“In a survival situation, fussy people die,” says Gordon Dedman, passing around a bowl of wriggling mealworms.
Not good news for someone who still cuts the crusts off his sandwiches. It takes all my willpower to put the live larvae in my mouth, which, of course, is precisely the point. Because in a true survival situation – if you were injured or lost in the bush – eating worms might mean the difference between life and death.
Dedman is the founder of Bushcraft Survival Australia, an organisation that teaches people how to survive and thrive in the bush. A former member of the 1st Commando Regiment, he’s a qualified combat survival instructor and the bushcraft consultant on the survival reality TV show Alone Australia.
There are 18 of us on this three-night fundamentals course, which is being run from an expedition-style field camp on a rural property near Camden, an hour’s drive south of the Sydney CBD. Lessons are conducted in an outdoor classroom underneath a military parachute and for the duration of the course we will eat, sleep andgo to the toilet outside.
“You’re going to be challenged,” says Dedman during the introduction. “They’ll be early starts and late nights. At times, you’ll be uncomfortable, but it’ll pass.”
