A leading British explorer has become the first person ever to travel the length of an uncharted Amazon river.
Adventurous Ash Dykes, 33, battled sickness and hallucinations to finish his epic 37-day trip by reaching the mouth of the Coppename River in Suriname, South America.
The extreme athlete and his teammates Jacob Hudson, Dick Lock and Matt Wallace, kayaked continuously for the final three days and nights to complete the mission.
And after suffering from sleep deprivation, infections and malnutrition, they saw strange visions before finally getting to the Atlantic Ocean.
Adventurous Ash Dykes, 33, battled sickness and hallucinations to finish his epic 37-day trip by reaching the mouth of the Coppename River in Suriname, South America.
The extreme athlete and his teammates Jacob Hudson, Dick Lock and Matt Wallace, kayaked continuously for the final three days and nights to complete the mission.
And after suffering from sleep deprivation, infections and malnutrition, they saw strange visions before finally getting to the Atlantic Ocean.
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00:00And then we continue, sourced to sea, by a kayak, through the jungle.
00:28Shit, that's not good.
00:31Through the jungle, we've already seen all sorts of wildlife.
00:36We've seen a snake-digested frog.
00:39We've been trapped by night wasps, which were terrifying.
00:43And now we're being brutalised by the river.
00:46But we're going, and this is day one, just the beginning.
00:50So we were just trying to get to some sleep then.
00:53We literally just left, we're in pain. Feet are just soaked.
00:59And we went to get into the hammocks and went over that direction.
01:02And there are army ants in there, millions.
01:11We're down the river, and we're going to search for the source of the Kopenham River.
01:16But right now, it's fully uncharted.
01:18All the maps, GPS, completely wrong.
01:21So we're guessing as we go.
01:23Four per kayak, which is about 50 kg per kayak.
01:28And there's no, if every 100, 200 metres, it's relentless.
01:34But it is nailed really hard.
01:3750 kilogram.
01:40We managed to, Matt managed to get a fish before.
01:52The back doesn't look nice.
01:55And here we are. Rapids.
01:58Lord, we're going to have to individually bring the kayak over the rapids and then over the log.
02:05And look how many ticks I've got on me so far.
02:09From the middle of the Amazon.
02:12Look, you've got one, two, three, four, five.
02:20There's probably more that I can't see.
02:24On my back.
02:27Got to get them all off now.
02:30Very hard, very difficult.
02:33Camped up last night.
02:35Probably one of my favourite nights, actually, last night.
02:38Got some decent sleep.
02:40Although there was a Brazilian wandering spider in camp last night who bloody entered.
02:44I was like, oh, shit.
02:46Jacob stood in an army ant's nest and got eaten.
02:50Literally had ants in his pants.
02:52And between us, we probably had to pull off about 300 ticks.
02:57I've had three toenails drop off.
03:00And my big toenail is absolutely throbbing.
03:03We've had about 400, 500 calories today.
03:07We are literally machete in hand, climbing over trees.
03:12We've only had about a litre of water today.
03:15But our spirits are high.
03:17We might be hazy, we might be dizzy.
03:19We might even be slightly lost in the jungle.
03:22Oh, fucking hell, that one hurt.
03:24But we're still here smiling.
03:37So I'm about to get into camp.
03:40And I've got a caiman right there next to me.
03:50Look at that.
03:52Beautiful.
03:54It's a bloody dinosaur, though.
03:58There's my tent.
04:01This is an upgrade.
04:02My tent.
04:05This is an update from Suriname, from attempting a world first record.
04:11We've been fully uncharted, fully off the grid for a while now.
04:16It's been brutal.
04:18Brutal.
04:20We have been stung, we have been bitten.
04:23We have had to run from camp due to army ants.
04:27We've seen an abundance of wildlife.
04:29Some beautiful, some scary.
04:31We had a scorpion.
04:33So today is day five, and it could be the day that we find the source of the Kopenham River.
04:39That's the Kopenham River just behind.
04:41So it's a lot smaller now.
04:43Of course, we ditched the kayaks yesterday morning.
04:45Made our way up over the mountains, through the jungle.
04:48But, you know, today we hopefully reach the source, which would be, you know, just amazing.
04:56Five days in, you know, to get to the source of mission before the mission has even begun.
05:01From the source we'll hit.
05:03Day six of attempting a new world first record here in the Amazon, in Suriname.
05:09We've been grinding away for six days trying to search for the source of the Kopenham River.
05:14A lot of people said, like, it's going to be so hard, and they were right.
05:18But we found it!
05:22The source of the Kopenham River.
05:26From here we travel all the way to the sea.
05:29This is one of the world's most remote rivers in the greenest country on the planet.
05:33And we are all buzzing.
05:35We have really put the work in.
05:37And we are so happy to be here.
05:39We will keep you updated.
05:41But that's fantastic news.