On-set secrets from Australian Survivor’s toughest season ever

Where do contestants go to the toilet? And what about all the snakes? We visited Australian Survivor’s outback set to get all the answers.

I’ve travelled so far to get to the set of Australian Survivor: Brains V Brawn, I can’t quite believe I’m still in the same country.

Two flights from Sydney have me landing in remote Mount Isa, before a winding 120km drive east in the dark to the town of Cloncurry – a drive that comes complete with an outback near-death experience as our driver slams on the brakes as we hurtle down the highway, jolting us all forward and bracing for impact.

Out of the blackness, illuminated by headlights, there’s a cow standing in the middle of the road, blankly eyeing us down horror movie style. Eventually – no rush here – it trundles off the road and the journey continues.

This season of Survivor – fewer coconuts and beaches, more yabbies, snakes and dams. Picture: Nigel Wright

RELATED: Jonathan LaPaglia on Survivor’s ‘crazy’ changes this season

The next morning, it’s another long drive south from Cloncurry on bumpy dirt roads, past camels, wallabies, emus and so many termite mounds, as we trek deeper into the Outback.

And then, like mirages, iconic Survivor challenge sets loom out of the desolate landscape, each surrounded by dozens of crew members, painting, assembling and dismounting.

Amid the crew of hundreds, I spy one small team who have every Survivor fan’s dream job: Testing each of the challenges to make sure they’re safe and achievable for contestants.

This season there’s also a brand new role on set, one not required during previous jaunts to Fiji and Samoa: A full-time snake wrangler, a man named Larry, who clearly demands a lot of respect among the crew. And boy, is he busy.

Survivor host Jonathan LaPaglia models one of the many snakes this season.

RELATED: Survivor’s full Brains V Brawn cast revealed

“We all feel safer when Larry’s around,” one producer tells me as we bat away flies under the hot outback sun.

These aren’t the paranoid fears of a city-slicking crew, either: Snakes are a real and present danger every day on set. The same producer tells me about the time Larry had cleared a patch of long grass before contestants entered for a challenge, beating a stick through the scrub before cheerfully calling out to the crew downwind that he was “sending a few pythons their way.”

And those in the crew with a serious snake phobia have learned to give Larry a wide berth: He’s been known to take a particular shine to some snakes he finds, pocketing and keeping them on his person to show unsuspecting crew members.

I’m here on set to observe a Survivor merge, where this season’s warring tribes finally get to mingle. Viewers will watch it later in the season, so obviously there are some spoilery things I can’t tell you, otherwise I might have to kill you (or, rather, the producers of Survivor would have me killed).

But I can say, this year’s contestants have it rough. I watch as they trudge out from the bush, looking weather-beaten, hungry and caked in dust and dirt. Seeing them in the flesh, the immediate reaction is to want to call for help: These people need food, water, shelter! But they’re all here by choice, playing for the title of sole Survivor – and the chance to win $500,000.

Contestants compete in a challenge in episode one. What was I saying about dirt and dust? Picture: Nigel Wright

Watching from afar, I finally get an answer to a question Survivor fans have always wanted to know: Where do contestants go to the toilet? In this case the answer is: ‘everywhere’, as several contestants duck off into the bushes for nervous wees ahead of the day’s intense physical challenge.

Another quirk this season: The vast expanses of the outback mean that key sites like tribal council, camp and various challenges are not within walking distance of each other. Sending hungry contestants out on multi-hour desert hikes just to get to a challenge isn’t an option (“We want to test them, not kill them,” quips one producer), so for the first time, tribemates are bussed between locations in mini-vans.

It’s one tiny luxury – they get to briefly sit in car seats! With padding! But it still comes with a catch. They must sit in silence, blindfolded: they’re not to communicate, in case some key game play happens off camera. We pass their van on the way out of the merge, and there they sit, mute and blindfolded, all obedient hostages. It’s an eerie sight.

There is water in the outback! Unfortunately it’s often home to freshwater crocodiles. Picture: Nigel Wright

As the production breaks for lunch, host Jonathan LaPaglia tells me that while this year’s contestants knew ahead of time that due to Covid they wouldn’t be competing on a tropical beach, the harsh conditions of the Australian Outback have still come as something of a shock.

“I don’t think you really appreciate how difficult it is unless you’ve had experience out in the Outback,” he says.

“I think it has really added a new element to this game. It’s already difficult as it is. Then you ramp up the conditions and I think some of them were like, ‘Wow, what did we sign up for?’”

Australian Survivor: Brains V Brawn premieres 7.30pm Sunday on Ten.

The writer travelled to Cloncurry as a guest of Network Ten.