Everything You Need to Know About Where Australian Survivor Is Filmed

Ever since the first look trailer for Australian Survivor: Brains Vs. Brawn dropped last night, we’ve been dying to know everything about where this season was filmed.

Earlier this year, it was announced that due to COVID, the show wouldn’t return to the beautiful, tropical paradise of Fiji, and instead, would be shot in our own backyard: Queensland.

True Survivor-heads will know that this isn’t the first (or even second!) time Australia has been the setting for the reality series.

Way back in 2000, the US version of the series filmed its second season in “The Australian Outback”, aka Goshen Station, which is on the bank of the Herbert River in northern Queensland.

Out of the 40 (!) seasons of Survivor, the Australian season is a pretty memorable one. You might remember it being the one where Michael Skupin fell in a fire or the one that put former View co-host Elisabeth Hasselback on the map (before her infamous fight with Rosie O’Donnell!).

In terms of gameplay, you’ll probably remember Tina Wesson, Colby Donaldson, Jerri Manthey–the original black widow, and of course, Amber Mariano (née Brkich), who went on to marry one of Survivor‘s most popular and notorious players, Boston Rob Mariano, after they fell in love while filming All Stars.

The next time Australia was used as a Survivor filming location was 2001, when Channel 9 filmed the very first season of Australian Survivor on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It was also Channel 9’s only season of Australian Survivor, unless you count the 2006 attempt at Celebrity Survivor, which we personally do not.

So what’s the deal with this season of Australian Survivor: Brains Vs Brawn in 2021?

Well, this season was filmed in Cloncurry, Queensland, which is about a nine-and-a-half hour drive from where Survivor: The Australian Outback was filmed.

A very remote town in north-west Queensland, Cloncurry is 770 kilometres west of the city of Townsville and had a population of just 2,719 at the time of the 2016 census.

It might be small, but it’s also a very friendly town, according to the environmental movement Keep Queensland Beautiful, which crowned Cloncurry Queensland’s Friendliest Town twice, in 2013 and 2018! It’s a shame our players would’ve been too busy backstabbing each other at Tribal Councils to enjoy the hospitality.

Despite being situated about four million kilometres away from any beaches, the town does lie adjacent to the Cloncurry River, which probably explains why all the water challenges shown in the trailer don’t have the crystal clear waters we’ve come to expect from Survivor!

As for the climate that our players will be up against, the show has mostly been filming through autumn, so the days have all been a minimum of 31 degrees or above, and when you consider Queensland’s humidity and the fact that they’d be doing challenges in the blazing sun? Yikes!

Finally, here’s a fun fact: Politician Bob Katter–of “let there be a thousand blossoms bloom!” fame–was born in Cloncurry in 1945.

Australian Survivor: Brains Vs Brawn will premiere on Network 10 and 10Play soon.