A grandmother in Canberra’s north is a bushcraft survival expert who gives Bear Grylls a run for his money, and she’s attracted the attention of reality TV show Alone Australia.

Kelli Jackson, 57, is a resourceful woman who – unlike any contestant on Alone Australia – has managed to survive 23 days without food. As a bushcraft teacher (Bushsafe.com), she knows how to survive alone and she wants other Canberra women to do the same.

“We live in really low-risk times,” Kelli said. “The biggest risk we have now is driving so we’re actually not used to the risks that nature presents to us. You’d be surprised how many people fear nature.

“There’s a ‘Disneyland effect’ where people think that because they’re away on holiday in a national park and on the track, they’re safe. People don’t think much about things like weather risk and how easy it is to get lost.”

Kelli’s teachings are practical and realistic – unlike Bear Grylls’ sensational urine drinking and enemas for our light entertainment.

Because Kelli only teaches women, she utilises things that women are most likely to have on them. For instance, if there’s no combustible wood available to burn, use a tampon and lip balm (both highly flammable and burn for a long duration). If you need to attract the attention of a search and rescue helicopter, use the magnetic strip on your credit card or your phone screen to catch the sun.

Many people think the key to survival is knowing how to start a fire with a bow drill (just like Tom Hanks on Castaway). It isn’t – just bring a small cigarette lighter with you on every hike.

“In a true emergency survival situation – imagine being cold and wet, in the dark – without a headlamp, and potentially hypothermic, and having to wander around to try and find a Xanthorrhoea tree just to make your bow drill with,” Kelli said. 

Bear Grylls once famously used a dead camel for shelter, which was a ratings winner but in reality, you’re better off using Kelli’s shoelace and space blanket. (Incidentally, Bear Grylls wasn’t a survival expert, he hired a female survival consultant for his show.)

“My focus is on what to do in a true emergency survival situation, which is different to wilderness survival,” Kelli said. “I bring in a lot of context from search and rescue that gives people background and statistics around who gets lost, how long they’re likely lost for, and when will they be rescued.”

Kelli’s Bushsafe courses give women the critical actions they need to take to maximise rescue chances in the ensuing 72 hours. She assures me that we are all able to survive in the bush with nothing, we’ve just forgotten how.

“There aren’t any new survival situations,” Kelli said. “There are only new people making the same mistakes.”

As a child, Kelli was a brownie and girl guide, and used to go remote camping with her family. She also participated in rugged Outward Bound courses and uni bushwalking.

“One of the things I noticed was that there weren’t a lot of opportunities to learn what to do in a wilderness emergency. So, I started testing out some little courses and then my three-day course developed.”

Kelli’s Bushsafe courses are designed, delivered by and made for adventurous women. Participants gain hands-on experience with critical survival tools such as rescue mirrors, fire-starters (including how to make fire through friction and five other methods), water collection and water purification, and emergency shelter. 

Seeing as Bear Grylls once drank his own urine, I had to ask.

“If you drink your urine, you’ll survive in spite of it, not because of it,” Kelli said. “There’s actually better things you can do with your urine including keeping yourself cool by wetting yourself so that if the wind blows, the urine on your skin will help cool you down. You’ll still be dehydrated but you’ll be cool and therefore you won’t likely die for a good seven days.”

Kelli also teaches the power of willpower, drawing on real-life scenarios from war-torn Afghanistan to the middle of the ocean, adrift on a life-raft.

“Interestingly, it doesn’t matter how many skills you have,” she said. “What will get you through is actually the will to survive as opposed to any skills,” Kelli said. “There’s amazing stories of people who had nothing and walked through a forest for 10 weeks and survived. There’s people who had everything and died because they gave up.”

For information on Bushsafe courses, visit bushsafe.com