The new Georgia Outdoors episode To Save A Plant involves repelling down a mountain and - spoiler alert - somehow Georgia Outdoors' Sharon Collins isn't the one doing the repelling.

Who knew our intrepid host - who's gone into a pitch-black cave of bats, didn't flinch when a coyote sauntered up to her shoulder and said 'yes' to some python-capturing - wouldn't jettison down a mere rope in the name of plant conservation?

After all, Collins was raised in a home where "dad was always ready to do adventures. And my mom, was, well..."

Ladies and gentlemen, a brief origin story of our Georgia Outdoors host:

When she first knew she wasn't the indoors type:

"The vacation I remember most fondly was Franconia Notch (a state park) in New Hampshire...Dad took me in the third grade. I have been back twice."

The flume at Franconia Notch, in New Hampshire

The flume at Franconia Notch, in New Hampshire

Credit: Courtesy of Sharon Collins

"We went to The Great Lakes. Canoed down a river. Played in a rock quarry. We were always gonna be exploring."

 

 

And as for her fearlessness?

"Seems like forever, too...I remember these grape vine things that would hang, and we would swing over the creek on them. My mom would have died if she'd seen that. I inherited that [adventurousness] from dad. I get it honest."

What about her affection for animals?

"You know, I've just had dogs primarily...The first dog that was technically mine was Droopy. A beagle. I used to dress him up and put him in a baby carriage. I cut a hole out of my sister's ruffle-y pants and put him in them."

Sharon Collins (in the red pants) with her sister and Droopy. ("Every dog should have a baby carriage.")

Sharon Collins (in the red pants) with her sister and Droopy. ("Every dog should have a baby carriage.")

Credit: Courtesy of Sharon Collins

So there's not any animal she doesn't like?

"I'm not fond of spiders. If one comes into the house and it looks like a brown recluse, I'll scoop it up and throw it out. I won't stomp on it, like I used to .. But yeah snakes, possums, salamanders - there's an axolotls, they look like they have a little smile on their face.

"I can usually find something cute about them."

Then again, there was that python ...

"The wildest encounter I ever had with an animal was with a python - in Florida, of course. I was with a guy that was catching them and he said, 'You want to try'?

"Sure."

"Now, the way you do it is you use a rubber handle to pin down its head. So I went to pin his head down, and I missed! And he's mad. He. Was. Mad. Bared his teeth, and everything. It's a scary moment.

"I was honestly thinking: 'How can I get to a plastic surgeon?' I thought he was going to take a chunk out of my face."

Thankfully there was no blood shed in that encounter. That happened in an upcoming, new Georgia Outdoors.