In the middle of the outback lies the mining town of Kalgoorlie. Men have been drawn here for over 100 years; risking their lives blasting, tunnelling and shifting tonnes of rock in their pursuit of gold. The Super Pit in Kalgoorlie is the mother of all mines. At 1.5km (1 mile) wide, 360m (1180ft) deep, and 3.5km (2.2 miles) long, this mammoth open-cast pit is quarried 24 hours a day by teams of blasters and truckies. Australian goldminers endure 12 hour shifts, 40 degree heat, and show little respect for outsiders. To have any hope of becoming part of the crew, Ben will have to prove he can pull his weight, learn to handle a loaded 400 tonne haul truck, and then match his workmates drink for drink in the 'skimpy (topless) bars' in town.
Logging in Northern Canada is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. Nearly every part of the logging process can prove fatal and in 2006, 44 workers were killed on the job. The trees are sometimes hundreds of feet tall, hundreds of years old, and so riddled with imperfections that even an experienced tree faller cannot 'read' the way they will fall. Meanwhile, the long-lines used to pull huge logs out of the forest can break and snag, injuring the buckies who work them, and the loaders. The locations can be so remote it can be hundreds of miles to the nearest hospital. Ben discovers that to control their world these loggers enforce a strict hierarchy. The buckies who work the long-lines are kept separate from the men who take down the trees. These fallers take years to train, and the best are spoken of with an almost mystic reverence by his team beneath them. And little wonder, if the faller gets it wrong, his whole team could die.
The vaqueros are the barefoot Amerindian cowboys whose toughness and riding skills have earned them near-mythical status. Back in the Wild West, it was men from these ancient tribes who taught the American cowboy everything he needed to know. Ben will join a team of vaqueros at Dadanawa. Across 2,000 sq miles (5,180 sq km) of savannah, their job is to protect a herd of 7,000 cattle from the jaguars and pumas that endanger them. Ben will start out as a humble ranch-hand but he will soon be thrown in at the deep end: the 'round-up'. When spring comes, the vaqueros head out into the wild country, miles from the ranch. Every head of cattle must be hunted and chased, lassoed, and driven as a herd into the nearest corral; then they must be branded, tattooed or castrated. Only a handful of white men have ever had the privilege of riding alongside the vaqueros of Dadanawa. With days in the saddle and nights under the stars, Ben will have to earn their respect, as well as his spurs.
They call themselves Tunnel Miners; if there is a big hole to be dug anywhere in the USA they will be running it. Their latest project is in San Diego, mining a huge new pipeline through the desert. This 18km (11 miles) long, 2.7m (8.8ft) wide and 183m (600ft) deep pipeline will provide an essential supply of water if an earthquake strikes. The work is so dangerous that it attracts only the toughest tunnellers from around the country. Their unspoken code is 'a man a mile' - a daunting formula which means that roughly one man dies for each mile of tunnel constructed. To understand the tunnellers world, Ben will start out as a 'grunt' in the piss ditch, a swamp of water and urine left at the bottom of the tunnel. Then he'll work in the bowels of the massive tunnel boring machines which drill through the ground, and he will hope to graduate to blasting with dynamite. Becoming accepted will not be easy in this fiercely competitive world where 'new blood' is treated with contempt.
The jungle rangers of Virunga National Park have one of the toughest assignments in the whole of Africa. In the mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo, they have made it their life's work to protect the region's endangered gorillas and hippos. They have had to contend with war, wide scale poaching, and pressure on the park’s borders from the local population. In the last 10 years more than 100 guards have been killed. Ben will join one of the Advance Forces, elite anti-poaching units formed to bring the most lawless parts of the park under control for the first time in 30 years. He will undergo specialist training, before joining the team responsible for hunting poachers. If he can earn the coveted green beret he will be able to join his crew as they enter rebel controlled territory and try and monitor the severely endangered mountain gorillas. If anyone slips up, the survival of the whole team is threatened. Despite years of coping with little or no salaries, basic equipment and uniforms, the rangers of Virunga have remained devoted to their work and fearless in the field. They will expect the same from Ben.
England's south-western tip is home to the last bastion of the nation's fishermen. Newlyn in Cornwall is England's largest fishing port and the boats that leave its shores face some of Europe's most extreme winter conditions. After a basic training course, Ben will join the five man crew of the Billy Rowney, a beam trawler which works in the treacherous Atlantic waters off the English coast. The crew have a reputation for being the toughest and hardest working out of all the Newlyn fleet. Ben will be expected to be on call for 24 hours - working as a deckhand and cook, before joining the rest of the crew in hauling and mending the nets, gutting and packing the fish, and finally manning the wheelhouse on the trip home. In an industry where colleagues get paid for their share of the catch, their livelihoods depend on each other. The only way for Ben to become accepted is for him to pull his weight - these boats cannot afford to carry 'passengers'.