One things I've found, especially when I get out in the bush, I spend a lot of time out there,
is man's ability to create fire.
And 60,000 years ago, the Indigenous tribes of Australia learned or started making fire.
And there was a few different methods that they used, and one of those methods, a hand-drill,
there's flint, rubbing sticks. But one of the ones that I've found is pretty fascinating
to me is a bow and drill method. And it's actually used by ancient Europeans.
So it wasn't introduced into Australia. Ancient aboriginals used the hand-drill method, the
flint method. But this method here was used by Europeans that first settled in Europe
something like 70-, 80,000 years ago. So what I'm gonna show ya is basically how to start
a fire using a bow and drill method. Now it's not just any old timber you use. But this
is a white, very light timber that I've found out on the track. And obviously I've dried
it all out. As you can see it's fairly dry. I haven't just picked it out of the bush a
few seconds ago.
So what I need first is I need a base.
We'll get ourselves a flat base. I've got to make a drill hole.
I just carve out a little bit there and get my drill started. This one here is my drill.
We'll use that end.
Now I've got here, I've just picked up a bit of cord. You can use your shoelace or something
like that. And this here is just a piece of bent timber. That's easy to find that bit.
And the cord's just loose.
So I grab my drill, and I whack it onto my cord. And it's reasonably firm.
See that. You want to get a block. The block sits on the top there like that.
So first of all, I just want to create my drill hole.
I'm actually not gonna start fire just yet.
Now it's actually quite easy to create smoke. The hardest part is to turn that into an ember.
So there's just a couple of tricks here. I'm creating a little gap here, because this is
where I want the hot dust to fall out. Alright, here we go.
Oh there we go. There we go.
Alright, it's that ember now that I've got to try and turn into fire.
I've got a little nest sitting here. I'll just put that bit...
Any second now, we're gonna have a flame.
There's the flame.
And there you go.
Now it's that there, just knowing that technique alone, it's an absolutely awesome survival skill.
It's taken me years to perfect. Absolute years.