TV review: The last adventure

Transtasman kayaker Andrew McAuley perished within sight of land. Photo / Supplied

There was nothing fancy in the telling of Solo, in the Real Life slot on Tuesday night, on TV One. It was the story of Aussie adventurer and family man (two stereotypes often rolled out in the aftermath of a tragedy), Andrew McAuley.

We know this is a tragedy because we know the ending. In attempting to be the first to kayak across the Tasman, in his case from Tasmania to Milford Sound, McAuley vanished just 30 kilometres from New Zealand, and within sight of land.

He was an adventurer and part of that make-up involves being competitive. He wanted to do extreme things, and do them first. Why people want to do such things, which involve the very risk of losing their lives, remains unanswerable, I suspect. But his friend, fellow adventurer and doctor, Richard Stiles, gave an interesting analysis of McAuley's character.

"Extreme adventurers... do have a different emotional make-up. To get that high requires them to put themselves into a higher level of risk than someone with a greater emotional sensitivity. To experience that intense feeling of being alive, you need to touch that potential to die."

That was as near as Solo came to offering, from anyone, any sort of judgment about whether he should have risked his life. Except perhaps the Tasmanian marine cops who tried to dissuade McAuley from attempting the crossing to the extent of temporarily impounding his kayak.

His life was his own to risk, except that he was - and here the second part of the more basic description of what sort of bloke he was comes in - a family man. He had a wife and a young son.

Somewhere, in the middle of the ocean, he sees and films a bobbing seabird, which in turn, observes him as intently. He says nothing, the bird, obviously says nothing, there is no voice-over. You can judge for yourself the poignancy, or the idiocy, of the moment. When the kayak is seen from the air, bobbing, aimlessly, empty, again nothing is said.

Solo wouldn't have existed in this form if not for the one memory card of footage which survived. No journey exists, now, without some sort of recording. And Solo opens, and ends, with the last message (not played in its entirety to McAuley's family until a month after his death) relayed to emergency services. It is a ragged, broken call from a ragged, broken man who knows he's about to drown.

"I need assistance. My kayak's sinking. I'm going down."

This final attempt was actually his second. There was footage of the first try: he set off, almost immediately got too cold to go on, found an island near home, and sensibly, went home. That footage shows him weeping uncontrollably as he paddled from shore, as his little boy called: "Bye, Daddy."

His wife considers that he "made it".

There is no message; if you want to impose one, that's entirely up to you but that Solo doesn't attempt to, makes this a very good documentary.

On the topic of sending messages, new teen drama, Reservoir Hill, will offer the opportunity to send text messages to the lead character, Beth.

As in, "dn't date tht ape," perhaps. Or, "yr hair looks stink 2day."

This is a wonderful innovation. Now we can text bully fictional girl characters as well as those real girls.

This is a new-fangled idea which will appeal to pedantic curmudegeons everywhere.

I am looking forward to being able to text other characters on the telly, starting with those news types who use "less" when they mean "fewer".

I cld b v bsy.