I'm Bear Grylls. Wow!
I'm gonna show you what it takes to get out alive
from some of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Whoo!
I've got to make it through a week of challenges...
..in the sort of places you wouldn't last a day
without the right survival skills.
Now I'm in Arnhem Land, Northern Australia.
Where the man-eating saltwater crocodiles dominate the food chain.
Man, did you see the size of that?
I'm hanging on to crumbling sandstone.
Ahh!
And I battle to stay out of the water
and away from those hungry crocs.
Ahh! (PANTS)
This is a World War II Dakota.
It's gonna drop me at the northern tip of Australia,
into a prehistoric landscape.
That's Arnhem Land!
They call it prehistoric
because Arnhem Land is one of those rare places
that's remained unaltered since time began.
That's three miles... (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
With scorching heat and deadly snakes,
it's no surprise that people have struggled to survive here.
Then, at the top of the food chain, the flesh-eating crocodile,
and there's over 100,000 of them here.
Some of those crocs can weigh over a ton.
You make one careless move and you're gonna end up as lunch.
Despite the harshness of this environment,
one group developed survival techniques
that enable them to live here.
The Aboriginal people have adapted to this dangerous terrain,
and they've had over 50,000 years to hone those skills.
My task is to use some of their survival techniques
to make it out of here alive.
If you're gonna survive the Northern Territories,
you've got to throw yourself into it 120%.
Here we go.
Yah!
MAN: Jumper's away.
MAN: He's gone. Lots of luck.
Northern Territory, here we come.
Now, the first thing that hits you about this place
is just the heat and the humidity.
I could feel it, just coming in closer to the ground.
Like being in a very hot steamer.
OK, let's get this thing laid out.
We can use this...
..as an air marker.
So if search and rescue are looking for me,
something big and bright for them to see from the air.
When someone is lost in the wilderness,
aerial reconnaissance is vital.
Make yourself seen from the air and it may save your life.
It might well be, though, that nobody knows you're missing...
..and nobody's out there even looking for you.
And if that's the case, then you need
to work out which direction to go.
And in the Northern Territories,
your best option is to head north to the coast.
90% of Australians live on the coast.
But if you do have to make that difficult decision to travel,
be certain of the direction you're heading in and don't deviate.
I'm gonna use a shadow stick to work out which direction is north.
It casts a shadow straight down here
and I'll mark the end of that shadow with a rock.
Wait 15 minutes or so, the shadow will move
and we'll get an idea of our direction.
Now, see the shadow?
The stick has moved a bit.
Put a rock on the other end and you get a line here.
If you stand on that line and face the stick,
you're gonna be heading north.
And, obviously, the longer you leave it, the wider the line,
the more accurate it's gonna be.
What I don't have in my favour, though, is time.
I don't want to wait in this heat any longer. Want to get moving.
Before you head out,
leave a marker for rescuers to follow.
Use whatever you find around you to make an arrow.
North towards that rocky outcrop.
It's hot, hot, hot.
Temperatures here are in the high 90s
but it's the humidity levels that make the heat so intense.
I want to keep heading north.
We're gonna need to get over this.
Humidity reduces a body's ability to cool itself
by slowing the evaporation of sweat.
The more physical the activity, the greater the chances of heatstroke.
I'll need at least a gallon of water a day to survive here.
The scorching heat and high humidity levels
mean thunderstorms are common here.
But even nature's most potent force can work in your favour.
Look, you see there's been fire here.
Probably a lightning strike hit that...
..set it alight.
Actually, charcoal's often a good thing to take with you.
There's lots you can do with that.
Filter water with it,
even help you with fire -
drive a spark into bits of charcoal,
you'll often get an ember that's gonna help you get the fire lit.
Let's take some of this with us.
The landscape is riddled with high ridge lines and towering cliffs.
To keep heading north, you'll need to fight your way around them
or take the shorter route and go straight over the top.
But this sandstone is soft.
Eroded by the elements, a path has been cut straight through the face.
This is no easy option.
Let's have a look down here.
Ahead of me lies a sheer 80-foot drop.
Yeah, I reckon we can work our way down this.
Chimney down this bit, bridge across it.
I need to stay in tight to this chimney.
Use your opposing forces.
Back and legs down this.
It's an awkward little gully, actually, this.
(GRUNTS)
Oh, look, a snake.
Where has he gone now?
Don't want to mess around with him.
There he is.
Keelback snake.
Now, they're not deadly,
but you certainly wouldn't want to get bitten by one.
A snake bite out here is bad news.
Last bit, just down this vine.
The cave climb has worked for me.
It's taken me right under the cliff and out the other side.
Check this out.
Just get down here.
There's a bit of water,
and it's probably gonna be rainwater
that's just come down here and collected.
The thing is, because it's shady...
..the water's not gonna evaporate.
Come on, then.
I've still got this charcoal.
I can make a really simple sort of filter with that.
The biggest danger is drinking water containing bacteria
that will cause diarrhoea or vomiting
and that can lead to severe dehydration.
Crunch this up into nice small granules.
And a bit of gravely bigger stuff.
Then on top of that, just some of these grasses.
You see how dirty that water is?
Put it through here.
Let that just run, just get any of the dirt out of it.
Give it a couple of goes before we start drinking from it.
For me, this is what survival is all about -
a simple idea using natural resources, and it works.
Look, you see how clear that is coming out?
It's never gonna be 100%...
..but it takes a lot of the dirt out,
and the carbon and the charcoal
filters out a lot of other impurities
as well that you can't see.
Oh, man. That is good.
You're in a desert this hot,
you find a little hole like this with rainwater in it,
you gotta make use of it.
You ought to stay here
until you're well-hydrated before you move on again.
I've had my fill and now it's time to get going.
Let's see if we can get round this corner.
I'm in Arnhem Land, Australia...
Get around this corner.
..heading north towards the coast.
But I've ended up at a difficult dead end.
(GRUNTS)
If I can get my foot back on it...
I got it.
Don't think we'll be going round that way.
(PANTS)
OK. Back up.
In tough country like this, you'll never win every battle.
There's no shame in making another plan
and searching out an alternative route down.
Look, there's a mad old cave here.
Goes all the way in there.
See, it's more than likely gonna be Aboriginal, this.
See all the soot here on the ceiling, from the fires?
It's gonna be a good place, though,
just to shelter from the heat of the day, get out of the sun a bit.
OK, let's use this as a base, gonna try and find some food.
Generations of Aboriginal hunters going back to the Stone Age
have left a record of their prey
on thousands of sites across Arnhem Land.
There's cave art here.
Looks like a fish - a barramundi.
There's a little turtle there.
You know, this is what the Aboriginals would do.
Paint their prey onto walls like this in caves.
They believed if they then rubbed it,
it would encourage the prey to multiply
when they next passed through.
That's amazing.
Some of this stuff could be up to 40,000 years old.
A barramundi is a really positive sign -
it means there must be water nearby and a chance of catching some food.
It's a whole river.
Still want to be a bit careful with rivers,
even this far inland.
Still got saltwater crocodiles here.
But, look, it's only knee deep and it's crystal clear.
For the survivor lost in this hot and dry environment,
it doesn't get any better than this.
It cools you down and makes life bearable again.
Very...very...
..very nice.
This is probably why that Aboriginal camp was there.
They were close to a water source.
OK, I need a refill.
Oh, simple pleasures.
Arnhem Land's freshwater streams are
home to black bream and jungle perch,
but other creatures also patrol these shallows.
Water snake.
Yeah, no, I can just see his tail under here.
Whoa. Good-sized one.
Get him up on this bank.
It's a file snake.
Look, that really rough skin.
That's why they're called that.
And these guys, well, they do use their tail to wrap around. Look.
Like he's trying to do to my fingers, clinging onto a branch.
And, as he gets his prey, will constrict it and then swallow it.
It's a good find.
Actually, what the Aboriginal women would often do with these snakes
is bite the head, give it a yank to break the neck.
Be careful doing this so you don't get bitten yourself in the process.
The way to do it is quickly in and out so the neck's broken.
OK. Good.
That's food.
Food secured.
Like trying to eat rubber bands.
But soon I go from the hunter to the hunted
as I enter croc country.
I'm in Arnhem Land, Nothern Australia.
I've just plucked a file snake from the river that will feed me tonight,
but first I need to cook it.
Gonna grab this for making fire.
Bet your bottom dollar that this isn't the first time
somebody's tried to start a fire in this cave
with a hand drill like this.
The Aboriginals would have been using this
as a friction fire tens of thousands of years.
And it's a pretty rare kind of
connection through the ages.
I want this to be as smooth as I can
so it doesn't create any blisters when I start to spin it.
We'll use this as a base plate,
create a bit of a notch in it here,
just to make a little indentation.
Start it off...with a little pinch of sand or gravel...
..to put on there.
That's gonna create even more friction and heat.
And then, as you create an ember,
it will drop down into the tinder and you get it flaming.
That's the theory.
Trust me, the practice is always much harder.
It can take hours to light a fire this way
and you often end up with more blisters than embers.
Patience is the key.
You want to take your time initially.
Just build up that heat...
..and keep the drips of sweat off, falling onto the ember.
Building up the heat and building up that friction.
And then once you've got that heat,
you can then start really putting in the effort
and start to speed it up a bit.
OK.
Just tip that in.
Gather this up gently.
There's no hurry at this stage.
This ember will keep burning for a little bit.
And there's fire.
OK.
There, right in the middle.
And then just cover him up...
..with lots of embers and some more wood as well.
OK, that's going nicely now.
Leave that 50 minutes or so to cook.
In the meantime, I'm gonna go grab some materials
to make something to sleep on.
Just so many paperbark trees here.
Strip some of this bark off.
And the Aboriginals would use the paperbark tree for so much.
You know, they'd use it for tinder for fire,
waterproofing shelters,
clothing, blankets.
You know, it's even got antiseptic
and antibacterial properties as well.
Normally you'd never want to strip bark all the way around a tree.
It can kill it.
With a paperbark tree,
this is really just like it's shedding its dead skin.
It's not just the bark that's useful for bed making,
the branches are strong but supple
and will make great struts to sleep on.
There's a nice, natural gully here.
You can very easily just use these paperbark branches,
pull it across...
..and make a bed platform.
The good thing about that, it's gonna keep me off the ground...
..give me room underneath, though, to put some embers,
and that's just gonna filter through the smoke
to keep the mosquitoes away.
And then just the paperbark is gonna make it all a load more comfy.
Oh, man.
That stuff is so nice.
OK. Come on, then.
Let's see if this snake's ready.
Australians are renowned for their barbecues.
Maybe not that sort.
This smells and looks pretty bad.
But it's energy and that's the important thing.
Very bony.
Very rubbery.
Like trying to eat rubber bands.
I'll just leave all of those guts.
I've got food, fire and water,
which means, at least for now, I've got a fighting chance.
Yah! MAN: Jumper's away.
I've thrown myself headfirst into one of the harshest places on Earth,
Arnhem Land, Northern Australia.
If the landscape doesn't get you...
..the wildlife will.
Oh, look at that head.
And a new day will bring new challenges.
On our way.
Quite a mad place in here.
Oh, now, look.
Spider in here.
It's a huntsman spider.
He's called a huntsman - he won't build a web.
He'll actively go out and hunt his prey.
And that's the nasty bit of him.
Take the head off.
Take the fangs out.
And that really is fine to eat.
Doesn't look very appetising but that's fine.
Oh.
OK. Moving on.
This maze-like landscape, riddled with rocky outcrops,
is so disorienting.
You can't see far ahead and it's easy to stray off course.
Actually, look. That one's even higher.
Get up there. Come on.
Finding a high point will provide a much-needed view
and let you plan your route through.
It's all sandstone.
Well weathered.
Still want to be a bit careful of this stuff.
Can be pretty loose.
This is a tricky climb, over 60 feet.
But if you risk nothing, you gain nothing.
It's worth the gamble.
(GRUNTS)
OK, I'm up.
Have a look at this place.
The thing is trying to keep your direction amongst all of this scrub.
Probably the easiest thing to do
is follow between that rock pinnacle and that one,
and then, in the far distance you can see, like, a saddle.
Pass between that...
..and that's gonna lead me down to the flood plain.
OK.
Let's get down off this thing.
As you head to the flood plain,
the vegetation becomes thicker and greener.
But now we're entering more dangerous territory.
Come here, come here.
Straight through there. Crocodile.
See? Do you see the ridges on its back? Very distinct.
Down, down, down, down.
Yeah, it's a salty.
You can tell it's not a freshwater.
Freshwater have that long, narrow snout.
Look at the size of him, though.
Freshwater will live off just fish.
This guy, anything's on the menu.
Including us.
Don't be deceived by the name 'saltwater crocodiles' -
these guys have been found up to 100 miles inland.
There are loads and loads of stories
of campers thinking they're safe, back from the water's edge,
and then getting taken by saltwater crocodiles.
This is the first I've seen here.
But there are over 100,000 crocodiles in Arnhem Land,
and you're never gonna be far away from one.
Look at it like that and it looks almost docile just laying there,
but when these guys go into attack mode,
you will know all about it.
Lightning fast, strong,
just pull you, roll you, take you into the water.
Just because there's one of them
doesn't mean they're gonna be on their own.
You see one, there are often gonna be more.
That's why we've got to keep so vigilant around here.
I'll just leave her.
The land here is dotted with deep pools of floodwater
called billabongs,
the crocodile's favourite ambush site.
I've just seen bubbles in here.
Here, caution is king.
You look at this sort of place
and think it's perfect, just come along, fill up your water bottle.
But you'd be dead, dead wrong.
If there's a saltwater crocodile in here,
they will attack with explosive speed out of the water.
See if we can...
Whoa!
And, look, then he's just gone.
Under the surface.
Ultimate stealth predator,
just lying there waiting.
And then just grab anything that comes near it, buffalo or human.
Gonna want to leave that guy in there. Skirt around this.
Faced with an aggressive predator, my nerves are on edge.
Even the smallest ripple makes me wonder what's lying below.
Need to find a way across this river somehow.
Way off course now.
This isn't that great.
You know, there's only 20, 30 yards.
The water looks just so benign.
Still, calm, you think there can't be any dangers in that.
But there are saltwater crocodiles in here
and the consequences of over-confidence,
basically, death, you know.
Look. See all these trees?
Almost reaching across the river here.
Just not quite.
Keep going, see if we can find a better one.
Well, it does go across the river all the way.
Give us the camera.
Let's just do this.
Seems pretty solid at this stage.
It's just it's gonna get more bendy the higher I get.
There's a local story where three guys were swimming
when they spotted a large crocodile in the water.
Two of them made it to a tree, the other was taken.
It then went quiet for five minutes until the croc returned
with their friend's torso still in its jaws.
The croc then waited in ambush for the other two
under the tree, for two days
until, finally, they were rescued by helicopter.
Look, bubbles there.
I'm worrying about the crocs but I've got to stay focused.
It's no time to lose concentration.
OK.
I'm battling across a crocodile-infested river
in Australia's Northern Territory.
Look, bubbles there.
(GRUNTS)
But focusing on the crocs and not the climb is a bad mistake.
One slip and I'm hanging on for dear life.
The sanctuary of solid ground can't come too soon.
This climb is over, but ahead of me lies hundreds more rivers.
I don't want to go through that ordeal again.
I need a better plan.
I'm seeing a lot of these sort of big, dead old trees.
The good thing about these, they're big, strong and buoyant.
With this sort of thing, I'm gonna be able to build a raft
and that's gonna take me downstream way faster
than trying to meander along all these banks
and crossing back and forth the river.
Come on.
Probably the best way of making this
is just to do these bunches -
with three logs like this.
Bind these together to a couple of those.
You've got, like, these two hulls.
And then just do cross struts to that,
and this sort of bamboo vine is gonna
be great to lash all this together.
Rule of thumb for the sort of vine you're looking for
when you're building things like rafts
is you want to remember -
strength,
length,
bend
and also bite.
A load of this paperbark on top.
Right, like this.
For three reasons -
gets me even higher out of the water,
camouflages me from the saltwater crocodiles...
..and it's comfy to sit on.
This is ready to launch.
It's worth just throwing sticks into the shallow water.
If there is any crocodile there...
..this will just give me a good indication.
This raft will take me downstream towards the coast.
But you could be on this for days, so you need a way to hunt for food.
Check out the barbs on that.
Actually make a hook out of this.
The fibrous barbs of the pandanus plant are incredibly strong,
ideal for making a fish hook.
Take a small section of it...
..tie some para-cord to that and we can fish.
OK, that's gonna work nicely as a hook,
and then I just need something to act as a lure for it.
Be a bit careful getting off this raft to go and find something.
It's only knee deep, though, here.
OK. Let's just be quick about this.
Spider web's always gonna make a good lure.
You grab the whole thing and wrap it up in the web.
Grab it like that, put it onto the hook.
And then, literally, just wrap it in the web.
The golden orb spider's web is said to be almost as strong as Kevlar
and has been known to trap birds.
OK, let's get back on the raft.
On the raft.
The thing is, you can never switch off in these swamps.
Switch off for a moment...
..you shoot down the wrong end of the food chain in a place like this.
Just not human if you don't feel a little bit...scared...
..floating down a river that's got a lot of crocs in it,
when you're just on a little raft.
It's just 'cause you are so vulnerable.
And you're definitely not the king in waters like this.
That title belongs to the salty.
But, you know, it's all about trying to use that fear,
use it to sharpen you
and not let it overtake you.
A little bit of fear is no bad thing.
The river has opened up to a deep billabong.
Fish should be larger and more plentiful here.
Time to try my rod and bait.
But there are lots of crocs around.
There's freshwater water crocodiles on the bank here.
Look. Just on the bank. Freshwater crocodile.
Sunning on the rock.
When you're fishing in water teaming with predators,
you're never gonna be the fastest hunter.
There's a fish on the line, but not for long.
Whoa. Look at that head.
Trying to take the fish off.
That's one battle I don't mind letting him win.
Man, did you see the size of that?
OK.
Tell you what, mate,
my nerves are gonna be a wreck at the end of this trip.
He's pretty delighted with that.
I've been rafting in the crocodile-infested flood plains
of Australia's Nothern Territory,
but the waterway has just reached a dead-end.
Looking like the end of the road for this raft.
Getting loads shallower again here.
It's looking properly dry ahead there.
We want to keep heading that way.
Let's ditch the raft, go on foot again.
There's a croc skull.
Try and get this out. (GRUNTS)
Look at the size of that.
Man, look at those teeth.
If that came down on you,
they say it's the same force as a truck landing on top of you.
Take you, death-roll you
and then, literally, just rip you limb from limb.
Bad way to go.
And, really, your only chance of surviving a croc attack
is either to get lucky
and hope that the croc lets you go to try and get a better grip of you,
or to try and roll with it so it can't shake you,
and then go for the eyes.
But, really, with a big salty...
..you know, slim chances, really.
You've just got to take your time going through this sort of stuff,
not rush it.
You want to keep scanning just for any signs of bubbles on the water.
Also, I just want to watch out for any of the waterlilies moving.
It's another indicator of crocs.
Ah, I'm getting so many of these.
These leeches.
There are two of them.
The whole swamp is just riddled with these guys.
What they do, look, squeeze it
and you'll see what they're feeding off.
My blood.
This is what they'll do, they'll suck on...
..and then inject an anticoagulant.
It will mean you'll just bleed and bleed till they've had their fill,
and then they'll just drop off.
The biggest worry about these
is you then get the wound infected in water like this.
Environments change quickly here
and I've moved from rainforest into thick tidal mangrove,
which means I'm close to the coast.
There's 2,500 square miles of it here in the Northern Territory.
The dense roots and even heavier mud make it tough to travel through.
OK, we need to find a way through this stuff.
Arggh! It's horrible.
Also, the air is just thick with mosquitoes here.
You know, the danger is getting something like Ross River fever.
You get it from mosquitoes -
it's gonna wipe you out for about three months.
And this sort of place is just a breeding ground for mozzies.
Actually, look, just use some mud.
Put that on me...
..and use that to dry and act as a barrier.
It's gonna stop the mozzies biting.
Let's try and pick up the pace.
Actually, look, lots of dead, rotten wood on this tree.
They're actually often good places to find mangrove worms as well.
You can see, actually, burrows of where they've been.
Whoa, here we go. Look, shooting out of the end.
Grab him.
The Aboriginals would collect deadwood
and pile it up for the worms to colonise it.
When they next passed through the area,
they would harvest the worms and be certain of a good meal.
Mmm.
The Aboriginals talk about these tasting like salty oysters.
I'd say that's a compliment to the worm.
God.
In the thick mangrove with few visual references,
finding a bearing is difficult.
Use a long, straight stick like this.
It's gonna help us keep on our direction
and stop us going round and round in circles.
Jam it through in a straight line.
And then however I weave my way to it,
so long as I weave my way back to the end of the stick, pick it up,
I know I'm gonna be on line.
Also, people tend to have a dominant foot, whether it's left or right.
When they're in terrain that's really confusing,
to stay on course they'll tend to veer towards that dominant foot
and just end up going round and round in these slow circles.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
Finally, I emerge from the mangrove into a clearing.
There's footprints ahead and they're not crocodile.
These are human. Look.
Come on. Follow!
Hey! Wait up!
My Arnhem Land encounter is over.
An ancient place
where Aboriginal hunters
have survived in harmony
with nature for over 40,000 years.
It's an extraordinary place
and it's been
an extraordinary experience.
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