While we wait, here's a little survival trick.
Yeah the one thing about bush survival, especially if you're stuck in the bush or bogged, places
like the salt pans here, they could kill you in a heartbeat.
And if you don't have fresh water, that's the one thing that you're not gonna last long
without.
Food, if you're a bit of a big guy, you could go for a month easy.
But water, in the hot sun, you'd probably last about four days, and by the third day
your brain's probably not workin' real well either.
By then, it's over.
So, I've learned over the years, some few techniques to get fresh water out of a baron
salt heat-encrusted wasteland, really.
So what it's called is basically, it's a solar still or an evaporator.
Because what I want to do is, I want to try and evaporate, using the sun's heat, I want
to try and evaporate the moisture, the fresh water out of the surrounding vegetation and
out of the salt water.
Now the biggest thing you've gotta think of is you really want to be makin' this first
thing in the morning, because that's when it's cool and you're not going to expel much
sweat from your body.
Because the more you expel, the more water you've gotta create from your still.
So just remember that one.
So now that I've got a good hole, a good even hole.
She's about a foot and a half deep, and probably about three foot in diameter.
So now, I'm gonna get some vegetation in there.
Now I've chosen this vegetation because one, the greenness of the leaves, and two, the
broadness of these leaves.
If you look at that leaf, that means that that leaf has a lot of moisture or this tree
carries a lot of moisture, because it requires a lot of moisture for that leaf to survive
on that tree.
So we get as much of the vegetation in there as we can.
Now what I've got here is I've got a bucket of sea water.
Now that's a truck-load of moisture that's gonna help as well.
So I'm gonna pour a bucket of seawater in there as well.
Now this cup is gonna be my collection point and it's gonna sit down in the middle.
Alright, now I need some plastic, so I've got a massive sheet of plastic here.
I only want one layer of it.
I want a low point in the middle, and it's that low point that's going to track all that
moisture down into the center and collect in my cup.
Alright, so that now, we're gonna sit that, we'll leave that over night, and there's a
lot of dew around in the mornings as well, so that's gonna help with the cause.
And that hopefully will have a lot of fresh water in it, in the morning... and there's
already condensation happening on my plastic.
So come the morning, we should have a lot of water in that cup, and that's what will
keep us alive if we need water.
Look at that, there's a lot of water there.
So you can see the condensation, and all it does is trickle down the center and into my
cup.
I've even caught myself a lizard.
Here little fella, you're alright mate.
That's it.
You fire up.
Alright, mate you're good to go.
You go over there.
There you go.
So what I'll do is I'll try and get as much of that condensation down into the center
before I take it off.
Now if you're gonna continually use this still, the trick is to have like a piece of clear
tube about six mL in diameter, and you'd have it stickin' out here.
And the other end would sit in the cup [sips] you'd suck it through the tube.
And you don't have to upset any of this.
But for this exercise I'm gonna show you how much fresh, drinkable water is in that cup.
And remember, I poured salt water into there and leaves, and that's it.
And there you go.
I reckon that's about probably 250mLs of pure, fresh water.
Now that, that would help you out in a situation if you needed moisture, because remember dehydration
will kill you in days.
You can live without food for ages, but dehydration?
Nope, your organs will shut down, and it's all over.