NARRATOR: I'm losing daylight.

This is an expanse of grassland and it

has what I need for a shelter.

And all this grass that I'm going to cut down,

I'm going to either turn into my bed or use for my roof.

Hits the rainy season which means,

you better count on it raining.

No.

Wait.

Oh, my gosh.

I cannot believe this.

While I was chopping I chopped up a clump of grass

and under the dirt clod, I just saw this little bit of color.

I would have never thought in my entire life

I would see one of these in real life.

This is a blind worm snake.

It has a little flickering tongue

as it's a digging machine.

It uses this its nose which is one big large hard scale.

And it uses it like a shovel or a wedge

and it's able to dig through the ground and look for its prey.

NARRATOR: It's a seven-striped blind snake,

a truly bizarre species.

It spends its life deep underground.

So sightings are incredibly rare.

When you're out here, you're up to your knees in mud.

You have funguses and parasites and all

the wounds that get infected.

The rain.

If you don't love these little things like this along the way,

this place would destroy you.

NARRATOR: Here just a few 100 miles from the equator,

the light goes out like a switch.

I've got to get back to my shelter.

[music playing]