It’s an iconic SA brand, with a unique pay-off line. Now it’s just about to become synonymous with the richest prize in local reality TV.

Bar One, produced by chocolate makers Nestlé, is to bankroll another reality TV series this year, with prizes well in excess of R1 million in cash, a Harley-Davidson motorbike and an overseas holiday, among a slew of other prizes.

The second search for the Bar One Man will once again follow a winner-take-all format, a blend of all modern TV’s globally successful reality shows – Survivor, Fear Factor and the Amazing Race – but with its roots in a combination of the quintessentially South African Camel Adventure series and the Castle pub tour.

It’s a reality show that grew out of an ad campaign that was spawned by a pay-off line. “The chocolate for a 25-hour day” became a tongue in cheek ad campaign with a man’s man doing heroic things with lashings of good humour and self deprecation. Now it’s a reality show.

The organisers are looking for someone who’s tough and determined, but not so macho that he won’t help his wife do the dishes after dinner, someone who’ll win with character, looking after the stragglers and not knifing his mates in the back on the way to the top.

Or in Nestlé confectionery manager Roman Tiefa’s words: “It will not only be about adventure, adrenalin, muscles and fitness, but integrity and friendship.”

The winner of the inaugural series, Clint de Beer, fits this description perfectly. So well in fact, he was hired almost immediately to start work on helping them do a second instalment of the series.

He was ready to give up as the team started summiting Kilimanjaro as one of their tasks.

“I said, ‘that’s it, I can’t do it, I can go any further’. I thought I was going to die. The other guys rallied around me and that was the turning point for me. Eleven of us attempted the summit, and we all made it. We said ‘no one’s being left behind’ and we did it.”

Most amateur climbers train for months before attempting to summit Africa’s highest peak, the team in the first search for the Bar One Man were given their boots the day before they left SA.

It wasn’t just the 11 who made it, executive producer Francois van Wyk and his 16-man team, and host Ursula Stapelfeldt Chikane made it up there too, along with a 600kg jib so they could film the ascent.

“You start at 11 at night,” De Beer remembers. “It’s minus 20 degrees Celsius and there’s frozen snow pelting you in the face… and it burns.”

And then there’s the altitude sickness, not to mention the galling sight of Kilimanjaro’s porters haring up and down the mountain carrying everyone’s kit, shod in flip flops or battered takkies, making the trip for the 600th or 700th time.

The challenges don’t just test physical toughness – they test fear of heights, from skydiving to jumping into your partner’s arms over the Victoria Falls. They also test organisational skills.

“We held a party on top of the SABC building during the last series, it was a great success – and the first and probably the last time anyone will be able to do it,” he laughs.

They had to cater the function, act as barmen, organise the entertainment and bus the tables for a group of celebrities who were then roped in to judge them at the end of the challenge.

There was also the camel racing in Dubai, sand surfing, scuba diving and the travel: UAE, Zambia, Tanzania and the Seychelles.

De Beer still can’t believe his luck.

“I was blessed to be selected and even more blessed to win.”

He puts it down to the fact that he was older than everyone else. “I was 34; they called me dad,” he says. “I was focussed; I knew that I wanted to win the R500 000 cash prize and all the rest of the prizes. I needed to win it.”

He didn’t drink either. The first night the contestants got seriously stuck into the hotel bar. Some only got to sleep at 3.30am the next morning.

Chikane laughs at the memory.

“They were woken at 4am. We put them in an army truck and drove away with them into the Karoo. What they had on at the time they were woken is what they had for the next 25 hours as they did their first task.”

Two contestants were eliminated right then on the first day. For the rest of them, the adventure of a lifetime lay ahead.

De Beer claims any averagely fit South African can do the challenge. It’s a myth. He’s supremely fit himself. He went up against professional rugby players and Iron Man triathletes and beat them.

He doesn’t remember it like that. “Those guys were better than me, they were monsters, but the show is designed for all rounders.”

When he says his wife calls the shots at home, you believe him, because he’s got the humility that comes with being supremely physically adept and able to handle yourself in any situation. It’s an awareness that sits lightly on his shoulders because he’s got nothing left to prove to anyone anymore.

It wasn’t always like that. De Beer grew up in Mondeor in the south of Joburg, traditionally a tough place where the kids learn to look after themselves and grow up fast in the process. The south has been a breeding ground for some of the country’s finest boxers, chief among them Brian Mitchell, but De Beer ventured into mixed martial arts after training in karate for 12 years as a kid.

Today he runs a corporate gifts company, serving mostly the banking sector, with his brother-in-law, but he’s also been heavily involved with the planning and execution of the second Bar One Manhunt.

Initially he was going to co-present with Chikane, then there was an idea that he might compete too, either trying todefend his title, or as a wildcard.

“We realised that wasn’t a runner, I would have a target on my back and the guys would try to vote me out the first chance they got, so it would be pointless.”

Now, the thinking is that he will be on hand as a mentor to the contestants and a judge on some of the challenges.

“We’re playing it by ear; the whole thing is shrouded in secrecy. We’ll see soon enough when shooting starts.”

The only thing that is out in the public eye was the call for applicants for this year’s edition that was issued on Tuesday.

It’s open to anyone between 18 and 40 with a valid passport and a driver’s licence. If they make selection, they’ve got to be prepared to go into an initial lockdown at Thabo Morula, the outdoor adventure camp between Brits and Rustenburg that will be their home base, for three and half weeks.

If they get that far, they’re looking at adventures across SA, Zanzibar, Nevada in the US and even the Great Wall of China.

Viewers can look forward to twice the value too, with the slot being doubled in time to almost an hour on SABC3 every Wednesday night between 8 and 9pm, with rebroadcasts on Saturdays between 5 and 6pm between May and June this year.

“It’s the experience of a lifetime.” - Independent on Saturday

Enter online at www.barone.co.za before February 17 and be prepared to travel to Durban, Joburg or Cape Town for auditions on February 23 (Gateway Theatre of Shopping – Durban), February 24 and 25 (Rosebank - Johannesburg) and February 26 (Waterfront - Cape Town).