On the CBS survivor website, they are now taking applications for the next survivor series, which will take place in the Australian Outback. COOL! or, actually probably hot, but I would love to go. Maybe not, though, depends on what type of live crawly things you have to eat. Don could probably fill us in on those! How many of you would want to go? Just curious.

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), June 22, 2000

Answers

I would love to go but they ask about health and my spinel coard injury wont let me do it (it's not that bad but my right hand wont do what i want it to ) but it sounds like fun! Shaun

-- shaun&terri (shaun-terri@juno.con), June 22, 2000.

I checked out the application too! I'm afraid my prolapsed hear valve would eliminate me too :(

-- Sue (sulandherb@aol.com), June 22, 2000.

I would Love to try it. I tried to sign up but that site is not "webtv" friendly. Would anyone with a computer be interested in helping me sign up ? I'm not interested in the money so much --but this sounds like a great challenge-- I accept.

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), June 23, 2000.

Not for me, thanks. Bad back, poor circulation, and carrying way too much weight for the sort of hunting our aborigines used to do (some still do, by choice; and a few even have not become Westernised). Hunter no - gatherer though .... I can more often than not sneak up on a plant before it can run away. I could stand to lose some weight too.

Actually all I know about the show is what I've read here. I generally don't watch TV, but I caught an ad this evening which said they'll be starting them on that "desert" island in a fortnight or so. In other words, a lot depends on when it is REALLY filmed.

The Australian Outback is a bit like the central USA - very big and very varied. Australia is about the same size as the USA without Alaska - much more coastline though. They'd have to let them have water, which rules out the worst effects. If it's natural water enough for a fair-sized group, that rules out most of the deserts. It's fairly cold and getting worse - midwinter - we just celebrated my father's birthday on the longest night of the year. However, they could be putting them in the tropics. Living off the land isn't generally as easy as it was - we used to have an enormous feral rabbit problem, but they released calicivirus, and it's all but wiped them out (now we have a feral fox problem even worse than it ever was before). I'd prefer summer - warmer, less wood needed, and you could count on catching snakes. Just at the moment, eating wouldn't be too hard around the Eastern wheat belt - we have a mouse plague. There are a lot of wild (feral) bees (no mites) so you could often find honey. Snakes or mice. Lizards. Goannas if you can catch them. Witchetty grubs. If you're on a river you could build fish traps, and/or spear fish, and catch crayfish - but my guess is that they'd try to make a feature of water shortage. Same reasoning they'd probably try to take them away from the coast, even though there are coastal deserts. Boomerang to throw into flocks of birds - easier if it returns when you miss, but a throwing stick will work. Now is not the time for nesting birds, so no eggs. Ditto seeds. Honey-ants in some areas. Dig up ant nests anyway for the stored grains. Fire- harden digging sticks. Fire-harden spear points too, and try hunting - even make bows and arrows, but that's more work than a spear to start off with, even if you can find a bowstring. I'd never go anywhere without a spear, just in case - throw it at anything you can't run down - you've got to get lucky sometimes. Use it to get treed animals. However, hunting is very chancy without a firearm in open plains. Kangaroos, wallabies, emus, Cape Barron geese (all protected unless you've got a culling license); ducks, muttonbirds (shearwaters) (some species, in season, with a license); feral pigs, feral goats, feral donkeys, feral horses, feral cattle, feral camels (all big and probably far away by the time you see them, or at least before you can get close to them); feral water buffalo (not for hunting without a big-calibre firearm); feral deer (mostly protected except in hunting season, with a licence). Pigs are easiest (although dangerous), but they can carry trichinosis. Most animals except ferals are protected unless they reach plague proportions - could prove interesting for the producers and participants. Could also prove interesting if they start a bushfire (which otherwise would be an effective short-term method of hunting).

The absolute clincher that would keep me out of it though is the internal politics - sounds to me like office politics squared and cubed - no thank you.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), June 23, 2000.

I have been told -- by a friend who moved there for the "experience" right out of college -- and backpacked around the outback, that Australia leads the world in varieties of snakes and spiders. Apparently there are SEVENTEEN different varieties of deadly, venomous snake and MANY different insects/arachnids which are either deadly or venomous enough to make you wish you'd never heard of Australia.

She also told me that the people there are some of the nicest in the world, and she wouldn't have traded the experience for ten extra years of life.

-- Tracy (trimmer@westzone.com), June 23, 2000.

Don: This is to take place during October and November of this year. Isn't that spring there? What are the average temperatures? Guess those of us who want to go will have to do some studying, and practice our spear throwing techniques! I think with some prior knowledge of what plants and animals you can eat and where to find them, etc. you would have a better chance. (whitchity grubs???)I think I'm pretty adventurous, and adaptable, but eating some squirmy grub would just about do me in! The application asks what three things you would pick as a luxury item to take with you-what would you choose? Obviously, chocolate is a necessity, and they would just HAVE to furnish that...

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), June 23, 2000.

Jan, Whew that would be fun, but would rather watch Joel do it, than do it myself. But it might be a great way to loose this extra poundage and get on tv at the same time.lol!

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), June 24, 2000.

Tracy, I'd think your friend may have been underestimating the number of venomous snakes - or did she just mean the guaranteed deadly ones, not the "extremey ill but probably recover" ones? Incidentally, we've got anti-venenes for them all, and for all the deadly spiders. Also, you didn't mention the sting-rays, stone-fish, blue-ringed octupus, and box jellyfish. And the blue-green algae (actually more red) that poisons the drinking water.

The people are "some of the nicest" - well there you go - she's underestimating again. Actually, we don't have a monopoly on that. Backpackers are often out among country people, and they are generally more open, friendly, welcoming and helpful worldwide. I said GENERALLY, allright? Even in the city, though, we haven't altogether lost that open friendly attitude that comes with a rural heritage, although it won't be long, I fear. Australia is good, although of course not perfect. Australian attitudes used to be pretty much like the USA of twenty years earlier. Unfortunately, I think we're closing the gap now. We're also a very multi-cultural society these days. That's generally good, but it does mean we've imported a lot of Vietnamese criminals and Chinese/Hong Kong triads along with our good citizens. We also used to make much more of an effort to assimilate migrants into Australian society than we now do. A pity we let that drop; or let our politicians let the PC bureaucrats persuade them to let it drop.

Jan, yes, October and November is late spring. Witchetty grubs are GOOD. Large firm white flesh - not unlike sashimi prawns, with a hint of nut taste thrown in. I forgot to mention termites - I believe they're nutritious, there's certainly no trouble finding them. I could eat just about anything if I had to - half my problem these days is convincing myself I don't HAVE to. What would throw me is Bogong moths - swarm every year - literally millions get blown off- course, over the ranges to the coast, and in plague proportions. They're fairly big - body say an inch and a half long, wings longer. They'd gather before migrating under ledges and in caves in the Australian Alps, and the aborigines would travel for hundreds of miles to feast on them. Singe wings and legs off in the coals of a fire, then eat. The moths were rich in fat, but "it usually took several days for their digestive systems to adapt to the changed diet". No more need be said.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), June 25, 2000.