It's 11am, and I'm already drenched in sweat. The ground is cracked and dry, the sun brutally, apocalyptically hot. There's no shelter, no shade. I down a bottle of water. I sweat it straight out.
We're on a tiny island in the middle of a lake in Thailand's Khao Laem National Park. It's a bare, treeless mound, just brown grass and parched earth. The expanse of water and the encircling mountains remind me ominously of a Hunger Games arena – not helped by the fact that we're surrounded by camera people, producers, directors and medics, all poised with a miscellany of television equipment.
Survivor New Zealand's second season is moments away from beginning.
The first challenge stands here and on a pontoon just off shore. Silence is called on set, and a drone camera circles overhead. The contestants approach on long, thin fishing boats. Once they set foot on this little knoll, the real world disappears. They're in the game.
The contestants of Survivor New Zealand season two arrive for the first day of the competition. Photo / Scott McAulay
Each of the 18 faces look dumbstruck as they approach. It's understandable; just three days before, they'd been duped into thinking they were heading into the game then and there.
It was just a hoax. The producers simply needed to capture some genuine reaction shots. The crew joke with each other about the trick, quite pleased with their deception; the actual psychological strain such a set-up would put on a human being seems to be of little concern. That is the nature of the game – the contestants are at the mercy of whatever curveballs are thrown their way, and that was nothing compared with what's to come.
It's clear from the get-go that this season of Survivor is going to be very, very tough. Observing the shoot with us is season one winner Avi Duckor-Jones, and though he battled the elements in Nicaragua in 2016, he agrees.
"[Khao Laem] is really harsh," he says later. "There's this kind of stagnancy to the whole place that we didn't experience because we had ocean breezes and storms rolling through. There was no respite from that heat, it was just there and inescapable – like omnipresent."
The dry, arid landscape of Khao Laem National Park in Thailand. Photo / Scott McAulay
Series producer Tim Lawry can back that up. "We placed them there during the dry season, so [it's] extremely, extremely hot," he says. "I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, it's a much more difficult environment to survive than our location in Nicaragua," he says.
Back on the island, host Matt Chisholm is about to yell "go". The contestants are poised. They've been waiting for this for weeks, months.
Host Matt Chisholm on the set of Survivor New Zealand season two. Photo / Scott McAulay
They begin. They move at furious speeds, untying, running and swimming for their lives. The crew hangs back and lets the challenge unfold in real time, though eventually, someone yells "cut" – that's executive producer Greg Heathcote. The contestants, adrenalin pulsing through their veins, are asked to pause. The crew needs a close-up of someone's hands here, someone diving there.
The contestants wait patiently as producers assure them there's not normally this much stopping and starting – shooting this complex challenge, in particular, requires it. But that's the limit of the crew's communication with the contestants. There are no words of comfort, no cold water handy for when the cameras turn off. They're on their own.
Crew on the set of Survivor New Zealand season two. Photo / George Fenwick
About an hour of racing, swimming and puzzle-playing later, the challenge is over. The contestants are arranged into their tribes (a moment which, without spoiling the episode, provides the game's first bombshell twist), and Chisholm sends them on their way.
An hour later, I find myself dripping wet, covered in muck from the lake. My chest is bursting with exhaustion, blood pumping in my veins. Turns out shoots don't end with the contestants – a "Dream Team" is needed to capture expository footage of the challenge for the viewers' benefit. Normally, members of the crew step up; today, it's the media's turn.
It's a lot harder to untie knots when your hands are sweating. It's also a lot harder to swim for your life when it's in freshwater and you're lugging a sack over your shoulder. It's hard to even think straight when it's 40 degrees and you're starting to feel faint. Doing such back-breaking challenges in this heat, for weeks on end, without proper food, is something I can't fathom. Moments before, I'd seen 18 individuals make it look easy.
The 'Dream Team' emerge from the lake. Photo / Scott McAulay
Survivor isn't as hard as it looks; it's twice as hard. Out in the bush, there's no toilet, no food, no shelter nearby – just dry, impenetrable jungle, a vast, murky lake, and the unforgiving heat. The only reminder of the outside world is the faint sound of local fishing boats passing in the distance.
The stakes are higher than ever this season, and as Lawry tells me weeks later, what we observed was just the tip of the iceberg.
"The contestants are so much more cut-throat than they were last year, and the game is taken to a new level this season in terms of blindsides," he says. "It's also a lot more physically demanding; the challenges are rougher, they're tougher, and people get hurt."
That ruthless gameplay is exactly what Lawry wanted. The castaways – who weren't even allowed luxury items this season – were carefully chosen for that reason. "Last season the feedback we got was… less talk, more action," he says. "We wanted to actively seek out contestants that wanted to play the social game more. We wanted more blindsides, and we got more than we ever expected."
This season of Survivor New Zealand has massively raised the stakes. Photo / Scott McAulay
Heading home from the shoot, I'm relieved to return to my air-conditioned hotel room and fall into bed. I have the promise of a full meal that night; the 18 people I just watched on the island won't eat properly for weeks. I'm almost uncomfortable with the comfort around me, and as the sun sets over this quiet corner of Thailand, I think of the contestants out in the darkening jungle.
"You have no idea what it's like to live separated from loved ones for that period of time," says Lawry. "Psychologically that's really demanding. I think there's this general perception in the public that it's easy for them, and it's not. It's really hard. It's the world's toughest game."
LOWDOWN: What: Survivor New Zealand season two When: Premiering Sunday, April 22 at 7pm Where: TVNZ2
