Malcolm Douglas - Australia - Survival In The Outback (1984)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi i've just come ashore on a very remote section of the north australian coast let's just assume that i've broken down or the boat's broken down i'm shipwrecked if you like and i have to survive on this coast for some time now how would you cope in a situation like this well basically you need shelter you need water you need fire and you need food and what we need first is water we can't survive very long without it so let's have a look in the boat and see what we've got so we can start collecting water and if there's no surface water we're going to make it now in the boat we've got all sorts of pieces of plastic i've got quite a number of plastic bags we've also got large sheets of plastic that i use to keep all my gear dry we can take these plastic bags and the sheets of plastic up into the sand dunes and we can start making water the hot arid dunes there's no surface water after scraping out a large hole malcolm fills it with freshly cut mangrove branches in the middle of the hull he places a billy and covers the lot with plastic sheeting any kind of plastic of any size can be used and it's held in place with sand once i've got all that plastic completely sealed the last thing is to place a rock right in the middle of the plastic over the billy so that is now the lowest point so with the condensation forming it'll run down and drip into that billy it's now extremely hot i feel like i'm in an oven and these mangroves we put in here this morning are now virtually cooked there's still a lot of water running into that billy just about to check it for the first time wow dead hot in here it's like a sauna well this is truly remarkable i've now filled up the the cup and there's still oh a liter or more in that billy all you have to do is throw out these leaves put another fresh lot in cover it over keep doing that every day till you're rescued plastic bags are tied over leafy branches and the condensation soon begins trickling to the bottom of each bag plastic gives the best results quite incredible the amount of water that you can collect like this over two or three days and in a survival situation this water would be the difference between life and death good water too now that i've got a reasonable supply of water in the plastic bags the next step is to make some fire the easiest way providing you've got one and i always carry one is a good magnifying glass under this 40 degree sun it's going to take me about 20 seconds to get a good fire well there we are fire in 20 seconds if you ever go out in the bush make sure you always take a good magnifying glass there are a number of other ways of making fire besides using the magnifying glass i've picked up a few bits and pieces here and i'm going to try another method most of us know how you can get a long straight stick and place it in a hole in another piece of wood and twist it around like this now i can do that but it is very difficult and it's best when you have two people so as you go up and down you can alternate because your hands get very tired there is another way i've already cut a hole in the wood and now it's just a matter of cutting a groove where the hot embers will flow out everything's ready i've got my hole i've got my bark to catch the embers fine dry grass now the next stage is to make up a bow green wood and i've tied a piece of nylon fishing line across here one two twists and that is the secret of the exercise place it in the hole i've made up a holder here out of an old can if you didn't have any tins or cans you could use a piece of wood with a hole in it right over here we go this method is about 20 times easier than attempting to do it with your hands now this is a critical part to get the glowing embers to ignite there we are well it's very hard work but it gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that i can always light a fire out here in the bush in a survival situation some type of basic spear is vitally important it's just a matter of finding a reasonably straight sapling taking the bark off and straightening it in the fire and of course last of all putting a point on it straighten my spear i'm using the technique that the aboriginal people have used for thousands of years and that is to heat the sap in the wood while it's still green and with care you can take the all the bends out of the wood very warm straighten it just to the point where your wood's starting to creak and you have to continue doing this right along the spear and fill it perfectly straight i don't recommend this method unless you've got very good teeth but when the wood is hot i can get hold of it a lot better a little bit of a crack here got to watch it once i've got a good point on it i will harden it up in the fire now if you were stuck without a knife just remember you can use a stone or you can use shell like the aboriginal people did i've got a nice point on that now just harden it up in the fire and on the next low tide i'm going out on the reef see what i can catch on the reef at low tide there's an abundance of food seaweed crustaceans mollusks and fish with his spear straightened dried and hardened malcolm uses a technique learnt from the aborigines as he prods the deeper holes for rock cod [Music] a sea breeze ripples the surface squeezing the oily insides from a beshtomir or sea cucumber malcolm spreads the intestines over the water and the oil smooths the surface to give perfect visibility [Music] so [Music] [Music] the long spear is used to flush fish from under the coral ledges [Music] [Music] as he moves along the water's edge malcolm spots a number of edible shellfish so from the freedom of the open reef he clambers into the dark tangled claustrophobic mangrove jungle the mangrove would have to be about the most difficult place to find a feed you've got to put up with these incredible roots and the mud and the sand flies but the rewards are worth it because you've got the beautiful big mud crabs and you've got a delicious shellfish and if you prepare to look around the roots at low tide and crush around like i've been for the last hour you can get yourself a really good feed it's just a matter of putting them on the hot coals for a few minutes and you've got a good meal or just about time for me to go back to the camp i think [Music] the shellfish and mud crabs need only a light roasting on the glowing embers [Music] [Music] on one of his long walks on the reef malcolm discovers a remarkable natural phenomenon waterfalls that appear with each falling tide [Music] wow [Music] a dramatic spectacle stretching almost to the horizon on the high reef malcolm finds a large baler shell reproducing the gelatinous egg mass looks delicate but it's tough and quickly hardens it will be left attached to the reef while the young mollusks develop when they hatch they are perfectly formed miniatures of the adult bailers common on many northern beaches were often used by the aborigines as food and water carriers and as their name implies they were useful for bailing out canoes clams too are plentiful and like the balers can be eaten if no other food is available in the areas of the reef covered with water even at low tide malcolm seeks out holes in the coral that have been excavated by jawfish dropping a baited hook down the hole guarantees a feed every time [Music] [Applause] just out from the mangroves is a classic example of survival an old aboriginal fish trap on certain tides the stones piled high trapped whole schools of fish even now as it falls into disrepair fish are marooned at low tide and malcolm soon picks up a meal [Music] in former times when these stone traps were maintained by the tribal aborigines hundreds of fish were regularly rounded up on each falling tide [Applause] the midday meal is always cooked on the open fire and now malcolm heads out to the nearby coastal islands in many places along the coast of north australia the aboriginal people knew of plants that they can use on the reef at low tide to poison fish many years ago an old body aboriginal showed me this particular plant they don't use the top of it they use the root just break that off this is the route that i can use when i gather enough of them i need more than one i need a whole bag full i'll pound them up with a rock take them out on the reef at low tide and catch myself a good feed of fish before i use these roots to poison the fish i have to strip off the bark which is a fairly tedious and slow job mix it with sand and pound it up so the sap from the bark mixes with the sand i'll bag all this up and take it out on the roof [Applause] as the tide drops fish are often trapped on the reef and seek shelter until the following high tide the drug mixed with sand quickly disperses and within minutes the fish begin to behave erratically some jumping right out of the water the drug affects the nervous system and the fish die quickly this would have to be the best way i know of getting a feed even without a hook or a line half an hour on the reef i've got 20 fish here we are in a survival situation these eggs would keep you alive for a long time on many of the islands in north australia at certain times of the year you have large colonies of nesting birds and at night you can catch the birds you can eat the flesh raw you can even drink the blood and of course you can eat the eggs i'll just put this egg back because i must stress that in a normal situation you don't touch the eggs and you certainly don't touch the birds because they're protected there's usually food available along the rocky shoreline although it's often difficult to collect oysters are a rich food but it's tedious work breaking them open one by one malcolm uses an old aboriginal technique to collect a large quantity of oysters easily spinifex from the rocky ridges is fired the dry resinous grass blazes fiercely and the shells open it's now a simple task to collect a handful of food ah it's a tough life fresh oysters by the dozen an ability to identify animal tracks is vital for survival on many of the beaches you will find these tracks a lot of people panic when they see these tracks because they think they're crocodile tracks well they're not croc tracks they're turtle tracks and in a survival situation these tracks will always lead you to food at night the female turtles come up here and later egg now most people would automatically start digging in this depression we can do here for hours and you'd never find the egg she's laid the egg somewhere behind me the whole area must be systematically prodded to detect loose sand it takes skill to determine where the turtle has deposited her eggs [Applause] patience is needed to remove the free-flowing dry sand now turtles are protected i must stress that you wouldn't normally take their eggs except in a survival situation if you were stuck on an island or on the mainland and you did find some turtle eggs that would keep you alive for many days you can eat these eggs raw or you can boil them in salt water now i don't think anyone will mind if i demonstrate how soft the shell is on one egg and how easily you can get out the moisture you've got the white and inside you've got the yolk and you can eat these just like this that's pretty rugged tucker but it will keep you alive for many days half a dozen of those eggs and you're right you've got to remember too that there are around about 60 eggs in that hole the eggs must be covered again with sand to keep them cool and fresh in a lot of these little jungle thickets behind the sand dunes you can find food bush fruits and yams now this dried jam has grown up this aerial route i know it's a yam because i've been shown many times this particular leaf by the aboriginal people now i have to follow it down so it curled around and find where it's entered the ground very late in the dry season now these vines are breaking off you've got to be very careful to locate the spot where it goes into the leaf mold it's quite a job digging these yams out not so bad now because i'm down past all the roots from the trees just about at the bottom of it i don't want to break it off ah here we are you're wondering what it tastes like it's just slightly sweeter than our normal potato yams rich in carbohydrate have always been a basic food for the aborigines good tucker this the native fig tree common on all the rocky outcrops little sweet fig very nice the discovery of a pliable vine prompts malcolm to make a crab trap so right now i'm making up this trap just using these long vines a dis-shaped trap i've never used this vine for mud crabs when i was a boy living up in the pacific islands make a lot of traps for fish this is something that anyone can do when you're out in the bush if you can find the right sort of material just twisting them around it's fairly primitive but i'm pretty sure that it's going to work very well in the in the side here i'm making a pocket i'll put my bait up in the pocket so when the mud crabs go in there i'll stay in there hopefully when i lift it up crab and fish traps can be made in any shape or size depending on the ingenuity of the maker secured for several hours in the mangroves the bait of dead fish has attracted some good sized crabs once again malcolm ventures into the dank gloomy mangrove thickets now let's assume that i'm stuck on the coast i've lost my boat but i have to travel i'm stuck in the mangroves there's an old trick that i learned from the aboriginal people many years ago they make a raft from this particular mangrove tree and i'm going to make one of these rafts now now i have the luxury of a little tomahawk in the early days the aboriginal people would cut themselves a piece of hard mangrove wood with a stone axe and they would use the hard wood to cut the roots of the soft wood using the hardwood was very slow so i'm going to go back to the tomahawk look what i found some more tucker mangrove worms you're really hungry you can eat these hmm no i'll tell you my biggest trouble with the mangroves is the sand flies and they're starting to get into me now when the sand flies get really bad there's only one thing to stop them and that is to coach yourself all over with mud forget about what the mud looks like no one's going to see you out here and what it feels like it's rather cool actually but it certainly keeps those sand flies off it might also be very good for the complexion malcolm toils for several hours in the oppressive atmosphere cutting 17 poles before the incoming tide surges through the trees so it's a hard slog out of the gloom back to the open sandy beach with the poles rapidly drying on the hot sand the tedious job of building the raft begins once i've got all these nice and pointed and tapered i can put them all together they are rearranged until malcolm is satisfied that they fit neatly [Laughter] the hardwood nails to be used will be whittled from this acacia that grows high amongst the rocks i need 68 of these nails to hold the raft together only these long nails hold the poles together no bindings or glue is used when the wood is seasoned it's extremely buoyant like balsa now even though the mangrove wood is very soft it's still very hard to get these nails in the raft is made in two sections and left to dry these mangrove rafts have always intrigued me because the aboriginal people on this coast use these rats for thousands of years they travel with the currents hunting turtle hunting fish and hunting dugong they don't make these rafts anymore they use aluminium dinghies and outboard motors and this could well be the last mangrove raft that'll ever be made on this coast now it's just a matter of tying it together and i'm going to go out and see if i can catch myself a feeder fish [Music] now [Music] there were only a few seafaring aboriginal tribes that ever made these unique rafts to use a raft efficiently the hunter must have good local knowledge of the tidal currents the aborigines covered hundreds of kilometers along the northwest coast so it doesn't take malcolm long to hook a nice trevally and he heads quickly for sure before any sharks are attracted late in the afternoon malcolm heads off enjoying the new experience to try his luck again [Music] malcolm hooks one of the nicest eating fish of all a blue bone [Music] oh [Music] hmm now out in the bush or in a survival situation i believe there's always one way that fish should be cooked now what i need is lots of hot coals and really hot sand but first of all i get a really big fire going now i don't scale these fish and i don't gut them i don't even worry about the sand on them because i'm going to cook them in the hot sand the idea of this is to retain all the moisture in the flesh and if i gutted them and scaled them they would dry out the scales are like an aluminium foil we put them on the hot sand and cover them over at this stage they don't look very appetizing so what i do is carefully peel away the sand and the ash and the skin and underneath you've got beautiful sweet juicy meat by cooking it in the coals it retains all the moisture that is the best tucker you can find out here practicing these survival techniques has been great but now it's time for me to move on i've just been asked to go to windham to catch a giant rogue crocodile and that is really going to be an adventure [Music] oh so [Music] so [Music] bye you

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Length: 46min 4sec (2764 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020