Join host Adam Shaw to explore incredible woods and their fascinating stories, from newly-planted spaces to magical rainforest and ancient woodland. Along the way we meet the dedicated people behind these special places, chat to nature-loving celebrities, discuss hot topics and encounter stunning wildlife.
A rainforest ramble with Tinuke Oyediran
Audio: Adam Shaw
Tinuke Oyediran is on a mission to explore all of the UK’s temperate rainforests, so for our latest episode, we showed her around magical Bovey Valley Woods in Devon. Tinuke is an adventurer and former professional roller skater, and was a contestant on the BBC’s Survivor UK show. She’s really passionate about nature, pushing boundaries and sharing her experiences to educate and inspire online communities.
As we take a riverside ramble through the rainforest, we hear Tinuke on her wild adventures, the healing powers of nature and her efforts to address the lack of representation in the great outdoors. We also hear about:
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, today I am meeting a professional roller skater, which is a first for me anyway. She was also one of 18 contestants marooned on a deserted location in a BBC reality show which saw people divided into two groups and tasked with competing in a range of challenges in the hope of eventually winning the title of sole survivor. She's meeting me on what I hope to be a less arduous but no less interesting adventure visiting a really, a really very rare sight, a temperate rainforest here in the UK in Devon.
Tinuke: Yeah. So my name is Tinuke. I am an adventurer, I'm an online storyteller, triple Guinness World Record holder randomly enough, I'm completely obsessed with being in the outdoors and outside of my comfort zone, so being here in a new temperate rainforest is a great start.
Adam: Right. Well, I've I've gotta first of all, you you threw away the line ‘a triple Guinness World Record holder’. So I've gotta ask you about that. What what's the three world records you hold?
Tinuke: I know. So it's I I used to be a professional roller skater in chapter number one.
Adam: Wow.
Tinuke: And it's the most cartwheels, the most burpees in a minute on roller skates and then the most spins on the e-roller skates in a minute as well. I did them all in lockdown, so I was just like on a mission. I had time.
Adam: OK. And e-roller skates are battery powered are they is that what they are?
Tinuke: Yeah, yeah, they're like, they're like a little, like, roller skate segway things that you put on your feet. It's pretty epic. You can go, like, up to 40 miles an hour. It's like proper adrenaline.
Adam: Wow. So I mean, I know we're here to talk about forests and the outdoors.
Tinuke: We are indeed.
Adam: But I have to, I've never met a professional roller skater before, so I just I have to begin with a couple of questions about that. So how how did that come about?
Tinuke: So I I used to be in a show called Starlight Express, which is a musical.
Adam: Oh yes, of course. Who doesn't know Starlight Express!
Tinuke: Literally.
Adam: So so but you were a roller skater before that.
Tinuke: I wasn't. I was a dancer before that. I I change my mind a lot as you *laughs*
Adam: Ah so is that how it works, I often wondered that because they they go through a lot of roller skaters and I thought, that's a limited pool they're fishing in so so they get dancers and teach them how to roller skate.
Tinuke: Yeah. Yeah, they train us up and then if you can do the, if you can roller skate by the end of the sort of like training up then you go on to the show. And I did that for two years in Germany and then I came back to the UK and was a professional roller skater for like, 10 years, which was great.
Adam: Amazing. Are you still, are you still doing all of that?
Tinuke: I do sometimes yeah, I have I have a little cute troop of hula hoop gals who I meet up with every now and then and, like, do some fun jobs with. Yeah.
Adam: OK, good. Alright. And I promise not to ask you anymore about roller skating. Right. So you are an adventurer. And I know you are on is that right, a sort of mission to to look at the temperate rainforests and and forests of the UK?
Tinuke: I am indeed. Yeah, that among many other missions. So I suppose I could go in how I started, which follows on from the roller skate story, is I went on a show called Survivor on the BBC. Essentially, it's a show where *laughs* they basically just like strip you of all your human rights and desert you on an island and you have to survive in the wilderness out there. So I had a love of the outdoors and forests and woodlands and the wilderness, everything before. But that's what sort of shifted it into making it a bit of a mission to explore.
Adam: And how did you how did you do? For those who haven't been following Survivor, which is a massively popular programme, but for those who don't know it, how did you do?
Tinuke: I did good. Yeah. Yeah, I did good. It was absolutely brutal in, both physically and emotionally. It's quite it's quite a hard show in terms of like, ohh tactics and things like that. So that was quite tough, but I loved being, living in the wild, building shelters, catching food and yeah, just living out there. That was, that was incredible.
Adam: Had you done anything like that before?
Tinuke: So I had recently gone and lived out in a a beautiful forest near Stonehenge for a week on my own as you do *laughs* and that was a lot of shelter building and bushcraft skills and all of that, fire making, so I I...
Adam: And you just taught yourself this? I mean you just turn up and yeah, I'm gonna sit in the forest now for a week, I better learn how to build a fire or what? *both laugh*
Tinuke: Yeah, like some London City babe, just like, where am I? I had done some, like basic skills and and beforehand, so I did know what I was doing. I'd done lots of shelter, building and stuff like that before, but yeah.
Adam: And what was, so you said, catching your own food, this is killing animals and eating them, is that?
Tinuke: We we, no, we we had, it was I I wasn't, you're not allowed to, I wasn't allowed to catch them and eat them. So I had things with me that I brought in, rabbits and then I forest forage-ed, foraged, foragaged? Foragaged a lot.
Adam: Whatever. I know what you mean *both laugh* Very cool.
Tinuke: Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy.
Adam: And so so that's your background. Lots of different bits to that obviously. And and this latest adventure to sort of travel around the UK an look at forests. Why why that particularly?
Tinuke: Yeah. So I first of all, I think it was just online I saw something. This must have been a couple of years ago, something about like UK rainforests and I was just like, what? I had no idea at that point that there were rainforests in the UK and I started off with a rainforest actually not too far from here, which was the first one I went to go visit and and I just started learning all about it. I I do lots of storytelling online and sharing with my community and like educating people about what we can find in the UK. And so that was my first obsession where my rainforest addiction begun and then since then, I've gone up to lots of them in Scotland. Yeah. So yeah, that's where it all kind of began.
Adam: So very good. And so it is a, I mean it's it's a surprise I think to most people to be honest that there is a a temperate rainforest in in the UK at all. And it's that in particular which you are looking at on this, you know, adventure, this tour of the UK, not forests in general, it is rainforests.
Tinuke: It is rainforests, yeah.
Adam: And there's a lot of talk now about the sort of mental wellbeing, and in fact, only a few weeks ago, when the King had some problems with his recurring cancer, he and some other members of royalty I think were talking about the healing powers of being out in nature. So it's sort of a very topical thing. What's your take or experience of that?
Tinuke: Yeah. Forest bathing is a thing. I love it. All about sort of bathing your senses and being in the forest, obviously. But my personal journey with nature and healing is a very strong one and is definitely rooted in why I do what I do and why I've chosen this as a career. So when I was about 28, I went through quite a traumatic time where I lost all of my sort of like initial close family. So my cousin, brother, my mum and dad. And I was super young obviously at the time and I started going out into nature as what I thought was like a way to escape my reality. And I went on lots of crazy adventures, hiking, going into the Grand Canyon, going hiking around Iceland. And it was sort of what I thought was a way to get away from everything. But it just became my biggest healing tool ever, and I have recently liked to call it adventure therapy or adventure healing and and it's all about putting yourself out of your comfort zone, being somewhere where you’re not normally are, going out into nature forest bathing, hiking, breathing, experiencing aura of nature, looking at an unbelievably tall tree or, you know, a huge beautiful valley like the one that we're in today.
Adam: And and it's interesting so you, I mean, you were a dancer and and a roller skater, so you’re obviously a physical person anyway,
Tinuke: 100% yeah.
Adam: So that was so, but there seems to be a distinction you're making between the sort of exercise you might do as part of your dancing and roller skating, and the sort of exercise that is involved in going to a forest or on a hike or something. Why is that different? Because we talk about exercise and the endorphins anyway, so you get that whether you're in a gym or running in a forest. What's different about being in a forest?
Tinuke: So I I do like the idea of moving forwards, so I do lots of processing whilst I'm hiking so there's a there's a thing, if I go on on a little bit of a tangent, it's called it's a therapy called EMDR, where
Adam: N?
Tinuke: EMDR.
Adam: M for mother. EMDR yes.
Tinuke: Yeah, where it's all about rapid eye movement. So you might follow your end of your finger and you go left, right, left, right. It's all about combining the left and right hemisphere of your brain whilst you're processing something traumatic and you can also do it whilst you're tapping and you can also do it whilst you're walking so that's what I started to do whilst I was hiking out in nature.
Adam: And what does that do so why, why is that helpful?
Tinuke: The traumatic memory normally gets stuck in the right hemisphere of the brain because that's where emotions and and all of that is governed and so obviously, feelings of anxiety and all the things that can come with going through something traumatic. So by processing whilst you're stimulating the right and left hemisphere of your brain, walking, looking, tapping, side to side, it just helps blend blend it into one and that's what I that's what that's why I've picked hiking and being outdoors.
Adam: Very nice. And you, have you found a difference?
Tinuke: Completely, 100%. It's like absolutely changed my life, especially especially obviously since I went through all of that. I like doing something, as you said, I'm a physical person, but I like doing something that's quite hard. I like it to be quite challenging, like a challenging hike or a long one, and then at the end of it, it's just building up that resilience that I'm capable of getting over hard things, I'm capable of being a little bit uncomfortable when it’s pouring with rain. I've gone camping, there's loads of midges, blah blah, blah and then it's type two fun, you know?
Adam: Right. Type two fun?
Tinuke: Type two fun.
Adam: I can, never heard of that. Right. That's that's fun with a bit of an obstacle?
Tinuke: That, that's that's the type of fun that you get in the outdoors a lot where you might be like, why am I camping in this rainforest and it's pouring with rain. But then afterwards, you're like, wow, what an incredible experience.
Adam: It was actually fun, oh good alright. Well we’re just coming up to a big, let’s go, just try and avoid that. So yeah. OK. So so you have found that to be a real benefit to you.
Tinuke: Yeah, it's definitely changed my life and my outlook on things. And also it's it's what I've learned about myself is that I'm capable of pushing through uncomfortable moments, and it's like cold, hard evidence for myself that I'm capable of doing that. So it's definitely been a massive like trauma recovery tool for me, yeah.
Adam: That's it's interesting. You also talked right at the beginning of this little walk about how, I think you wanted to demonstrate to your community the benefits of nature and the outside. So, so so for what what community are we talking about, to be in, because we want, everyone is part of lots of different types of communities. So so what community are you talking about?
Tinuke: So for me like representation of BIPOC people, people of colour, especially in the UK, mainly city dwellers don't have as much experience with the outdoors so,
Adam: So you're talking about, you are talking about lots of different,
Tinuke: Yeah
Adam: You're not talking about an ethnic community or anything,
Tinuke: No no no.
Adam: You're you're saying young people, people from different,
Tinuke: Yeah. People of colour, people of colour, especially like for me obviously like black women doing adventurous stuff is not normally what we get up to *laughs*.
Adam: Is it not?
Tinuke: Not, not not in comparison to,
Adam: So why, why is that then why do you think that is?
Tinuke: Lots of different reasons. Lack of representation in the outdoor scene is a huge thing across like the media, and also just when you come to a rainforest like this or a space, it's very different to be here when you're the only person of colour here, lots of people feel like they are a bit out of place, wouldn't know how to get here, wouldn't know that it was a thing that you could do, wouldn't know the benefits of it and and also it's if it if your if your peers and your family don't, don't go and spend much time in nature, you don't have that incentive to or need to know that you can do it. But in recent times it's definitely changing, which is amazing. And there's some incredible groups that are popping up. Black Girls Hike is an incredible one.
Adam: Is that the name of the group?
Tinuke: That's the name of the group, Black Girls Hike. Yeah.
Adam: And that's a a physical group of people, of black girls who go hiking.
Tinuke: Yeah, kayaking, camping, all sorts of things. And it's yeah, specifically for people of colour to like understand what it is and how amazing it is to be out here. I went on a camping trip with them last year. It was like 80 women or most of most of them it was all their first camping trip and and that was amazing.
Adam: And what about age then as well? Because I was struck by how younger people are very to my mind, very politically engaged with the environment, but less actually engaged, so they, it tends to be older people, in my experience who are part of the environmental charities, I mean, I suppose first of all, do you think that's right or am I wrong in your view or, and so what what do you know about the engagement of of younger people, of all colours and and sex and gender, of of people of your age group. Do they tend to talk about the environment? Is that a a dull subject to them?
Tinuke: No no, it's it's not a dull subject. It's a big subject. Obviously this is our reality and it's gonna be the reality of our children and our children's children and much more than it would be for someone older. So it is a big topic of conversation, especially the world that I'm in at the moment, meeting so many people who love the outdoors. It's definitely a subject that is brought up a lot, definitely, and it's it's definitely a thing of why I started the rainforests and going around the temperate rainforest because they're so endangered and it is a massive topic of conversation.
Adam: And and are people optimistic about it or are they, is it is it all disaster prone. I I I fear sometimes that the environmental lobby talks so much about the problems it's a bit of a turn off to be honest. But you've been talking very positively about the role of it all.
Tinuke: So I suppose I'm trying to put a positive switch on it by talking about it a lot and promoting everything that I do online. For example, I just went to Kilimanjaro two weeks ago and that was the whole reason I went there was because in a couple of years, well in, there won't be a glacier at the top of it anymore. The snow would have melted. So I was on a mission to do it before the glacier had melted and I talk a lot about it whilst I'm doing it. And suffering a lot actually up there. Adam
Adam: Suffering from the cold and the,
Tinuke: And the altitude and everything.
Adam: How how high is Kilimanjaro?
Tinuke: It was like three, 3,870 something metres.
Adam: Right, and and you walked up.
Tinuke: I did, very, very slowly *laughs*.
Adam: I was going to say, how long did it take you to get there?
Tinuke: It took me seven days to get there and down. Yeah, it was a little bit mad.
Adam: With a group, or?
Tinuke: With a group, yeah. And I got a chest infection on day two.
Adam: Oh wow.
Tinuke: It was it was like one of the hardest things I've ever done. And that's when you're like, yeah.
Adam: That's type two fun, isn't it?
Tinuke: That is type two fun *both laugh*
Adam: Sorry I have paused because we are right by a beautiful bridge. Isn't that lovely? Doesn't that look like a a sort of something
Tinuke: Like the Hobbit
Adam: It does, you know what it does, like a Hobbit right out of Hollywood.
Tinuke: Or like there'll be a troll underneath.
Adam: Yeah. Who knows? Maybe there is a troll and we need to answer a a riddle before we cross. Yeah, let's take a photo here. But it's a good point because I think you're massive on social media, so we'll take a photo here. Maybe you'll put it on social media, but what are your social media tags? And if people want to follow you?
Tinuke: So it's Tinuke, which is T-I-N-U-K-E underscore Oyediran, O-Y-E-D-I-R-A-N. And that's all over the place.
Adam: It’s all over, on all platforms.
Tinuke: On all of them, it’s the same.
Adam: You're you're you're everywhere. Right. Let's take a photo.
Tinuke: Yeah.
Adam: OK, right. Well, let's go over the troll bridge. Oops OK there we are.
Tinuke: We're not going to go for a wild swim?
Adam: Well, I'm very happy to to
Tinuke: To not *laughs*
Adam: To to try and find a towel for you on your exit, but I won't.
Tinuke: You can cheer me, cheer me on but not take part, partake
Adam: Yeah, I'm a, I’m a supporter of your wild swim as opposed to a participant.
Tinuke: Fair enough.
Adam: I would like to stand in the middle of that river. I'm not going to because I don't know what I'm doing. Anyway so you, you've got we talked about the adventures you've done on TV and elsewhere. You've got some other adventures coming up. What are they?
Tinuke: I do. I do indeed. I have some lots of UK hikes coming up, which you can always join me on. You can follow me on my Instagram and come,
Adam: When you say join you and you mean not just turn up and sort of follow behind you in a sort of creepy manner. This is an organised this is an organised thing.
Tinuke: No *laughs* yeah yeah organised hikes
Adam: Fine. OK organised. I thought, just go, oh look there she is, just follow her *both laugh*
Tinuke: Join me, join me. I'm also going to Iceland, which I'm inviting everyone to come along with me. That's in October, I'm going doing the Annapurna Trail in Nepal, sort of around around Everest. I'm doing that in November, also inviting everyone to join me. And then my big birthday party next year is going to be to Everest Base Camp, which is April next year. So you've got a whole year to train up.
Adam: And if people are interested in joining on these adventures, they contact you via all your social media platforms.
Tinuke: They do indeed.
Adam: Fantastic. How long have you been involved with the Woodland Trust for.
Tinuke: Probably about a year now.
Adam: So not not long and how did that happen?
Tinuke: I think it was I actually I think it was initially when I first saw a reel about temperate rainforest and I contacted and said I'm going off on a mission to visit them all. Can I come to all of yours and do you want to join in in any way? And yeah, it's been it's been really exciting since then. Yeah.
Adam: So I mean, you've talked about trying to encourage people from your communities to come along on a similar journey metaphorically as well as I suppose physically. What would your message be to them to to persuade them this is maybe something worth getting involved in?
Tinuke: The benefits for me have completely changed my life in an amazing way and I can't help but not share it. So come and try it out. Get outside your comfort zone a little bit if this is something that you're not used to trying, you definitely won't regret it and it's always nice to go with a group, so yeah, make new friends.
Adam: From all of us to all of you, thanks for joining us and as ever, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.
Britains rainforests
Bursting with biodiversity, Britain’s rainforests are some of our most vibrant ecosystems. Yet they’re also among the most threatened. Learn more about what makes these rare woodlands so important and why we’re working to save them.
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