Aussie SurvivalInstructors

Kev Newton has run Aussie Survival Instructors on the NSW Central Coast, near Wyong, since 2012, teaching from a base in Central Coast State Forest an hour north of Sydney. He has more than thirty years of outdoor experience, including two years living in the Italian Alps in the early 1990s learning trapping, hunting and foraging, and has privately taught members of the Australian Special Forces in survival and primitive skills. The course list runs from a one-day Stay Alive course covering shelter, fire without matches, water finding and navigation, up through a four-day Comprehensive Survival Course teaching Aboriginal shelter methods, food procurement and primitive fire-lighting. Standalone days cover Bush Foods & Medicines, flint knapping, longbow and selfbow making, and primitive blacksmithing, forging field knives and tools by hand. Multi-day courses run as overnight camp-outs rather than day trips in and out. Newton's own media history includes filming with Conan O'Brien in 2019, appearances on Italian network Marco Polo the same year, and a 2019 collaboration with fellow bushcraft figure Les Hiddins — but the courses themselves stay centred on his own instruction, backed by an instructional team that includes ex-ADF personnel.