"

" I can't believe a boy from Burghfield ended up travelling the world"

Olly Steeds is still reeling from his adventures


They are aware of the outside world aren't they?

"There are still some tribes that have no contact with the outside world, I think Survival International put them at about 20 maybe even 30 small groups so contact with these kind of people has got to be done in a really sensitive manner and its not something that we do.


"Where we were in West Papua, missionaries first arrived there in the 1970's so they have so they have had some contact with the outside world, some people had been outside the valleys of the Mek and seen what lies beyond."


What was the food like?


"On the first trip I lost about 20 kilos so this time I filled up on a diet of pies and beers before I left thinking I was going to lose a lot and I did, it was basically a diet of carbohydrates mixed in with a bit of protein as and when we caught it.

"We had the odd pig which we caught, that was a rare delight otherwise it was protein from tadpole kebabs, frogs, grass hoppers, anything with a pulse really!"

last updated: 12/02/2008 at 18:26
created: 12/02/2008

You are in: Berkshire > Entertainment > Outdoors and Attractions > Features > Burghfield boy moves in with the natives

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