There comes that moment in the life of every travel television presenter when they must pack their bags and head to the southern hemisphere, where they will soak up the sun, cower from the wildlife and visit sheep farms more vast than the average EU member state. Mike Murphy did so several thousand years ago for Murphy’s Australia, and the 2 Johnnies will no doubt one day fulfil their destiny by hosting a live podcast on Bondi Beach.
Hector Ó hEochagáin, TG4’s resident passport-packing gadabout, has likewise trekked to the Antipodes, where he made a programme in 2006. Now he’s back for Hector OZ/NZ (TG4, 9.30pm), in which – as the title makes plain – he embarks upon an exhaustive trek across Australia and New Zealand.
He’s an amiable companion and a natural people person. He is not a fan of venomous reptiles, however, as we see when a snake-removal expert dangles a deadly eastern brown snake in his very general direction. Hector politely pretends to freak out. Unless he is actually freaking out, which might well be the case.
This is during an excursion to Melbourne and across the surrounding state of Victoria that begins with a blessing from a member of the indigenous Wurundjeri people, Joy Murphy Wandin. She sees parallels between the native Australian and Irish experiences of colonialism and distinguishes between Irish people and the British who colonised Australia. “The way in which your people came to this country was not to take [but] to be able to come to a country where they were accepted,” she says.
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Hector also visits Melbourne’s Hawthorn Football Club – an AFL team that counts players from Galway and Mayo as star forwards in its women’s team. There is time, too, to swing by a hipster butcher who plays Fontaines DC and to report from a food bank for asylum seekers.
The tone is easy-going and rambling although there is a weird moment when Hector plunges into an impassioned address/rant about refugees and migration in both Ireland and Australia that feels badly out of place in an upbeat travel show. “I don’t know what your opinion is on the refugee problem in our country and throughout the world. But I for one am fed up with the nonsense. I’m sick and tired of hearing about it,” says Hector.
“One thing that really hits home ... is that these people and the people landing in our country are not to blame. They’re not the problem and neither are we. The fault lies with the government and the policymakers, whether it’s here in Australia or back home in Ireland. The politicians are the ones responsible. The entire fault lies with the politicians.” He is entitled to his opinion – though it is worth pointing out that politicians and policymakers weren’t the ones rioting in Saggart recently.
Australia is huge, hot and full of deadly reptiles. Ó hEochagáin captures that vastness and otherness as he leaves Victoria behind and flies to the parched, endless expanse of central Australia. The rest of the season will see him go everywhere from Perth to Auckland – separated by a mere 5,500 kilometres. At no point is Hector in danger of doing anything original or surprising (the odd fusillade about politicians aside). But, then, not everything on TV has to be astonishingly original. As comfort telly, Hector OZ/NZ hits the spot more than it misses.
