The Bushtucker Man Ray Mears Goes Walkabout

You know, amongst Australian Aboriginals, there's a tradition

of going travelling across the country to visit sacred sites,

relatives and friends,

to collect wild food and to follow stories,

and it's very much in that vein that I've come here to Australia

to go walkabout.

The great thing about the term "walkabout"

is that you can use it to describe almost any sort of journey.

MUSIC: "Mrs Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel

So that's just what I'm doing in this series,

exploring parts of Australia I've never been to before.

And today, I'm in Queensland.

People are always asking me whether I've ever met the Bush Tucker Man.

Les Hiddins presented a series of hugely popular television series

exploring bush foods

and gathering information from Australian Aboriginals.

He may come from the other side of the world,

but he and I have so much in common.

Now we finally get the chance to work together,

as Les and I take a road trip across his home state of Queensland.

It's an opportunity to look at how varied the landscape here is,

learn about the tucker on offer

and delve into the history of this part of Australia.

We're starting in the rainforest of the Daintree National Park.

But first there's something we've got to get out of the way.

What's the worst thing you've eaten, eh?!

I was going to say the same, but I think Brussels sprouts, Les, I can't stand Brussels sprouts.

What about you, what's your worst thing?

Oh, there've been a few. Really, probably, it's a thing called...

a common name is cheese-fruit tree or...

-Oh, Morinda.

-Yeah, Morinda.

I call it the dog's-vomit tree!

-I said I'd get you one.

-I figured you might try and get me to eat that one.

-Morinda citrifolia, isn't it?

-Yeah, you won't get it here, it's more coast.

On the coast, yeah.

Here's a funny story. Once I did a sequence on... You know the great big long mangrove worm?

Oh, yeah, I've eaten those. Nice. I like them.

-THEY LAUGH

-They're good, just like oysters, they're terrific.

-Yeah, they've got like that crab-pate taste.

-Yeah, yeah.

There are two. There's one with a little chilli hint to it.

That's right, but I was eating this and it was showing on TV, etc,

and I was in Cape York, and the Aboriginal tracker in a place called Laura up there,

said to me, and he's an inland fella, him and his wife are inland Aboriginals...

He's saying, "You know that worm you've been eating on TV?"

And I said, "Yeah, yeah." He said, "We've been watching that."

I said, "Yeah, good." He said, "My wife, she just about vomit that!"

'Well, it's nice to know we're off to the right start.

'Now it's time to set up camp.'

One of the great things about travelling by car

is you can travel with a bedroll, or in Australia, swags.

The traditional way of setting those up is like this,

under a tarp of some sort if there's a chance of rain,

particularly where there are mosquitoes and sand flies.

What you need is a net with a fine weave like this one.

And that's important to keep out the small creatures like sand flies.

They can really ruin a trip.

Sadly, people coming here on holiday often rent this sort of equipment

but end up with a net like this, which is a real cheap one.

These are still commonly found here.

They've got a very open weave

and these actually catch more insects than they keep out.

You can wake up in the morning bitten to pieces

with all the little creatures that bit you

still trapped inside the net! Not a nice experience.

Always clear the ground where you're going to put up your swag.

Leaf litter can be a place

where you find scorpions, ants that can bite, and other nasties.

For this swag I'm gonna need two trees,

about that distance apart, that'll be perfect.

You can use poles,

but trees do the job admirably well.

Tie that up there... I like to tie that with an adjustable knot.

Same again at this end, little adjustable knot.

Just need to get the tension right.

Something like that...

Now what I like about this is the tightness of the mesh.

Let me show you, you can hardly see through it.

I could set it like that and put a big tarp over the top,

which would be ideal, but it does actually come with its own tarp.

The great advantage of a swag is, it comes with all your bedding.

You've got your mattress, sheets, sleeping bag or blanket,

and even a pillow all ready and comfortable

which, at the end of a long hard day's driving, is brilliant.

I like to take the first chance I can to explore,

and no-one knows this part of Australia better than Les.

Within minutes, he's found something for us to eat.

Well, I know what this one is, because it's very unmistakable.

I've seen it in books here, and in your books, and I know that's the Blue Quandong.

I've never used one, so what do you do?

OK, well, it's the flesh on the outside of the stone.

The stone's inside. I'll show you one in a minute.

It's a very pitted stone, so just nibble on the outside flesh there.

-Hmm, it's a big stone.

-Hmm, you've got a green, sort of dry flesh,

-which is a bit sour.

-It tastes like...

hawthorn berries from the UK.

-Oh, does it?

-Hmm.

-Oh, I haven't had that.

The purple fruit here, the colour always reminds me of cassowaries, and they love these things.

They eat them all the time.

Well, that stone's very interesting and I'll tell you why.

-That's what the finished stone's like.

-Oh, that's beautiful.

Yeah, it's all...sort of pitted and all very, very regular.

-Hmm.

-Very regular.

-Beautiful.

-Look at that, stunning.

-Yeah, it makes terrific necklaces.

-They're very, very ornamental.

-Really lovely.

-They're typical rainforest stuff, particularly in this part of the world.

-Really interesting.

'There's real beauty here, but much of it is dangerous.

'Like this, called simply and accurately the Giant Stinging Tree.'

The rainforest has lots of things you've gotta be careful of in it,

and this is a real classic. This tree with big heart-shaped leaves

is one you wouldn't use for toilet paper.

It's got this fruit that looks like raspberry

and I'm told it's edible.

I'm a bit ginger in the way I handle it, I'm gonna try it...

Just very watery, I wouldn't bother eating that.

It has no real flavour to it, but this is a tree

that I haven't had a lot of dealings with, but you know about it, Les?

Yeah, this has got an awesome reputation, this tree, it's called a giant stinging tree

and you just touch those leaves, whether they're green, or dead like those ones over there,

and they've got these little fine hairs on the surface which go into your skin,

and this will continue to sting, not just for a day or two days, up to six months.

-And it can sting through a rubber glove, can't it?

-Yeah, because the hairs

are penetrating, or initially, your skin, of course, and the hairs seem to be hollow,

which is allowing... Yeah, be careful...

..which is allowing the outside air temperature to get into your nervous system,

so every time something's hot it reacts to everything...

Something's warm, it reacts to it, etc, etc. And the only way to really provide some sort of relief is to...

People shave the skin where it's affected, and then cover that area

with something that's latex-based, ointment or cream,

or there's some plants around here you can get sap from and put on top

stopping the outside air temperature entering your nervous system,

which of course tones it all down,

but it's a problem you'll have to learn to live with for several months.

There are also signs of the animals of this rainforest.

This is a nest, and you'd be forgiven for thinking it belongs to T.rex.

Now, Ray, just have a look at this, what do you reckon that is?

Well, I'm not familiar with your bird life here,

but if I saw this in other bits of rainforest, I'd think, megapode's nest.

You're almost right, because it is a scrub hen

and they're a little bird about as big as a chook, you know, and they come round the joint and they just

scratch it up, scratch it up all the time like that and just build it up.

-It's massive for a small bird.

-Yeah.

-Astonishing.

These are communal nests, re-used year after year.

But the incredible thing is how they provide the perfect environment for the scrub-hen eggs.

The bird's got a sort of thermostat in their beak

and they plug it into the ground here, and whack it in there,

and they can tell what the temperature is because the eggs are buried down below,

and they keep it around about 33 degrees, and if it's too hot they scratch some dirt off,

and if it's not hot enough they scratch more on the top.

It's incredible, cos conservationists trying to incubate eggs like this,

struggle to get the conditions just right, and the birds, you know,

by evolutionary process have learned this method. It's fantastic.

Of course, this is part of your bush-tucker cycle too, cos the eggs...

Aboriginal people used to go for the eggs because the birds were a bit hard to get.

They'd go for the birds if they could,

but once those birds are in that scrub country, bit hard to follow,

so they'd be looking for the sort of the tunnels, the chutes,

that the birds used to dig and drop the eggs in,

and they'd feel that by shoving their spears in the ground,

and where it went down further... Ah! Loose ground, something here...

..they'd shove it all the way down,

pull them out and if it was wet on the end, they knew there were eggs and they'd dig.

Today scrub hens and their close relatives, these scrub turkeys,

are protected, as are their eggs.

Even in a country the size of Australia, wildlife and habitats are under threat.

However, there are still plenty of wonderful wild places for us to explore, like Bloomfield Falls.

I want to know more about Les's past.

I know he studied bush tucker when he was in the Army,

but I want to know how he started going out into the bush.

Come and have a look at this, mate.

This is absolutely unreal.

Did you grow up in Queensland, Les?

Yeah, I did, and my introduction to the bush actually was via my father,

who used to work for the... what we called the P&G in those days, telecoms,

and he'd go round all the old properties up here

fixing up the telephones in the cattle stations

and quite often in school holidays I'd go with him.

So that's how I got round the place, and that was my introduction to the bush.

When you were working with the Army,

did that involve going to lots of Aboriginal communities?

Well, it did in so much as, I moved later on from Infantry across to Army Aviation Rotary Wing,

and I used to fly around all these areas up here, Cape York, the Gulf and that sort of thing,

and often called into those communities.

We were there for exercise, and that gradually introduced me into cataloguing bush tucker

because you fly across this country, it's so vast, as you're finding out...

It's so vast you've got to ask yourself the question when you're in a helicopter with one engine,

"What would happen if...?"

and, "How would I get on?" and that's what kicked it all off.

Les's chosen occupation was greeted with some scepticism by his colleagues.

Now I have it on very good authority

that when you started doing all this, nobody ever saw you on barracks after that,

that everyone used to say you'd just gone fishing. Right?

That's right. Little did they know!

Back in those days, I wasn't even carrying a fishing line,

but the accusation was there, and understandable too.

But, yeah, they all thought that... "How's the fishing trip going?!"

I think there was a little bit of envy around the place, but it was a terrific job and I worked very hard.

That went on for ten years like that and covering hundreds of thousands of kilometres

in an Army vehicle by myself, in very, very remote areas.

And you had some of these plants tested in labs.

You did comparative trials with soldiers surviving,

some using plant foods and some using meat, didn't you?

Yeah, we did and... it was really interesting.

One particular test we did on a whole group, a bunch of me mates, all pilots.

We had about eight of them, and we knew that the candlenut, which you get in the rainforest,

also caused diarrhoea if you ate too many,

so we wanted to find out how many you had to eat before you got diarrhoea.

So we gave each pilot one nut, and you can have two nuts, you can have three nuts...

and thanks to Lieutenant Andy Hastie, we know it's eight nuts!

That's fantastic!

It's very easy being here with Les,

partly because we actually met for the first time a year ago.

MUSIC: "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by The Monkees

I was filming for my Wild Food series, but we got on so well, it inspired me to save the footage

and return for a whole series on Australia.

The depth of his knowledge was self-evident as soon as Les started talking.

The local Aboriginal people come down here all the time to fish and to hunt

and you see them driving down here and they're walking through here and camping in the bush there,

and they paddle through this stuff and go for water lilies

and lotus lilies and some magpie geese as well, you know.

So there's a lot around and in the water, of course, you've got the mobile foods,

fish or eels or sometimes you get a thing called file snake as well. Which you can eat as well.

We took a trip along the Roper River to find food to eat that evening.

I could tell instantly that here was someone driven by the same things as myself.

OK, here we go. There.

It's a Cayratia, it's part of our native grape situation, but you've gotta watch them

cos they're classified as one-beer grapes, two-beer grapes,

cos they burn the back of the throat, how many beers you've gotta have after!

But anyway, have a nibble on that and see what you think.

Try that one... Funny shape, isn't it?

Yeah, flattish, and you'll find probably about three seeds inside.

-Oh, that's nice.

-It's not bad, is it? Yeah.

-That's great, Les.

-Yeah.

-Two seeds, big seeds.

-Two seeds. Yeah.

They do burn the throat a little bit.

Not much taste. Real grape-like.

Well, these ones here, the burning will be less cos they've got so much moisture.

but the ones that grow on the dry ground, because the roots are in the water in this lot,

they will be, you know, a bit more intense.

But they're probably a two-beer grape.

-No, I reckon that's a four-beer grape, definite!

-Definitely do?!

-They're really tasty.

-Yeah, they're good, aren't they?

Wherever you go in northern Australia, Les knows just the place

for great tucker, and this was no exception.

This is exactly the sort of place to look for something like this, for yabbies.

The overhanging vegetation?

Yeah, they like it in soft, sandy banks like here

so we put this probably in this spot there, tie it off.

They eat all sorts of things, bits of meat, bits of vegetable.

Even went in after potato, would you believe?

Ours are the same, we've a problem with an invading species, the American one.

It destroys our native ones.

So hopefully people'll go out and catch the American ones.

-Yeah, I reckon.

-That'll be good.

Bush food may not always be the most convenient to find, but I never tire of gathering my own.

It's such a great feeling, eating something you've collected only minutes before.

Now the best place is round the vegetation stuff now, right here...

-There.

-We get these in the UK as well.

Ah, got one! Here we go.

Little one.

You know, once you find one, you get a whole lot of them.

Yeah.

They're very gregarious, I think, they like each other.

Lots.

Oh, dear, look at that.

We used to, of course, and still do,

get freshwater mussels, but we don't have this habitat so often now

because all our waterways are more or less tidied up and cleaned up.

With fertilisers running off the land, the vegetation's changed.

-Well, we're tidying this up too.

-Yeah, well, someone's got to!

-Depends whether we want to eat it or not.

-Yeah, exactly.

Who better to find bush tucker with than the Bush Tucker Man!

There's so much for us to learn from each other.

-Les, do you have a use for these?

-What is it? No, what are they?

This is a type of fungus.

We have something very similar to this growing in Britain, which is in the genus Daldinia.

-And they've concentric rings inside. D'you see that?

-Yeah.

Now this is really useful. You can use this for fire-lighting.

If you drop sparks on this, it'll glow like a charcoal briquette.

-Is that right?

-Let's have a look, I've got a spark for you here.

And keeps insects away. You can even cook on them.

Fascinating, new to me. I've never heard of that before.

-You learn something every day.

-Yeah, well, that's the fun thing about the subject we both share.

-It goes on like that.

-The more you learn, the more you realise you don't know.

-You never stop.

-Oh, yes, look.

-Ah, look at that.

They're a size, aren't they?

-That's a good mussel.

-That's a good one, that one.

Good meat in there.

Yeah, quite oyster-like, these. They're looking good.

Tell you what, Les, one of the things I want to ask you about are these.

These maps that you produce.

Oh, the snack maps, snack maps.

-Was this your idea?

-Yeah, well, actually it was sort of my idea.

I was giving a lecture in an Army office in Canberra and thinking about doing wall posters

and the bloke who was in charge of the Army Survey Corps at the time said,

"Why don't you put your information on the back of my maps?"

I thought, "What a great idea."

Yeah, the back of a map's normally white.

Yeah. And I've done about 700 of these now, and if you look at this,

this is Roper and that's Roper River there, of course.

It's got a lot of coastal area, see?

Now, soldiers are terrific at cutting up maps, and they just take that section with them,

but if you turn it over, you'll find that the information there

-is relevant to that sort of coastal area.

-That's clever.

Yeah, there's the mussels there, we're gonna be eating here tonight.

-Oh!

-Oh, look at that.

Beautiful.

-That looks good.

-Yeah, it comes with the right price too.

-Hey, you can't have it all!

How about that one?

-That looks great.

-Good on you.

-Brilliant.

-Terrific, thanks.

-Hmm, good, isn't it?

-Mm.

The only thing I don't like is the biscuit! It doesn't compare.

-No, it doesn't. I'll have this one.

-Hm, cheers, very good.

-People pay for this sort of thing, you know.

-Amazing. Fantastic food.

We've got it on the back doorstep.

What a great meal. And a year later, if anything, we're getting on better than ever.

-Stunning, isn't it?

-Pretty good, pretty good.

Les, this is a massive green ant's nest here.

-I've eaten these, and I know the Aboriginals use it as a medicine.

-Yeah.

-But I've never seen what they do with it.

-OK, well,

as you can see, they've got all the leaves and moulded them together

and made a bit of a nest or a house out of it.

It's all the green leaves and they've moulded them together.

Some have died off and that sort of thing,

but you can see it's still active cos the ants are on the outside here walking round the place.

They know that we're here.

They can sense our presence here and they're very, very protective

of their nest, because inside there there'll be a queen ant

that they're always gonna protect.

And this is one of those things that fits into one of the three categories that I reckon,

bush foods, bush medicine and bush technique. This is bush medicine,

because you crush it up, or you try and get the larvae from inside and boil that up and stew it up,

and it's a bit like a lemon drink, a hot lemon drink, cures your sinuses and all that sort of thing.

So we'll open this up in a minute, and of course, once we do that they'll swarm everywhere.

They'll be over, you know, you and I, etc, etc.

And they're not injecting, they're biting.

Pincer, little nipper thing and they'd be, I'd reckon there'd be thousands of them in there,

-but we'll see when we start to open it up.

-Go for it.

-Right-oh.

You'd better come in close.

OK, here we go. Look at them in there.

Look at it all. There's the white larvae I was talking about, OK?

Now they're biting me like crazy at the moment. Have a go at that.

-Yeah.

-OK?

-Oh, the formic acid they're giving off as well!

-Yeah.

Now get that white larvae and just pinch it together like that, OK,

and just whack that in your mouth. Mm. It's very astringent, isn't it?

-Yeah, and the lemon taste from the ants, very strong.

-Can go straight up your...

I read that scientists in Australia are studying these ants

cos they don't get bacterial infections.

They have some means of protecting themselves

that maybe medicine can use, it's really exciting.

Les has championed the knowledge of the Australian Aboriginal for years.

But it's only recently that the rest of the world

has begun to catch on to just how valuable this knowledge may be.

Back to camp and time for a brew, I reckon.

I love these trees with amazing buttresses like that.

Quite incredible. Good sound, isn't it?

Of course, buttresses could also be quite useful,

and I notice there's one here with a natural hook in it,

and on the other side, this vertical branch close to this buttress.

What it means is, if I put this stick across there, I've got a perfect bar

to suspend my billycan from, and as long as I keep the fire small,

so that I don't scorch the tree,

this'll be a perfect place to keep my brew fire burning.

Brand new billycan.

I think it's about time it lost its virginity.

Now that the fire's dying down a little, I want to lower the billycan

and arrange it so that I can easily take it off,

so I've just made a very simple pot hanger.

I'll just put that on there and hang that over the fire,

and the fire's gonna burn down, just a small fire,

just right for brewing the billy.

Well, that billycan's already boiling and that's just five minutes, it's a good hot fire.

What I've just done is very simple.

All I had to do was find a piece of wood that was standing

and relatively dry, and then by shaving it finely with a machete,

I can ignite it and get this fire going simply and efficiently.

Very simple, but a lot of people can't do it

and that skill can be a life-saver.

And the buttresses turn this tree into a perfect fireplace,

reflecting all the heat back towards me.

Les isn't the only person I've flown halfway round the world to see.

This part of Australia is home to someone else I've wanted to meet for a very long time indeed.

A real unsung hero of Australia.

Syd Kyle-Little was one of the first policeman in Arnhem Land.

He arrived in 1946

and spent the best part of four years living among the Aboriginals.

As a law enforcer, he was one of a kind.

First thing they said to me,

"Where's your irons, where's your handcuff, your chain?" and I said, "I don't need them."

"Why don't you need them?" I said, "Because I trust you",

so they learned to take my word. They used to refer to me

as that man not using rifle.

You're all the same, black fella.

It must have been quite unusual in that time, wasn't it,

that wasn't a normal white attitude?

No, it wasn't. Most of the police used to handcuff and chain them,

round the neck and all sorts so they could walk.

I couldn't see the sense in that when they gave their word.

I took a man's word of honour.

They've got a code of honour that's absolutely, well, in many ways it's better than ours.

They stand by their code of honour, every inch of the way.

It's Syd's attitude that makes him so special to me.

He was willing to learn from others and keen to earn respect on their terms,

especially from an elder called Mahrdei.

But what about the time when he turned to you and he said you can't travel in this country

if you haven't got a swag and a mosquito net and a rifle?

That's right. Yeah.

He said... I said, "I can, but it's gonna be hard."

And I did a short trip, leaving everything behind.

I just went out as I am now, with nothing, and...

-You didn't take clothes, did you?

-No, but not stark bollocky naked,

I had a...what they call a narga on.

A little string round the front here,

and I had that on because I didn't want to get my penis bitten by mosquitoes!

And I walked out.

-Did you have boots?

-No, barefoot.

I just wanted to prove that I could do things they could do.

He certainly did. His book, Whispering Wind, is a catalogue of adventures.

Many feature his guide, a man called Oondabund.

I swam a river once,

and Oondabund had my swag on a raft, a little raft he'd built,

and he was swimming beside me, a bit at the back of me.

And we got out and I got up on the bank, I helped him pull up the bank

and we walked up the bank, and under the shade of a big tree

there was a massive big crocodile, and he lay there watching us

and I thought, "Oh, my God!" and Oondabund said, "Oh, boss, we're lucky."

I said, "Why, what's lucky about that?" He said, "Lucky him being fed, look, look, look!"

And all around him were scraps of meat and bits of legs and things.

He must have eaten about two or three wallaby

or God knows what it was he ate, but he had a bellyful.

Syd's photos are a priceless record,

but they weren't all taken by him.

Some of the rivers up there, not all,

but there's not many of them have got quicksand on the bank,

and I went into it and I started to wade ashore, and I ran straight into quicksand,

and I was down to my waist bubbling and going away

and I said, "Oondabund, Pete's sake!" Oondabund said, "Wait, boss, give me that camera!"

I said, "What for?" "Yeah, I want a photograph." I said, "To hell with the photograph, get me out of here!"

"No, boss, getting a photograph first", and he took his time!

I'm going bubble, bubble, bubble, down I'm going into the quicksand, and he even says, "Smile!"

And he took a photograph and I'm cursing like hell

then he threw me a rope and he and a couple of other Aborigines

got on the rope and pulled me out of this quicksand and dragged me up the bank like a muddy fish.

RAY LAUGHS

So you must have witnessed all sorts of amazing things when you were there.

When you look back on it, what do you think you learned?

I learned to respect other people,

regardless of colour, race or creed or religion.

A great attitude, but Syd was no sentimental liberal.

He brought many criminals to justice,

but he fitted in so well that he was given his own Aboriginal name,

Marlenemar, or Whispering Wind.

And Marlenemar is the...

It happens at the rising of the sun at dawn,

as the first bright bit of sky comes over the horizon.

That is called the Maleema,

and I used to catch my murderers always at that time of day,

early morning just as the sun was just rising over the horizon,

coming up from the Earth, rising over the horizon.

As far as I'm concerned, the world needs more people like Syd Kyle-Little.

# Slow down, you move too fast

# You got to make the morning last

# Just kickin' down the cobblestones

# Lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy... #

If there's one man whose name you can't escape here, it's Captain James Cook.

The Queensland coast is littered with references to him and his ship, The Endeavour,

because this is where he and his crew faced a disaster that could have ended their voyage altogether.

So, Les, why don't you draw me a map to show what happened here?

Well, Cape Trib over there, that was named by Captain Cook.

-I'll explain to you why.

-Yeah, tell the story.

-OK. There's Cape Trib there,

and the coast comes along here and up here a bit,

we haven't crossed it yet, but we've got a big river like that called the Bloomfield, OK?

And then right up here...

we've got a great big harbour in here like that,

with river system in it and all that sort of thing, and that's where Cooktown is.

Now, back in 1770, if we were way out here, something like that,

which is way out there on the horizon,

that's where what we call Endeavour reef is today because Cook had come sailing up here

and hit the reef there, so here he is on the other side of the world,

stuck on the Barrier Reef which goes for almost 1,000 mile that way and 1,000 mile that way,

and what's he gonna do?

He's got a hole in the side of his boat that big.

Fortunately, it was plugged up with the lump of coral that caused the hole,

and it was sort of half securing it.

So he got the men out and they're on the pumps and all the rest,

they were stuck there for some time with the tide coming in, and they managed to get off.

He said, "Right, in tribulation I'll name that cape, 'Tribulation'".

That's exactly what he did. And then he got the longboats out and anchored them off the...

bow of the Endeavour and they started rowing north.

So they've rowed from there, the Endeavour Reef or what we call now the Endeavour Reef,

all the way, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right up here to this big harbour

and pulled in there, and that's where we'll go.

Cook was an incredible navigator, and the charts he made during this trip were so accurate,

they are reputed to have still been in use by the American Navy

170 years later during World War II.

This chart shows the Endeavour River,

the natural harbour Cook chose to repair his ship.

Cook's trip was typical of British exploration of the time, a real voyage of discovery.

He had with him men of science, including naturalist Joseph Banks.

Even stuck in this bay facing disaster, these men were still determined to go out collecting.

And there was plenty for them to gather.

They worked hard, didn't they?

-They were really hard workers.

-You look at the plant listing you've got in Kew Gardens,

of the plants that they actually listed while they were here,

-and it's hundreds of them.

-It's phenomenal.

-Yeah.

-Very, very pretty up here, isn't it? Stunning.

-Top spot, top spot.

All these mangroves have bush tucker. Mud crabs,

and lots of your shellfish and that sort of thing in there as well.

A lot of people have got into trouble in Australia,

avoided them because of the crocodiles,

-and yet their best feed is in amongst the mangroves.

-Yeah, yeah.

No, you can live off the mangrove stuff round here, and I think Cook and his mates did too,

because they traded with the Aboriginals while they were camped here.

I'm not surprised Les is as fascinated by Cook and his crew as I am.

Cook's leadership and his determination,

not just to survive, but to succeed, are qualities we both admire.

Look at the hills there, mate. You know if could take away all the boats and everything here,

it really hasn't changed that much, I don't think, from when Cook came through here.

I'm trying to imagine what it was like on board that ship.

It must have been a nervous time.

I'd reckon. They had to throw all sorts of things on board

to get off that reef, they had to chuck over the cannons and all sorts of stuff,

but here they are on the other side of the world stuck with a big hole in the side of their boat.

-Drifting in here.

-And it's a long voyage.

Fantastic test of leadership, I think, as well.

Everyone's gotta pull in the same direction and salute the same flag at that time.

Of course, you think about how long the voyage had been at that point as well.

Yeah, yeah, and there's a bay just down the way here, it's called Weary Bay.

He named it for a good reason.

-Yeah.

-So it gets pretty weary when you're rowing, you know?

But the reason we've taken to the water is that we're both familiar with a famous image of the Endeavour

as it lay careened on the shore under repair.

Les and I are looking for the artist's vantage point.

Now that painting that depicts the careening of the Endeavour,

it must be this hill and that one, isn't it?

Well, that puts the Endeavour down here.

-Down there, yes.

-Yeah. I can remember as a kid coming up here with my father

and that park there, there was still the tree in the banks of the Endeavour River here,

-the tree that the Endeavour ship was tied up to.

-That's amazing.

And that tree, they filled it up with concrete cos it was dying and going rotten,

and it's up at the museum there now.

I can remember that being on the banks here.

It takes a bit of tracking back and forth

but then suddenly we find we're not just finding the same point of view,

we're part of the picture.

And there's an even better surprise to come.

Look at that, there's the... I can't believe it...

..a boat on its side careened just like the Endeavour,

in spitting distance.

Yeah, and that's just about exactly where I remember the tree being when I was a kid.

I wonder if they realise!

'We were obviously meant to take this trip today.'

'It was during Cook's enforced stay here that a Briton first heard the word "kangaroo".

'The Aboriginal name for this indigenous marsupial is different

'all across Australia, but this was the first name heard, and it stuck.

'This hill is where Cook came to plot his passage through the reefs, but our journey lies inland.

'Ahead of us now, two days of hard driving.

'We'll be passing plants that were here when Cook was here. In fact, he fed his pigs on them.

'These are cycads, one of the oldest plant types on the planet.

'They grow incredibly slowly.

'Each metre represents 100 years of growth,

'which means the taller trees here were standing when Cook passed through.'

There, I don't know but I reckon that'd be four, five metres, bit hard to tell from here.

Yep, well, it's... What do they reckon, a metre every 100 years?

-Yep, metre every 100 years.

-I'll use a stick then get you to pace it out and we'll know.

-Stick and pace?

-Perfect.

-Right, let's do that.

Right, let's have a look, put the top of the stick at the top of the cycad,

and my thumb to the base... Right, I've turned it 90 degrees...

If you pace it out, Les, I'll tell you when to stop.

-1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

-Stop.

OK, you're 500 years roughly there.

Crikey, 500 years! That's old.

500. There you go, roughly.

-That's amazing.

-Lot of history standing there.

If only trees could talk, eh?

If only. There's so much history here.

Even the road we'll be travelling, it follows routes pioneered by the early explorers.

Men like Ludwig Leichhardt, one of the first explorers

to give any thought to the Aboriginals whose land he was crossing.

Tell me about Leichhardt, cos he's one of your favourites among the explorers up here?

Yes, he is a favourite.

He ate a lot of wild food, didn't he, on his journey?

He tampered in that direction all the time.

Every time he'd get into an Aboriginal camp, he wouldn't disturb it that much,

but he'd see what they were eating.

Sometimes he'd eat a bit, or taste it,

and then he'd leave something behind as a present,

a knife or something like that, and then move on,

but he was forever, you know, trying this and trying that.

In fact, funny story, he got so hungry that at one stage

he actually boiled up his saddle bags and ate them!

-Oh, he must have been desperate.

-Oh, I reckon, yeah.

Leichhardt showed resourcefulness and respect,

attributes both Les and I employ in the way we work and travel.

Les, I thought I'd make the tea a little bit more traditional outback.

Oh, good on you, just for me.

Add a couple of gum leaves to it.

You got the best ones off the tree, too.

That's the tradition, isn't it?

Well, yeah, once upon a time, not so much these days,

but once upon a time that sort of thing happened quite a lot

where gum leaves were chucked in to add a bit more flavour,

bit more character to the brew.

But, yeah, that's right, that's traditional.

Couple of teabags in the billy.

It's quite interesting, in Canada, they do the same,

and if you come to it late in the day it's been boiled and boiled and boiled, it'll be black.

So you stick a couple of those in.

-Works out pretty well.

-Mm.

This is the country Les went to school in.

This landscape was his playground. It had a profound influence on him.

It's been a long old drive today.

Oh, yeah, well, we've come quite a few clicks, you know.

But we're doing it in comfort compared with what they used to deal with.

I went to boarding school in the town not far from here,

and it catered just for bush kids, and I can remember all the ringers in those days, the stockmen,

we called them ringers back then, I can remember all the ringers in those days, they used to wear a hat

just like this one here, and that bash was quite common then, you never see it these days.

-That's the shape of your hat?

-That's right, the shape, that's the bash.

You never see it these days, but it was part of the scene way back then

and it went right back to the Sir Sidney Kidman era, so it's got quite a heritage.

That's amazing... It's probably brewed now.

It's due to my growing up in this neck of the woods that I knew about this.

Hence the famous... your trademark really, Les.

Well, it is a bit, isn't it? Yeah. It is a bit.

THEY CHAT

Even with modern equipment and full support, over 700 miles across Queensland is tough going.

There are still hours to go, but just up the track we come across our support crew.

Their trailer has shed a wheel.

But travelling is all about dealing with the incidents that happen.

A short stop for provisions, some exchange of equipment, and tonight I'm ready to provide dinner myself.

It's one of those moments.

It's been a very long day, we're all very tired.

A lot of driving. Massive country, Australia.

Beautiful though, stunning scenery.

But despite that, you know, you get a fire going, and you feel like you're at home, it feels good.

And a few minutes later you've got hot water.

Now if I can get this lid to go on the kettle, I can pour some!

Got to be very careful when you're tired, that's when mistakes happen,

accidents happen, take extra care with things like that.

Have to say, I feel a bit like Captain Cook at the moment

because I've done a bit of press-ganging, let me show you.

These are my sous-chefs, and this is Frank and Nigel from the Daily Mirror,

and of course I've got them peeling potatoes, what would you expect?

Come on, you 'orrible little man, move yourself!

And in the background I've got Cassie,

she's part of our production team, and doing a stalwart job on the vegetables.

Bit of team work, goes a long way!

I'm doing the chopping.

Doing the chopping. Oi, mind the knife!

The press are only with us for one day.

What a day to choose.

My sous-chef has prepared the necessary vegetables. I've got celery, carrot, onion,

all going in, two hot camp ovens.

FOOD SIZZLES

Soften those off... It's very hot by this fire at the moment.

Hot to start with and I've let it cool off.

SIZZLING CONTINUES

Sounds good, doesn't it?

Due to the rapid nature at which we exchanged equipment and food

with the logistics vehicle this afternoon,

we haven't got the lid for the camp ovens,

so I'm having to improvise here

with a frying pan full of embers to do the browning off of the...

-SIZZLING

-..Shepherd's pie,

but that should be nice. Going to cook that for a little while.

Yeah, that looks good.

Right, well, help yourselves.

-I think that's a...

-Grub's up?

-Yeah, grub's up.

-Great stuff, well done, Ray.

-It's rather improvised, but there you go.

-Thank you, mate.

-After you, Frank.

-Cheers.

Excellent, thank you.

Jolly good. Burny bits round the edges.

-Mmm, very good.

-Is it all right? Yeah?

It's not very bush-tucker, is it?

But I'll tell you what, I've saved a few Blue Quandongs for you if you really want.

'Every trip needs good teamwork.

'It's very late, and Barry and Tim have been slogging away on camera and sound,

'continuing to film when we should all be eating and resting.

'It's finally time to call a halt for the day.'

-Cut.

-Tell the truth now.

Will you come and eat?

Today we reach our destination, the reason we've crossed Queensland,

the scene of an epic survival story.

A story as relevant to survival today

as it was when it happened.

This is desolate country, the worst place to get stranded.

But that's exactly what happened to six American airmen during WWII.

Early on 2nd December 1942,

the crew of an American bomber called Little Eva got lost returning from their mission.

Running out of fuel and wrongly believing they were near home, they started to bail out.

The pilot, Norman Crosson, landed near the burning wreck

and made his way towards it, meeting up with Staff Sergeant Loy Wilson.

Being here on the ground, it's easy to imagine the drama of that evening.

When Crosson and Wilson got here, this was all still burning.

50-calibre bullets were exploding in there.

Other things greeted them as well.

Inside there were a couple of their crew members dead,

and attached to this hatch somewhere was a parachute.

One man had tried to bail out through here.

His parachute had snagged on the fuselage and his body was still attached to the harness here, dead.

When no-one else joined them, they set off east.

They were lucky, but it was still well over a week before they were found.

The four remaining members of the crew fared far worse.

They had landed a lot further away from the plane.

You've got to put yourself in their situation.

They've just parachuted down into this wilderness, and in every direction it looks identical.

Now they've got to make an important decision.

Do they head to where they think the plane crash is, or do they move in a different direction?

They chose to walk north from the aircraft,

unwittingly away from the chance of rescue.

They had little or no survival training

or knowledge of the local plants.

But even if they had, this country provides little opportunity.

Even the legendary Bush Tucker Man is struggling to find anything suitable to eat here.

Right. This is one of the very few bush tuckers I've seen round the place here.

It's a thing called Cochlospermum. It's one of the Australian native Kapok species.

And you can actually eat the little flower petals here.

It's actually got quite a nice flavour.

A bit...flowery, if you'd excuse the pun.

'But it's not enough to keep you alive.

'One man stands out in the group of survivors,

'Grady Gaston.

'He seized every opportunity to improve their chances of survival.

One of the things that Gaston kept doing that was really good, was making marks, breaking branches,

and leaving other sign that searchers might come across that could point them in their direction.

In fact, a search was already under way,

but for weeks every step they had taken was away from rescue.

They lived off scavenged fish and meat, eaten raw.

People have wondered why the crew didn't use

the old Boy Scout trick of rubbing sticks together to make fire.

Well, even if they'd known how to do that,

which they didn't, they'd have had to do it almost as soon as they hit the ground,

because you very quickly run out of carbohydrate, and with it the energy to make fire that way.

Even local Aboriginals who could make fire that way

still carried burning embers with them when they moved camp.

You've got to remember how limited their options were.

Their plane was completely destroyed.

The land offered virtually nothing.

After almost a month they began to die.

Starvation has an interesting effect on people.

It increases people's susceptibility to thoughts of defeat, of giving up.

In a real sense you've got to make your psychology work for you.

If you think of it like a balance sheet, everything that you do well counts as credit

and keeps you in the black, but small obstacles that upset you can really tip the balance against you.

And of course as these men got closer to the edge of starvation

that effect became more and more pronounced.

After nearly two and a half months, Gaston was the only one left.

Fate rewarded him when he stumbled across an Aboriginal spear.

Here is a man who's already determined that he's going to survive,

he's going to have a girlfriend and buy a car,

and all of a sudden he finds the tool that may make that possible.

I think the psychological boost that gave him is far greater than is often imagined.

On 22nd April 1943, an incredible 141 days after he'd crashed,

Gaston was rescued by an Aboriginal stockman,

drawing to an end one of the longest survival stories on record.

You know, the crew of this plane were brave men even before it crashed,

but it's rather sad being here because six men made it onto the ground

and only three made it out alive.

Today, air crew are much better equipped and better trained,

and far better supported in terms of rescue and pick-up.

But you know situations like this can still happen,

and in those circumstances ultimately it all comes down to one thing,

the will to survive.

We've reached the end of our journey.

It's been quite a trip, getting on for 1,000 miles across Queensland

in the company of a man I feel I've known for years.

Les is one of the few people I've ever met who really understands

the connection between the landscape and the way we live.

It's been fabulous working with someone so open to other ways of doing things.

-Well, Les, I guess this'll be our last breakfast on the trail together.

-Yeah, I reckon.

You're heading one way, I've got to go in the other.

-Yeah, but it's been good fun.

-Hmm.

Really enjoyable.

I've really enjoyed it.

I've particularly enjoyed getting this personal view of Queensland from you

cos this is your back yard.

I was thinking of all the places we've been together here.

We've just scratched the surface of Queensland.

But I think Little Eva will stick in my mind for a very long while.

Cos in a way, what happened to that crew

in many ways validates the work that you did when you were in the Army.

It does, and it was things like that that actually made me sort of spur on in those directions,

because I can remember flying over that exact country we've just been to where Little Eva crashed,

in my Army helicopter days.

I remember flying over there and thinking, "What if?"

How would I get on, if something happened here and we had to ditch down here, sort of thing?

And that really spurred me on to start looking at vegetation, that sort of thing.

But I was also reading stories like the Little Eva story,

but also the explorers like Kennedy and Leichhardt.

And they all came up with the same sort of question,

"We haven't come to grips with this landscape yet",

and that's what really encouraged me to get out there to start doing it.

What do you think the future holds in terms of bush tucker and Australia?

It's really interesting,

cos the word "tucker" had almost died out in the Australian vocab

before we came along getting towards 20 years ago and created a new series called Bush Tucker Man,

which wasn't meant to kick off the way it was,

but it really went, and it brought that word back into play. But it's also done something else.

I think it's brought an interest in the landscape that wasn't there before and people sort of think,

"Yeah, that's interesting, you eat that thing that I remember seeing once upon a time",

you know, or whatever it was.

And Australians today, I think, are much more embracing of their landscape

and I think they will be in the future too,

and Australians are much more educated about their landscape and the vegetation

and what it's got to offer.

And I think we're seeing that all the time, the way they now respect the landscape

a lot better than they did perhaps 50 years ago.

-Les, it's been a real pleasure. Cheers.

-Yeah, cheers, mate.

It's been great working with you. Maybe we'll do it again.

-That'd be good.

-Cheers.

# Slow down, you move too fast

# You got to make the morning last

# Just kickin' down the cobblestones

# Lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy... #

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