“I really battled through that morning”: Tim Davies looks back on the unforgettable moments of his Today journey
For more than seven years, Tim Davies has been a familiar face greeting Australians from wherever the Today weather desk happened to be that morning.
He has travelled thousands of kilometres, faced unpredictable live crosses and found himself in situations no television presenter could possibly rehearse for.
But as he prepares to leave Today this September, one particular morning still stands out.
It was the day a simple weather cross from a Victorian dairy farm went spectacularly wrong — and somehow turned Tim into an international talking point.
It was supposed to be just another morning on Today
Tim’s career in front of the camera was never something he originally planned.
Before becoming one of Today‘s best-known roaming reporters, he had spent years working behind the scenes.
He began his career in radio before moving into television, eventually joining Nine as a newsroom producer.
Then, around five years before his 2024 interview with 9Honey, everything changed.
Tim was unexpectedly asked whether he had a suit and tie.
He did.
He was then told to go home, get some sleep and return at 2am.
What followed was his first experience reading a live national news bulletin.
“It was sort of a bit daunting,” Tim recalled.
But he got through it.
And Nine kept asking him back.
That unexpected beginning would eventually lead to one of the most recognisable careers on Australian breakfast television.
Then came the morning Tim wishes he could forget
Over the years, Tim became accustomed to the unexpected.
He was attacked by a parrot during one broadcast.
Activists once pulled down his trousers while he was reporting from a beach.
And he found himself taking on increasingly adventurous assignments.
But nothing quite prepared him for a dairy farm in Merton, Victoria, in May 2023.
The assignment sounded harmless enough.
Until Tim discovered exactly what was under his feet.
And in the air.
“I just don’t do poo”
The problem was the smell.
Cow manure — and plenty of it.
Tim later described the conditions as particularly unpleasant, joking that the cows appeared to have “horrendous diarrhoea”.
But what made the segment unforgettable was his reaction.
Trying desperately to continue with the broadcast, Tim struggled against the smell while attempting to maintain his professionalism.
He eventually admitted that it was one of the hardest live television moments he had ever endured.
“I really battled through that morning,” he recalled.
“I actually don’t know how I did it live on air.”
Then came his verdict:
“That was a bad one. The worst. The absolute worst thing.”
The footage went far beyond Australian television, with international outlets picking up on the unusual broadcast.
What might have been an embarrassing moment instead became another example of the unpredictable situations Tim was willing to endure for Today.
But there was another moment that genuinely frightened him
Interestingly, Tim later corrected himself.
The dairy farm may have been the worst experience for his stomach.
But the assignment that genuinely made him fear for his life happened in Auckland.
Tim was taken to the Sky Tower expecting one thing.
Instead, producers had something much more dramatic planned.
He thought he would simply lean over the edge.
Then he discovered he was actually going to be dropped.
“They actually pushed me off the Sky Tower in Auckland,” he recalled.
He hadn’t expected to go all the way down.
And he had to do it twice.
The fall was so extreme that Tim even moved beyond the range of his microphone during the stunt.
“It was just like free falling out of the sky. It was horrendous,” he said.
At the time, he genuinely feared it might be the end of him.
The moments viewers never saw coming
Those experiences became part of what made Tim such an unusual presence on Today.
He wasn’t simply reporting the weather.
He was often thrown into situations where there was no script for what would happen next.
And rather than trying to hide the fear, embarrassment or sheer absurdity of the moment, Tim allowed viewers to see his genuine reaction.
That authenticity became part of his appeal.
Why Tim kept saying yes
Despite the frightening assignments and the occasional humiliation, Tim has never looked back with regret.
For him, the most rewarding part of Today was never simply being on television.
It was the people.
“The teams I work with, the crews on the road I travel with and work with every morning, they’re phenomenal,” he said.
“They’re the real heroes of what we do day in and day out.”
And then there were the viewers who turned up wherever the Today crew happened to land.
The people who made the early mornings worthwhile
Tim has spoken about meeting families and children who were so excited to see the program in their town that they struggled to sleep the night before.
Some would get out of bed early simply to meet him.
For someone who regularly had to wake up around 3am, those moments mattered.
“It doesn’t matter how tired you are,” he said.
“You turn up and then you hear about these little children who couldn’t go to sleep last night because they were so excited that you’re coming to their town.”
“I feed off that.”
It was that connection with ordinary Australians that made the endless travel worthwhile.
Now, that chapter is coming to an end
Tim has since announced that September 18, 2026 will be his final morning on Today after more than seven years with the breakfast program.
He revealed that he has made close to 900 flights during his time on the show, travelling from Australian communities to international destinations.
His announcement marked the end of a remarkable chapter — but looking back at the moments that defined it, perhaps the dairy farm, the Sky Tower and the other unexpected assignments tell the story better than any polished television farewell could.
Because Tim Davies never knew exactly what the next morning would bring.
Sometimes it was a beautiful community.
Sometimes it was a terrifying drop from a tower.
And occasionally, it was simply a field full of cows.
Yet through all of it, he kept turning up.
And that may be the reason audiences became so fond of him in the first place.
For seven years, Tim Davies didn’t just tell Australians what kind of morning was coming — he made them feel as though they were along for the ride.