My wife and I hunt together on several multi-day trips into the remote parts of the Chippewa and Superior National Forests each year in late fall.

I like the show, as it helps me envision some of the possible scenarios that could develop during this time. While the episodes I have seen contain a little more drama than survival skill demonstration, I suspect that a real world situation would produce a similar ratio.

All of these survival shows are like a Chinese buffet: I eat light, picking only what I think is good for me, and then just pass on the rest.

"...Putting Complete Trust in his Abilities to,See them Thru Each Scenario,Even though He wasn't able to Provide Everytime! The Episode of them in The Senora Desert,where they were Waterless,& Ate Cacti,& Drank pee,& She came down with Sunstroke..."

Well, I guess THAT'S one of the reasons why I'm not married!

Why on earth should a woman put complete trust in ANYONE in a survival situation??? Face it, most guys know less about survival techniques than they do brain surgery! I will think for myself, thank you very much.

The show and this 'survival expert' is advocating drinking urine? THEY'RE CRAZY! And why didn't he insist she AVOID sunstroke?

When I hear about show like this, I'm glad I don't have TV. Sheesh!

Sue

i'm with you Susan. i have a hard time with ma-cheese-mo on a good day. thankfully my husband isn't one of those - most of the time.

The Tasmania Episode was quite Educational,though No technique or Source was Tried or Exploited that,I haven't tried or were Not Aware of!I have Not Visited Tasmania,Though I would like to One Day,& I find it refreshing to see a Slice of the Unbeaten Path,of Foreign Lands!

LOL!

That is wise. You'll live longer.

Hi Richlacal,
After all the comments here I made a point of watching the Tasmania episode last night. Certainly the best one I’ve seen to date. Ruth seemed to be quite confident.
I see what you mean, most of the skills are very general and could apply almost anywhere.

As they were looking for food I was wondering if they would ignore all the rushes and berries surrounding their camp site, so it was good to see them actually harvest a real feast. I suspect that TV shows tend to avoid showing edible berries etc because imitators may end up poisoning themselves if they choose the wrong things, butthey made an exception in this case!

All those lovely looking white and pink heath berries are delicious, but very small and have large stones in them, so its actually very time consuming to eat a lot, but whenever we encounter them we always pick a few to eat. They occur all along the South East coast and the fruits are plentiful.

The purple flax berries (I think Ruth referred to them blue berries) are listed in some books as being (mildly) poisonous. From my own experiences some are bitter while others are very sweet so we always taste first and skip the bitter ones and only eat a small number of them.

Pig face is the fruit from a succulent and it is both salty and sweet at the same time, generally the inner pulp is the best bit, so I squeeze it like a toothpaste tube and the pulp slips out.

The mat rush stems which Myke snacks on are easy to obtain, but its only really the very end of the white tip which is edible (usually about 1cm (third of an inch)), so its actually quite a bit of work to get any decent amount. It tastes much like you would expect a “mat rush” to taste – Myke describes it as a (raw) potato flavour which is a good description. It is OK to eat and they are wide spread and available all year round. We just had some last weekend in Central Victoria - they occur just about everywhere in the bush and on the coasts (but not in arid regions).

In about a week we will actually be spending a few days camping on the (Eastern) Victorian coast which is very much like the area where the episode was set, so I’m extra looking forward to it now !

Nice to see my local patch on TV and to be able to relate to what’s going on; but I find all the (survival) shows fascinating because so many of the skills and techniques are able to be used anywhere in the world.

As Byrd_Huntr sais, you need to treat them all as buffet.

I think most people can behave in multiple different ways according to context, almost as if they were different people. How they are around their boss may not be the same as they are with subordinates. They might be one way with mates down the pub, and another way with friends and family.

So you might find a crisis brings out someone's "work personality", which you might not have seen before, and you might be surprised by how capable and decisive they are. Or they might go the other way, completely out of their comfort zone and needing to be told what to do. I think which they they turn is likely to be influenced by group dynamics. And I think in a totally new situation, you can get new sides of their personality emerging.

Only watched it a couple of times. I have no doubt that he's knowledgeable, but his attitudes were sometimes hard to take. She puts up with a lot! On the positive side though - it was a good personal reminder for me to be very careful with my spoken language when dealing with family members (or other people) in a real survival situation. It's so easy to come off as being condescending - but that's not good.

One reason why I like Bear Grylls is that he has a tremendously positive attitude and a fair degree of humility. I really don't know if he's like that in real life, but I wouldn't be surprised if he is. It's an admirable quality - hard to achieve!

other Pete

i'm watching the louisianna episode right now and find it interesting that he's "seriously mad" at her for climbing a tree by herself. i agree with him that she should have waited for that but, unbekownst to her, he just wrestled an aligator on his own, for no particular reason. he basically said we can't use it so i have to let it go. duh!. that kind of "do as i say not as i do" thing would drive a wedge between my husband and i.

i also agree with her that she was wasting her time doing nothing while waiting for him. standing in a swamp with the sun about to go down, what else could she have done? collect water? crawdads? tinder? sticks for spears?