SURVIVAL CHALLENGE: Plane Wreck In Crocodile Waters

I was just so close to getting eaten by that crocodile. This is one of the worst places imaginable to crash your plane and then hope to survive. Let's try our luck. That's a beauty. Holy ----. This crocodile is just following me up the beach here. This is the perfect mud crab hole. Look at that smoke coming in. Yes. It's keeping me on my toes a little bit too much. So welcome to one of the most isolated and remote parts of Australia. Back in World War II, the poor pilot of this aircraft was forced to make a crash landing here. And boy, he couldn't have picked a worse spot. Pretty quickly, the war would have been the least of his worries and he would have had to switch straight into survival mode. First things first, he would have had to get ashore here. And these waters are full of crocodiles, sharks, stingrays, stonefish. Everything out here wants to hurt you. I'm putting myself in this exact location to see what this pilot would have been faced against and to share his story for a plane wreck survival challenge. There's a huge, huge stingray right here. So well camouflaged. Oh, if I stood on that one, he would have a massive barb. I'd be in all sorts of hurt. Look at the size of him. Now, the first challenge for this poor pilot would have, of course, been getting ashore. And whilst flying the drone, just during the introduction there, there's a decent sized crocodile in this creek here and there's sharks cruising all up and down in the shallows here. But once ashore, his next survival challenge really begins. Now, a lot of these planes were kitted out with survival rations in case they went down. But for the sake of this survival challenge, I'm just going to go pretty simple, really. I've got just a shirt, sunnies and a hat to cover up. And then in here, I've got GoPro batteries so I can share it with you guys. Sunscreen, the VHF radio. We do need an exit plan eventually. And got a GoPro so I can bring it all with you guys. The one survival item is I've got a knife strapped to my leg. Back during World War II, all of the pilots would have travelled with a knife strapped to their belt, hence like a Swiss Army knife or something like that. But that's it for the survival challenge, guys. Let's get underway. These are definitely pig tracks here. I'm just having a quick walk along the beach where we've washed in to see if anything stands out as an obvious food source. This is a tiny little piglet. One this size would be able to just run down and catch. And then anyone who's eaten bacon or pork before knows the pig is a great source of food. So we'll keep our eyes out for him. So during World War II, there was almost 800 military aircraft that crashed up and down the Queensland coast. But that poor pilot's plane we saw today, he was part of an even bigger story, which is mind-blowing. It's like something out of, you know, a Bermuda Triangle type myth. And I'm going to share that full story with you a little bit later on in the episode. The one consistency for the surviving pilots that survived firstly the crash and then what came afterwards is they were very proactive in finding either a water source, hydration or food. So that's what we're going to do, guys, in order to give ourselves the best chance at survival. Quick disclaimer, as always, guys, I've never been in a war. I've never had my plane crash down. So what they were going through that led up to these moments, I can never fathom. It's more so what happened after the incident. The really amazing thing is a lot of this landscape, what hasn't changed at all since these stories we're recreating, do hope that some of these survival challenges are better sharing the stories of these guys that went through these epic tales of survival that aren't really well known or known at all. Having crashed down just offshore here, chances are that pilot would have washed straight into this beach. And it seems like he wasn't the only one that would have washed in here. There is so much plastic, rubbish, junk scattered all along this beach, but this could come in handy for us. So first things first, we're going to do a big walk on this beach and see if there's anything we can grab that's going to come in handy for our survival. Unbelievable how much stuff is washed in here. Now, to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for here, but just anything that is going to be useful to us. Things like rope, potentially a spear, any old fishing line, fishing hook or any coconuts we could drink. What's this? There's so many plastic bottles on this beach, but some completely unopened, completely sealed. And that looks like fresh drinking water. So I'm going to try my luck here. Oh, it's hot. You could boil a mud crab in there at the moment. That's beautiful fresh drinking water. Don't know how long it's been here for, but we're going to take what we can get, especially with hydration. That's a lucky start. Another one. Honestly, it's amazing how many of these, I don't know whether they've fallen off a shipment of drinking water. It's fallen overboard or something, but that's just perfect drinking water. No way, another one. These things are everywhere. There must have been a pallet of fresh drinking water. What are the chances? I honestly can't believe our luck. This is incredible. They're all the same pattern, completely unopened. We've just about got a six pack of fresh drinking water. The strange thing is they've all been in the sun, it seems like for a different length of time. This is very well weathered, whereas this is pretty clean. So I don't know how this water is finding its way into the ocean, but I'll take it. Thank you, whoever lost these. What an absolute gift, hey? This water just keeps appearing. Oh, I could make like a net in the shallows to net some fish, but this just seems too far entangled, unfortunately. We'll keep looking, see what else we can find. Look at all these floats here. Oh, it's pretty well hooked in there. It's a popper, a fishing lure, but he's pretty well entangled. Really does break your heart a little bit, to be honest. Such a pristine beach. I mean, look at this, but just covered in human-made junk. It's like a rubbish tip. It is very useful if you're in a survival situation, but what a shame, hey? It's like everywhere, the whole beach. Little like flying saucer-looking object. There's some crazy stuff here. This isn't how I imagined the survival episode would start. Basically, Strik plays in a rubbish dump for 10 minutes, but hopefully something useful can come out of this. It's only pretty faint, but this is a crocodile slide. Come up, sat underneath here, and then returned back down. Yeah, needless to say, we are going to be on a pretty sharp lookout for crocodiles. Actually, there's a big, dark shadow that looks a lot like one just here. This might actually be one. I just can't quite make it out, whether it's a log or a crocodile. I'll come back and see if he's moved in 5, 10 minutes. Man, it looks a lot like one. Nautilus shell. I thought we might be in luck here. One great source of hydration is, of course, the coconut, but that one's too small, wouldn't be worth opening up. There wouldn't be enough to drink out of it. Keep looking. There's some about 25 meters up there. We'll see if we've got any easier options. Yeah, that's a bit clearer. That's only a small crocodile, but he's going back and forth every which way. He likes it up here. These little creek beds like this end up being a bit of a treasure check. And in this one, there's a light bulb, but there is literally gold for us in the form of a gold lure. We've found a few lures now, but the good thing about this one, it's got hooks on it. Pernod 1805. Surely that doesn't mean these bottles from 1805, eh? I think it must just mean Pernod's been around since then, but I'm not going to try my luck and drink this one. This is why you don't want to spend too long drifting around in the ocean. These floats are tough, and this has been bitten apart by a shark. See all the shark bites? Crazy, eh? Yeah, a lot of the sharks are just curious if anything floats on the surface for too long, come up and have a bit of a curiosity bite. All right, let's keep going. So the key elements we need to get sorted today is pretty similar to all survival situations. So we need hydration, we need food, we need the ability for fire. We might need a shelter. And my game plan this morning is I'm just going to cover a lot of ground and try and find these things. It does feel like the wind is picking up out over the ocean here, which makes gathering food pretty tricky. So once we've done this stretch, I'm going to keep walking over to the other side. It's like a bit of a shipwreck here. Someone might have had their own shipwreck survival challenge on this beach. Oh, now this could be useful. This could be useful. Busted up old hand line that's probably going to cut me and do more harm than good using, but it does have some line on it. So I'm going to take this for the line and probably try to find a bottle or something else to use as a hand line. Now I'm looking for the perfect bottle. Shouldn't be too hard. There's a few to choose from. All right, and this one will do it. Oh yeah, it looks like a decent hook. See if I can cut them out. It's pretty rusty. No, that'll work. Oh, you know what? This is a squid jig. I just realized, I thought it was a toothbrush, but at the back here, there it is there. If I'm careful, I'll be able to get this squid jig out, which could really come in handy for catching something later. The more I cut and cut and cut, this is a little gold mine here. What a bloody mess though. All right, 15 minutes later, we've got one treble out. That's definitely sharp enough to catch a fish. Let's get the other one. There we go. We've ended up with one lure and these two squid jigs, which, well, they're still sharp, but need a bit more untangling. All right, let's go see what we can catch with these. So each one of these survival challenges that I do is just so different, but you've just got to play with the cards you dealt. And I mean, we were so blessed with all that water we've got. But next on the agenda, we've got to see what food we can get a hold of. So I'm just walking along the edge of the mangroves here and seeing if there's any good food getting around. Looking for things like mud crabs. I mean, mud crab would be amazing. Otherwise, there's different shellfish like mud mussels or mangrove snails. And at some point, I want to find an area where I can cast this lure and try and catch a fish. That tide's flooding in. I'm a bit too late here. I would have liked to have walked across there, but that tide's coming in. Just due to the crocodiles, I'm going to have to go around there. There's a little creek here. Oh, look at this. Look at this. Now, that is a really good size male mud crab, but someone's beaten us to him. Keep our eyes out for a live one. Can you hear that? There's a colony of fruit bats up here, and man, they're loud, noisy buggers. So we don't want to be setting up camp here. You won't get a blink of sleep. But the fruit bats, they eat similar fruits to what you and I would love. So if they're around here, I just want to see what they're feeding on. It might point me in the right direction for a bit of good bush tucker. Plenty of these mud snails, or if they get caught, a long bottom around. We'll keep them as a last resort. Now, this is definitely a mud crab hole. Let's see if anyone's home. Whoa, this is the perfect mud crab hole. That's the back of it there. No one home. I wonder if this was the hole of that dead crab we found. Oh, there's these bats here. See them climbing up there? They are so, so loud. Can you hear them? They're going crazy. No obvious mud crabs in that water. That tide is coming in. I don't really want to get stuck in here. Almost down. Walking in the mangroves in a survival situation, I reckon it's a risk because you just chew so many calories. Everywhere is like an obstacle course coming over and under and stuff and you just chew so, so much energy. It's hot, there's sand flies biting you, so you really want to get a bit of return on investment like a mud crab or something. But no luck for us then. Just got to keep looking. Just wondering what beast we've come across here. Look at the size of that handprint. And it looks like three definite claws. I couldn't work it out, but then this is his slide up here. Crocodiles come up and gone back down. Decent size one too, looking at those those hemp. There's a nice deep bank here, so this looks like a pretty good spot where I can cast my lure off and try to catch a fish. We'll see how we go. Something big is chasing the mullet, Michelle is there. I'm shaking tying this knot. There's fish jumping everywhere at the moment. Let's try our luck. Well, we don't have much line and the lure is diving too deep. Come on, come on, come on. Oh, come on, come on, come on. Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it. Some very nervous mullet coming in there. Yes, yes, yes. What have we got? Yes, come up here. Beauty. Holy. Now I've got a confession to make. I was just so close to getting eaten by that crocodile and I'm so disappointed in myself. I just got my lure snagged on a snag there and I was like, oh, hopefully there's not a croc there and I freaking got it unsnagged quickly and come back up. The next cast, I catch a fish, pull it up the bank, turn around. This freaking huge crocodile head is right at ambush on the water edge there. Man, I can't believe I just let that happen. I am out of here. I don't want to play any games with a crocodile that size. That was just crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. An animal that size would eat things like me for breakfast every morning. He'd outsmart a pig on that same bank. Here I was just looking and smelling like a bloody pig stomping around. That's got me really, really on edge. I think my adrenaline levels are only now just starting to drop a bit and I get a chance to reflect. Of course, I know that there's crocodiles here and I sat on the bank there for maybe 20 minutes with the cameras off, just looking to see if there's any signs of any ripples, any croc slides, anything. It wasn't a single sign, but I guess that's the true danger of the crocodiles is as you become more comfortable, you can also become complacent. That's when the crocodiles are at their most dangerous. My lure was snagged pretty much right where that crocodile's head was. Plenty of good men have been taken by crocodiles thinking they'll be quick and just pop it off in that exact kind of scenario. I was super lucky to get away with that one. I was always in disbelief. Like, how could it pop up there so silently? Not a ripple, but I must have been just out of his strike zone because by the time I turned back, he was ready, but I was just out of his reach, I reckon. And then there was this kind of stare off as he was on the edge of the bank and I was slowly retreating. And that moment will be sort of burnt into my brain for a while to come. That's what nightmares are made of, that stuff. So this survival challenge has just gotten a whole lot more serious. So to paint the full picture here, guys, there is nothing around. There's no tapping out. There's no red button to press. There's no one coming. So probably 100 miles to the north before you reach the next little town. Probably 100 miles south before you reach the next little Aboriginal community. And everywhere in between is just pure wilderness areas, guys. There's nothing. And the only boat within miles would be Fran. So I've organized tomorrow for her to come and pick me up, thinking that would be enough time to organize a get out of this survival challenge. But until then, there is no one coming, guys. I can't tap out even if I wanted to. So it's going to be a long night, but we've just got to get on with it, eh? There's a huge fin out of the water in the shallows here. With a dorsal fin that big, it's got to be a hammerhead. It's got to be a hammerhead shark. Oh, man, this place is crazy. Just offshore here. And see that big dorsal just slicing through the water. He must be chasing some fish there. I'm on such high alert after that crocodile. Then when there was some splashing, I was like, oh, he's back. This time it's a hammerhead shark. Oh, look at it. Epic, epic, epic. He almost looks like he's beached. He's that shallow. Oh, no. Looks like we've got some rain coming now. There's another crocodile. Bloody hell. Let's go get a closer look. So right where that hammerhead shark was, a crocodile's come in and he's right on the edge of the water. He's got his mouth open. It doesn't look like a friendly pose anyway, but he's got his mouth open right on the edge of the shoreline there. I'm not sure if this is the same one, but this one looks smaller. The head I saw of that other one, I'm going to have nightmares about that for a while. The head looks so wide. Might be a different one or it might be the same one that wants what he just missed out on before. He doesn't want to let his lunch get away. Can't get a minute to myself without all these crazy animals around, but I really need to try and get a fire going before that rain comes and ruins all hope. Not going to go. Come on. Good at the moment. A couple of wood chips might help. Start off a new hole. Look at that smoke coming. This one feels good. I can smell smoke. See the smoke coming up there now? It's not going to do it. I've just got to keep trying. I've got a feeling that I'm really going to need this fire tonight just to try and keep that crocodile a little bit wary as best we can. Let's try again. It's smoking already. This is me just getting it ready. Smoking. We've got smoke and I can smell it burning. I've just got to keep going now. Faster and a bit more pressure. Look at that smoke pouring out of it. This is going to go actually. This is going to work. Yes. Finally. Oh yes. That's going to give a bit of relief from the bloody sand flies for a couple of minutes. Took so long. I think the rain's actually gone now, but we got there. Let's get this fire going so we don't have to do that again. This crocodile has not taken his eye off me. I want to go down and wash my fish, but he's been there the whole time. I've been mucking around with the fire and stuff. He just hasn't taken his eye off me. When I talk, he just drops his head underwater for a little bit and that tide all afternoon is coming higher and higher and higher up to... I mean, this is the tide line. I dare say he's just going to keep creeping on in with it. I think I can go with a sandy fish. I'm not going down there to wash it. So that's where the tide line got to last night and then this is where our base camp is at this point, but I might have to get forced back into the trees. What an absolute gift that is. And anyway, we're sort of getting set for the afternoon. We've got plenty of hydration. We've got a smoky fire to keep the sand flies away. At some point in the salvo, I'll have to cook that beautiful cod and I'll see our options for a shelter here as well as that tide comes in. So by this point, I'm pretty convinced that that crocodile is just stalking me and waiting for that tide to come in here. So I'm going to go for a bit of a walk and see if there is anywhere with a bit more elevation where I can camp throughout the night, just as a bit of a safety factor. So let's go for a bit of a walk. This crocodile is just following me up the beach here. He's in the water, just trailing behind. Definitely stalking me, he doesn't want to let me out of his sight. He's followed me the whole length of this beach and he's just parked up next to that mangrove tree there. I'm going to try to do a sneaky and sneak behind him, get a closer look. I want to know if this is the same one that we had the run in with. He looks a bit smaller. That was awesome. This one is definitely smaller. His head, I reckon it's probably half the width. The other one had this big square box head. But that one is a decent crocodile. But man, the one we saw before was a dinosaur. That means there's two of them anyway. So the setup is down that way is just all mangrove straight onto the beach. That spot where we did all the beachcombing is now cut off by the tide. So we can't get there. And this is our only place to camp tonight, guys. So yeah, we just got to do the best with what we can. I do have about 10 litres of water to drink. So I might start cooking this fish, get hydrated. And then we'll see how the afternoon plays out. Yeah, a bit of rain coming. What a day, hey? There's no chance I'm washing that fish off down by the water. So we're going to have sandy cod straight on the coals. Smells good. All righty, he's done, I reckon. Oh yeah, smells beautiful. Put him here and let him cool down. All right, let's see how we went. Bloody cod almost cost me my life. So I hope it tastes good. Thankfully, all that skin and sand peels away in one heap, leaving the meat underneath. All right, while we have lunch, guys, I'm going to tell you the story of that plane we came out of today. Oh, yum. It's really, really nice. So guys, that plane we came out of is part of one of the craziest stories of Australian aviation that I've ever heard. So during World War II, there was a squadron of 11 American planes flying up the east coast of Australia. They were heading to Papua New Guinea. Once they got to about this point, one of the crazy storms rolled in that makes this area so wet through the wet season. And they lost all visibility. They lost all comms with each other. And they only had a limited amount of fuel and were forced to make their own crash landings all up and down this coast. Unfortunately, two of them died in this process of the crash landings. But the rest of them managed to survive the impact of the landing. And then they all had their own individual survival situations to get out of. So one particular gentleman landed a little bit to the south of here. He would have been pretty happy to have crash landed and survived the impact. His radio was now working. He was told that a plane would be sent out to rescue him the next day. So he just sort of sat tight. The next day, a plane came out to pick him up. He was about to be rescued. As the plane was coming into land, it was low tide. And one of the wings clipped like a little sand mound and flipped the plane over, landing it head down right on the water's edge. The pilot survived the impact, but he was stuck inside the plane. He was trying to smash his way out, but he was wedged on the sand. He couldn't get himself out. The first pilot was there as well, now trying to smash and open his way in to free his comrade. But he was unsuccessful. And over the next few hours, as the tide rose and rose and rose, unfortunately, this pilot drowned inside the cockpit of his plane. So the first pilot obviously had to witness all this. That must have been incredibly traumatic. He managed to get on the radio, notified the powers-to-be. They said, sit tight, not to worry. Tomorrow, the next day, we'll send out another plane to rescue and try and retrieve the body. So the next day comes, the plane comes overhead, does a pass over. As he's sort of getting ready, the plane does one last flyover. And he hears a crash bang in the bushes behind him. And the plane has crashed, hit a tree and crashed and gone up in a ball of flames back in the trees and shrubs behind him. That pilot didn't survive that either. So unfortunately, now you've got the first pilot on the beach, two dead rescue pilots. What a horror story. This is something out of like a Bermuda Triangle type tale. Thankfully, the pilot ended up being rescued eventually. Third time lucky and he survived. Let's hope we don't have any such troubles with our rescue coming out of here. So I've built up the courage to return to the creek where we saw that giant crocodile. And I want to set up a trail camera here. I'd love to get a closer look of him. Like it's ingrained in my memory of this monster, this dinosaur. So I'd love to get a closer look at him. Hopefully, he likes cooked fish. We'll see how that works out. I'm going to put that in front of the camera and see if he comes up. This is his slide or one of his slides. This is kind of smaller than I imagined. Maybe this is his girlfriend or maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me. But look at that, look at that claw. All right, let's set up fish frame and the camera. What a crazy contrast. We've got a beautiful sunset out that way and one hell of a rain cloud out that way. Hopefully, we don't get the worst of that. I think we are going to get a little bit of that rain, actually. I'm going to put the cameras in a waterproof bag. Fingers crossed it passes over. Now, as for a shelter, with only limited time and energy, I didn't see any real need to chop down a heap of wood and then put leaves over the top to make a shelter. Because basically, I've already got what I would make right here with all these leaves over the top, creating a bit of a canopy. I'm just going to crawl under the most densely leafed area here. That should give me a little bit of protection from the rain. And I just want to make sure I'm off the main pig thoroughfare where all the wild boars would come through at night time. I don't want to be getting trotted on by them. And then the other thing I'm going to have to look for is I'm going to keep an eye on that tide and just make sure that water doesn't get too close. I need a bit of a buffer zone between me and the crocodiles. Probably get a little bit further underneath this. I think that's going to be me. And actually, the Aboriginal people of Australia that successfully lived here for so many years, they didn't make extravagant shelters or huts. They were very nomadic. And at the end of the day, they just put up a tiny bit of canopy over the top of them from paperbark tree or something like that. And it seemed to work all right for them. That'll do for a pillow. Not getting a hell of a lot of sleep, to be honest. Between the rain and this big crocodile straight out the front. Keeping me on my toes a little bit too much. We're going to go catch some brekkie. I'm really keen to see if we had any visitors through the night on our cooked cod down there. Coming down the back of the mangroves here. All those fruit bats are awake already, yapping on. The tide's really low today. So if I can't find anything for brekkie down in the main creek, I might come and have a look in the mangroves. I was so bummed that nothing has taken the bait. But I've just spotted a beautiful barramundi. In the middle of this little creek here. I'm going to stay right away from the water's edge, but I'm going to risk casting at him. Trying to catch him. That is a beautiful fish. I'm just going to have a good look around and make sure that croc's not up behind me anywhere. Oh, yeah. Holy. Where's that croc? Where is that croc? That's a freaking beauty. Holy. What a beautiful barra. Come up here, mate. Come up here. Come up here, you big, beautiful fish. Yes. Holy ----. Check out. I'm on edge, man. Hyper alert. Check out the size of this fish. You beauty. A barra on the water bottle hand line. I was actually looking at a separate fish and this one come off the bank. What an absolute gift on the first cast. This beautiful, beautiful saltwater barramundi. And this is really what these wild parts of Australia is all about. Big crocodiles, big barramundi. Oh, man. Amazing. I'm just going to check that trail cam anyway to see if it did pick up anything. There's no obvious tracks, but the angle I had it, it might have actually got that croc swimming up and down in and out of this river. So let's have a quick look. Just turning him on. No. No luck on the trail cam. I'm not going to push my luck and temp fate down here any longer. I'm going to take that beautiful barra back to base camp. Barramundi breakfast. All right. Now in a true survival situation here, we've been so blessed with food for a week. We got hydration sorted for a week with this 14 liters of drinking water we found. The next thing for us to do is we need a way out of here. So what we're going to do is we're going to put a big signal on the white sand here. It's going to stand out a big SOS. That would be our best chance to get rescued. Back in the war days, there's a chance that another plane would have flown over knowing that these guys were missing and found them that way. Our rescue vessel is Fran. When the tide's right coming in. So the best thing we could do is get that signal and then sit under the shade, get the hydration levels up. I think we're going to make it out alive this time. So for those that might be new here, my girlfriend Fran and I are doing a four month trip up the East Coast of Australia. But along the way, I'm getting dropped at various locations to do survival challenges just like this, basically being put in the exact position that these people found themselves in, in order to share with everyone what they were faced with and share their stories a little bit. But Fran and I are sort of on our own survival challenge every day. We're doing our best to live from the land and the sea. So although this was a big barramundi for me, that'll be perfect meal for Fran and I. And also all that water, I'll be taking all that back onto the boat. Finding fresh drinking water like that is such an asset. So we do have a few more things like we've got a boat and we've got, you know, supplies and fishing rods and spear guns. But in some way, it's a bit of a survival challenge. If you want to check that out, check out the Castaways channel. If not, thanks so much for tuning in, guys. Hope you enjoyed this one. Subscribe to the channel if you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching.