My sister on the Morning Show

This advertorial was produced for the Morning Show for an Australian TV channel (Channel 7). My sister had her first TV appearance and I think she did pretty well!

To watch the video you need the Microsoft Silverlight Plugin because currently I am testing the free streaming service. So far it works quite well. The quality of the video isn’t that good because the source file was compressed too much.

There are two more short commercials from Real Insurance with my sister. I’m still waiting for the long version…
You need the silverlight plug-in to watch the streams.

And another one:

Another advertorial from Real Insurance. This time 4 minutes long and I think it’s also the last one my sister made.

Bear Grylls – Iceland

In the second season of “Man vs. Wild” Bear stranded in Iceland on a glacier. His only tools were a knife, a water bottle and a flint.

Bearing
He decided to descend to get to the warmer regions and than he headed south west. To define which way to go he used his watch. Pointing the hour-hand towards the sun, South is half between the sun and 12 o’clock.

Shelter
The first night he built a snow hole on the lee side of the mountain because the wind was so strong and cold that he was in danger of hypothermia. By the way one shouldn’t eat ice because this additionally drops the body temperature. Instead he filled the water bottle with ice and put it under his jacket. During the night his body heat melted the ice and in the morning it was ready to drink.

Icelandic Sheep (source:wikipedia)

Food
In this episode he found plenty of food. For example he managed to catch a snow chicken with a self-built trap with his shoelaces. He also found a dead Icelandic sheep and because of the low temperatures the meat was still good, although the sheep was already a few days dead. He took some meat and the eyeballs with him. Luckily Iceland has many volcano heated ponds and so he tied the eyeball and meat with his shoelaces and put them into the boiling water. After a few minutes the meal was ready to eat. Watch the scene right now:

On the third day he reached a road and therefore civilization.

Bear Grylls – Rocky Mountains

This time he parachuted near the Canadian border into a remote area of the Rocky Mountains. He had a timeframe of 5 days to find civilization. These days he was on his own with no spare clothes, map or even a knife.

This was the second time where he had problems with the landing. He got stuck in a tree top, about 60 feet above the ground. His only chance was to use his emergency parachute which brought him closer to the ground. After he took some of the parachute lines for later use he jumped…

The plan was – as most of the time – to look for a river, than a track and than a road. The weather in the Rockies can be very demanding. During the day the temperature is at about 18 degree Celsius and at night it can be below zero. At about 5 pm it is getting almost dark. For the first night he built a simple shelter with the help of a fallen tree. Keeping the shelter and his body warm was a key thing during the cold nights. He used pine needles and moss on the ground and roof for isolation and wind protection.

Food was the second important thing he had to worry about. Luckily he found a rattle snake while collecting firewood. He killed it and had a tasty diner

Tip from Bear : Always burn the rest of your meal and all of your leftovers in the fire so that no animals will be attracted at night.

But still there was “something” out there in the night. It was around his shelter and fireplace, but he couldn’t find out what it was. Bear decided to move although it was in the middle of the night. The northstar gave him enough information about where to go next…

The next day (day 2) he was very tired and he used a lot of energy. He only found some disgusting worms which he had to eat to get at least some of the proteins back.

After several hours of walking he reached a cliff. 70 feet below was a river and he decided to jump to follow the stream. The riverbank had also some garbage like plastic bags or cans (but for Bear great tools).

Cattails (a plant) can be also very useful. For example can the top be used as a nice tender for fire. The shaft is great for arrows and they say the roots are very tasty.

Still hungry he follow some streams to smaller ponds, where sometimes fish get lost. It was hard but he managed to catch a few by hand. And again he did it – like in the Alaska episode. He bite right into the living raw fish ! Best sushi he ever had was his comment

On day 3 he cleaned his teeth with a horsetail plant which is optimal for this task (now we know how useful cattail and horsetail plants are).

The next 12 miles he used the river for traveling. It took him much faster where he wanted to go, the downside was that the water was really cold and after this 12 miles he couldn’t bear it any more. To get his body heat back he made a fire are heated some stones. Then he covered the fire and the hot stones with sand and used this warm ground to sleep and get a rest.

On day 4 he followed the river again for several hours until he reached a cliff. From there he could see a road at the horizon and therefor civilization. With the parachute lines the abseiling was no problem for him and he met the road at the end of day 4.

This was the last episode I saw from Bear Grylls but I just found out that season 2 is already on air. So there will be some more survival tips from him.

Bear Grylls – Desert Island

Finally I had time to watch a new episode of Man vs. Wild. This time Bear Grylls jumps out of a helicopter 2 miles from a desert island away. Except his knife and the clothes on his body he has nothing with him.

Swimming the 2 miles is very exhausting and the best way to save the energy is by swimming sideways. The waves are getting very strong closer to the shore and then you definitely need the energy.

He managed to reach a rocky coast and decided first to explore the island. He climbed to a near high rock to get the best view of the surrounding area. He spotted a small beach a few miles away and decided to head in this direction. At the beach was the best place to build the shelter because he could observe the water for near ships and it was the best place to build a signal fire.

His priorities were water, food and shelter. But before he built the shelter he made the signal fire with a huge pile of pine needles. He also needed to make a second fire which has to burn constantly so that he can light up the signal fire very quickly when a boat passes the island.

The shelter was easy to build because the bamboos and hibiscus trees were great resources. The palm trees at the beach offered coco nuts which are a very important energy source. Actually a man survived 25 days on a island just by eating coconuts and the drinking the coconut milk.

On day 2 his first priority was food. He build a spear with a bamboo rod and tried to dive to catch some fish with the spear. Unfortunately this wasn’t that easy so he tried another way. The roots of some special plants he found contained a poison which affects only fish. He went to the rocky coast and the small water holes and smashed with a stone on the roots of this plant. After that he washed the roots in a few ponds and waited until the waves flushed some fish into the holes. They were immediately poisoned and easy to catch.

To cook the fish he build a oven in the sand. Basically it’s a hole in the sand with heated stones from the fire. Above the stones are leaves, then the fish which is also rolled-up in a leaf and then again a big leaves. After that he put sand on top and waited a hour. It’s like a steam oven and it tasted really good. A funny quote: ” When the eyes of the fish are popped out then you know the fish is ready to eat.”

Finally he decided to build a raft to leave the island. With plenty of bamboos and palm trees he managed to build a catamaran and a small sail. While watching the wind strength to check when it would be best to leave he spotted a bottle in the surge. It was important to get this bottle because it would be the best way to carry water with him on the raft.

On day 3 it was raining but these are good news. Grylls collected the rain water with a palm tree and filled the bottle so that he will have water for approximately 5 days on the raft. The wind was easier to handle and so he decided to leave the island.

The first problem on the small raft was the sun. There was hardly any shade and so he used the coconut oil as a protection against the sun and also against the salt water. It was a good way to protect his skin.

Later a tiger shark came very close and bumped a few times into the raft. Bear was lucky because the shark got bored and left a few minutes later.

After long exhausting hours he spotted a boat 5 miles away. One thing you can do so that the other boat gets your attention is to use a highly reflecting material and give signals. For this Bear used his knife and with the reflection of the sun it is possible to make a signal which is visible for miles! Finally he got rescued.