I’ve never watched a reality TV series before so don’t know what sort of person usually wins these contests.\u00a0 Because there’s two people from\u00a0outback Australia involved in the first series of Amazing Race Australia and\u00a0I know many of the Warriner family, I had to watch.\u00a0\u00a0And barring unforeseen bad luck or events completely out of their control (which is after all the\u00a0deliberately fostered uncontrollable dimension, such as random egg timers, \u00a0that brings those with a good headstart back to within reach of the tailenders – making results a lot less predictable and keeps viewers on the edge of their seats), it is obvious that the two teams of young, fit blokes are by far the most likely eventual winners of ‘Amazing Race Australia’.\u00a0\u00a0 These are\u00a0Matt Nunn (western Qld)\u00a0and Tom Warriner (NT), and\u00a0Tyler Atkins and Nathan (Bondi NSW, but originally from the Gold Coast, Qld).<\/p>\n
And it’s no co-incidence that two of these Amazing Race Australia contestants were born and bred in the bush (Tom and Matt) and the other two are keen surfers (Tyler and Nathan).\u00a0 It is not often pointed out, but surfers and ringers or stockmen (referred to\u00a0in the Amazing Race Australia series by\u00a0the southern Australian term\u00a0‘farmers’\u00a0and also by\u00a0the American term ‘cowboys’)\u00a0have a lot in common.\u00a0 They are all early rises who prefer being outdoors to inside an office, they do what they do in all sorts of weather – roasting hot, freezing cold and in the rain – and they have a very high level of practical physical fitness (as distinct from gym-induced fitness – muscles which may look\u00a0fancy but not actually help in practical ways or indicate a good level of endurance, which is of course mental as well as physical).\u00a0 There are many keen Australian surfers who have successfully headed bush to work on cattle stations and sheep properties.\u00a0 The additional edge that rural residents have is problem solving skills.\u00a0 Anyone who has grown up in the bush learns to deal with adversity and solve all sorts of\u00a0problems on their own or with minimal assistance from anyone else, as a matter of course.<\/p>\n
These are the type of blokes who have an unusually strong, positive\u00a0can-do attitude.\u00a0 They entered\u00a0really believing 100% that \u00a0they can win. \u00a0When given directions they get going straight away and figure it out as they go rather than sitting around cogitating.\u00a0 No fuss, no bother, no quarrelling and when the pressure’s on, they just run faster instead of arguing about what should be done.\u00a0\u00a0 When things don’t go well they don’t waste time and energy squabbling over who caused the error, they just get on with getting back on track.\u00a0 \u00a0The bushies (‘cowboys’\/’farmers’) and surfers are\u00a0the only two teams who are consistently doing well without having\u00a0arguments or fights along the way.\u00a0 Rather than focusing on one another they’re concentrating\u00a0on the end result. \u00a0Ironically, the two teams most likely to win due to\u00a0natural ability actually make for much less dramatic TV viewing than some of the other teams.<\/p>\n
It’s also no surprise\u00a0they are blokes.\u00a0 Just as it’s not realistic for women to be in the SAS (for example,\u00a0being required to run with a heavy pack and gun\u00a0while\u00a0carrying an injured\u00a0male soldier to safety – I don’t think so; only women on steroids have that sort of endurance) it is almost all blokes doing the\u00a0most physically demanding\u00a0work on cattle stations (on the calf cradle all day, shoeing large numbers of horses, etc).\u00a0 It’s not politically correct to say so, but that’s the reality of it.\u00a0 The numbers of women working on Australian cattle stations has increased dramatically in recent years, however they\u00a0excel in areas where patience and gentleness are paramount – that’s why horsewomen are preferred by many when it comes to certain jobs – such as educating weaners (young cattle).\u00a0 Women survive by using brains rather than brawn and on the larger cattle stations blokes do have the physical edge because the hours and long and the work physically demanding.\u00a0 While brains are required to do well in Amazing Race Australia, it’s\u00a0obvious a high level of physical fitness and endurance is vital in order\u00a0to get through each gruelling stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two teams carrying backpacks while racing up steep temple steps to the stage finishing mat?\u00a0 The physically fittest who have the best single-minded\u00a0‘I can do this whatever it takes’ attitude (more commonly a male trait than female) will beat the rest.\u00a0 If all things were equal and\u00a0Amazing Race Australia\u00a0was determined by mental and physical ability alone, it would either be the surfers or the bushies (‘cowboys’) who would win the series.\u00a0 Given that surfers Nathan and Tyler have figured out that Tom and Matt are the most likely threat to their success and plan to give them the dreaded ‘U Turn’ if given the opportunity, it will be interesting to see what happens.\u00a0 We will have to stay tuned to see who won ‘Amazing Race Australia’ (it was filmed in November & December 2010).<\/p>\n
The unique coffee-table style books ‘A Million Acre Masterpiece’ and ‘Life as an Australian Horseman’ contain nearly 500 photos of stockmen (including mates of Tom & Matt)\u00a0at work on Australia’s largest outback cattle stations – in the Northern Territory, western Queensland and Kimberley region of Western Australia.\u00a0 For more info, check the\u00a0Book info<\/a>\u00a0page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve never watched a reality TV series before so don’t know what sort of person usually wins these contests.\u00a0 Because there’s two people from\u00a0outback Australia involved in the first series of Amazing Race Australia and\u00a0I know many of the Warriner family, I had to watch.\u00a0\u00a0And barring unforeseen bad luck or events completely out of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,11,15,217],"tags":[82,158,179,218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1530,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions\/1530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}