Plunging into a remote mountain lake, camel-trekking for miles through empty desert… Natural landscapes have an incredible ability to change the way we think and behave. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to women from Wales and the Netherlands who spend their time in some of the world's most untouched spots.
Arita Baaijens is a Dutch explorer and environmental biologist. She spent decades exploring the vast empty reaches of the Sahara, where she lived with nomadic tribespeople and kept herself safe with a camel whip. In Siberian mountains and the jungles of Papua New Guinea, living among indigenous people, she learnt new ways of understanding the world.
Brigid Lowe is from Wales but moved to Scotland with her young children to recover from divorce and an assault. She set herself the challenge of swimming a thousand of Scotland's lochs, many of which are ignored and unnamed. Along the way she encountered monsters in the deep, and learnt to read the flow of water. Her latest book, Shiver, describes her time in this austere and challenging landscape.
Producer: Hannah Sander
(Image: (L) Brigid Lowe, credit Ide Crawford. (R) Arita Baaijens, credit Viktor Bentley.)