By Nick Gibbs
When you’ve made a living dangling off mountains, chasing snakes, tracking whales or tumbling down rock-strewn rivers, as adventurer Steve Backshall has done, having the right kit is all-important. So why then doesn’t he choose to drive a wilderness-hardened off-roader complete with diff locks and a snorkel instead opting for a Honda CR-V?
Because, he says, the CR-V has everything he needs, and more. ‘When I’m in the UK, I don’t do a lot of off-road driving, but I have to do a lot of getting to the coast, getting to mountains, going to places where I can then take off my kayak, get out my bike or go camping or climbing. I have a habit of living in my car,’ he tells Dream. ‘A car is a practical thing for me – it’s important it can do motorways in comfort and not be using ridiculous amounts of fuel.’
Backshall’s plain-speaking, outdoor-obsessed, ever-restless personality has made him a natural for TV shows like the recent wildlife series Big Blue Live, where he was famously interrupted by a blue whale mid-interview. But he’s no show-boater (perhaps his downfall in last year’s Strictly Come Dancing). A quick look at what he’s wearing for this rainy photo session at Black Park Country Park near Slough proves this is a man who thinks carefully about his kit.
His Honda CR-V 1.6 i-DTEC diesel officially records 62.8mpg, fulfilling his fuel efficiency brief. It also has a whopping 1,146 litres of space in the boot with the seats folded, enough indeed for a fully grown adventurer to stretch out.
‘I rocked up to go climbing once with only a bivvy bag to sleep in, no tent. There was this cataclysmic thunderstorm, which was quite horrific, so I just jumped in the back and slept there. It was quite comfortable,’ he says.
The penalty for having the wrong kit is serious injury or worse. Steve tells a truly wince-making story of a climbing session at the Wye Valley in south Wales when a rock-climbing device called a cam failed on him. ‘It didn’t hold properly and I hit the deck from more than 30ft up, falling onto rock.’
The fall smashed his heel and broke his back in two places. The doctor who treated him said it was essentially his muscle tone (he’s got some SERIOUS muscle on him) that allowed him to walk again. ‘All those hours in the gym did help,’ he said.
The CR-V could have a new role after Rio Olympics 2016, when Steve hopes he and his soon-to-be wife, Olympic rower Helen Glover, will start a family. ‘Kids are very much part of the plan,’ he says.
Few TV stars are as straight-forward and plain-speaking as Steve Backshall and you feel he has found the perfect match in his chosen car. As he says: ‘I’m looking for something that can do what it says it’ll do, and the Honda CR-V has been that.’
