[Jim Walker]

I saw this last night in HD.

When I was working in Saudi I tried desperately hard to get out and about to see some of the wildlife. At the time I was working in the Asir mountain range, a spectacular range that reaches almost 3,000m in height and runs from Yemen in the south to Jeddah in the north. An incredibly beautiful area it was also difficult to get to wildlife reserves. Strange rules around which days to visit, some you could visit as a man, some you had to visit as part of a family, entrance depended wholly on who the attitude of the attendants at the time. I always wanted to see more of the region.

Last night showed the bedouin and their travels, the wildlife that surrounds them as they pass through parts of probably the least inhabitable part of the planet. The photography was spectacular, as was the scenery.

It was clear though that the film makers only had access to more open countries, Oman, Jordan and the UAE, not Saudi, which is a shame, the Saudi's would do well to allow access for such positive publicity.

I thoroughly enjoyed last nights episode and am really looking forward to the next two.

[Lefty]

I really enjoyed it too - I can't recall seeing any previous natural history programmes about Arabia. It was great to see the oryx, they're stunning animals.

[Jim Walker]

I'm really looking forward to seeing the Asir Leopard, one of the rarest animals on Earth.

Before leaving I was tying to get permission to look for them. One of the local guys I knew said that he knew some people who had encountered leopard in the past and would introduce me. Unfortunately I was made redundant before I could make any progress, that and an unbelievable bureaucracy!

The Oryx though was something else. A truly remarkable, stunning animal.

[cabbage]

I saw this last night in HD.

When I was working in Saudi I tried desperately hard to get out and about to see some of the wildlife. At the time I was working in the Asir mountain range, a spectacular range that reaches almost 3,000m in height and runs from Yemen in the south to Jeddah in the north. An incredibly beautiful area it was also difficult to get to wildlife reserves. Strange rules around which days to visit, some you could visit as a man, some you had to visit as part of a family, entrance depended wholly on who the attitude of the attendants at the time. I always wanted to see more of the region.

Last night showed the bedouin and their travels, the wildlife that surrounds them as they pass through parts of probably the least inhabitable part of the planet. The photography was spectacular, as was the scenery.

It was clear though that the film makers only had access to more open countries, Oman, Jordan and the UAE, not Saudi, which is a shame, the Saudi's would do well to allow access for such positive publicity.

I thoroughly enjoyed last nights episode and am really looking forward to the next two.

love the story about the wildlife reserves, sometimes we take our open access here for granted I think! It was the same in Slovakia when I was there, the rules for entry into a national park would have people here marching in the streets

Loved the programme, even the bits about people! I wasn't aware it was available in HD, the episode I watched was just on BBC Scotland's standard channel, I'll need to watch out for the HD version.

It was the oryx that really amazed me, I hadn't realised just what desert specialists they were

[Lefty]

Another brilliant episode on Friday - if you missed it, you should definitely watch it on line. Again, so much interesting Arabian wildlife I didn't know about. Fantastic night-time footage and that Arabian leopard - wow! Really glad they made this series.