I'm so busy I haven't really had an opportunity
to feel homesick.
Well, I'm gonna call that a day on the shelter experiment.
Now it's just me and my thoughts and feelings.
Our fishing sucks.
There's no more catfish in here.
I'm desperate to find something to eat.
I'm losing strength.
I'm losing muscle, weight, you name it.
I'm pushing my limit.
But we're not done yet. Can't give up.
It's going across the top peak.
I feel like I've got everything else dialled in.
The critical piece is the protein.
That's the missing link.
There's one kudu leaving,
just over the other side of the clearing.
I've been hamstrung.
They're gonna come right in front of me, I think.
I think I've got a shot here. I'm gonna take a shot.
.
That was...
super disappointing.
Dang, man, it's tough to get close to them.
I think that's blown my chances today,
to be honest.
, man, I tell ya.
It's tough.
I'm just feeling so [bleep] frustrated
because it's so close but so far away,
in terms of actually getting a successful shot.
It is what it is.
I'm heading back.
I'm really at a pivotal point right now.
acacia.
Even the plants don't want me to eat meat,
it feels like.
The physicality of this is getting beyond me
because I don't have enough protein.
Starting to feel myself getting really tired.
Eating plants for this long,
it's starting to be that my body doesn't want that.
Like, I feel like my body's rejecting it.
I'm so close.
Oh, my God.
But I think what's driving me forward, at this point,
is the possibility of success.
Whew, I'm back.
Kudu, nyala...
But nothing to eat but plants.
Cruel twist of fate.
And I feel like that's what this has been for me,
a big, fat death quest.
It's not death so much as commitment.
It's actually more a commitment quest.
They call it the death quest, but it's actually about
what are you committing to so fiercely in life
that it's actually taking away your energy
to your life purpose?
And I feel like that's what this has been for me.
It's this real sense of what I need
to stop putting so much energy into
and freeing myself up to create something
really different moving forward.
Oh.
So maybe I don't need
to kill a greater kudu male
with fabulous horns to
get that life lesson.
So last night, I roasted
these Buffalo thorn fruits
to make my first cup of coffee.
I'm really looking forward to sitting with this
this morning and thinking about Erica
and our time together.
My brain is always focused on something.
I lock on to one thing at a time.
And that's been pointed out to me,
that I'm not as available
because rarely am I doing nothing in my head.
Smells really good.
And one of the things that I've been loving
about that morning practice with my wife, Erica,
I'll say, what are you thinking about?
And she'll say, nothing.
And I'm like, that's impossible.
How could you be thinking about nothing?
You're just thinking about something
you don't wanna tell me about.
That's what I first thought.
And then later, I came to trust it.
She actually is thinking about nothing.
All right, we're gonna call that good.
And so I've been experimenting with that
and trying to just fall into that place
of not thinking about anything.
And it's been, I think, a healthy thing for my brain.
I'm starting to feel more present.
I'm gonna make this coffee cowboy-style,
where you just, uh,
boil the grounds right in the pot.
In the meantime, I plan to work on the interior of the shelter.
So we can feel like home.
I decided on a floor plan in the shelter.
I'm gonna have a bed that's the full 10-foot length.
That'll give me some room to have a place
to put my stuff at my head and at my feet,
and can sleep in the middle.
I've got all of this leftover stone and sand
just kind of cluttering up the outside of my shelter,
all this building material that I'm gonna use
to fill the bed.
So rather than hauling it off to clean up the yard,
I'm just gonna make a bed out of it.
Sun peeked out. That means it's coffee time.
That's some black coffee. I'd say that was a dark roast.
Good morning, Erica. I miss you.
I feel like I'm settling into a new phase here
where I'm having more time to contemplate things.
I do miss my kids, and I miss Erica.
I have waves of deep missing.
The distance is great
and the time is getting greater.
But I'm enjoying being in this place
and wanna stay.
But I need to figure out how to get more calories.
I had a dream last night about buying steak--
ah, hilarious, buying steak to go fishing.
That's what I need right now.
God, if I had steak or hot dog or bacon,
I'm sure I'd be doing great.
I think I might go for a little walk.
I'm really feeling the cold today.
I think it's because I've lost so much weight.
Oh, I'm feeling tired.
I'm sick of eating greens and things like that.
Even the African cabbage does not taste good anymore.
It's like my body's going, look,
this is all great but I don't wanna keep doing this.
Things need to change,
and I need to work out what the right thing is to do.
Country, what have you done to me?
You took me down a notch, that's for sure.
Any time you do something this extreme,
you're gonna find new parts of yourself.
And I'm really starting to feel a sense
of my own personal story
starting to come forward more clearly,
and what it is that I need
to see about myself.
Goodness.
I think I'm just gonna sit and contemplate things.
I have this sort of seeking part of me
that always wants to know what's really possible.
What's really the edge?
And typically, what I do in life is,
I commit to the full.
But all of a sudden,
I'm realising that, over the years,
I will commit to friendships, relationships,
sometimes even business collaborations,
even when there's lots of signs that it's not working.
I feel like I'm stuck in this,
and I have to make it work somehow.
I need to just...
just do what's right for me.
And that's true for everybody, I think.
You've gotta honour what's right for you.
And now what I'm really feeling
is that it's not healthy.
And I need to let go of the expectations,
in all aspects,
because this is an opportunity
to rewrite that code for myself.
I had to come all the way to South Africa
to really let go
of what was old in my life
and--and move ahead.
It's crazy.
Hey, it's Katie.
I'm just calling to officially tap out.
I just feel like the country--
I guess it just feels like it's besting me at this point.
And I have to just be realistic and not hurt myself.
I think the biggest thing is letting go
of parts of my life.
I think that's been the biggest--
like, being prepared to let go
and starting a new chapter
in my life.
I feel like I've found confidence
and personal power.
Life is always working with you and for you,
whether you know it or not
and whether you like it or not.
And it feels like this has been
a beautiful example of that.
It's definitely not rolled through the way I expected,
but I fully trust that
what's actually happening is what's meant to be.
I've enjoyed being here on my own.
It's like a piercing insight
into what you're really carrying.
I think this is very much what this experience
has been for me,
a quest for my real truth,
and a humbling in that at the same time.
It's been very, very powerful.
I'll always carry the energy of this in my heart.
Maybe this stoic,
kind of rock energy is coming home with me.
So just thanking the land, really, for that.
Very cold morning.
Check this out.
Nice and icy.
It's freezing every night.
And every day I wake up, there's frost everywhere.
My feet get cold, but I have the layers I put on.
There's not much more I can do.
I'm just getting, you know, skinnier, and I just--
my circulation is worse.
But I'm handling it.
Tough it out or go home.
And I'm gonna tough it out.
We're gonna go for a walk, see how we feel,
see how our legs do.
Let's do this. What's the worst-case scenario?
Pass out and they come get me.
That's--that is worst-case scenario, yes.
Okay, go for a walk.
Here we go.
Make sure I don't fall down there.
We're walking to our lookout rock.
I've eaten all my jerky.
I'm officially out of food.
I really wanna get in that sun and get warm.
I've had my catfish lines out every single day,
with nothing.
And I've changed the bait out multiple times.
I'm going to start losing weight very fast,
but I'm not that skinny yet.
We'll keep on fishing.
We'll keep trying until we can't.
There's two deer up here.
I haven't seen them yet, that species.
There's one, and there's two.
I think those are bushbucks.
Very cool, I like them. I like the stripes on them.
I like the stripes on their coat.
In my rescue, I see and help animals every single day.
But out here, I see wildlife
that I don't get to see back home.
It just makes me happy and excited.
There's another one.
They just uplift me.
These animals are a part of my journey.
So very cool.
I'm gonna keep on going.
That sun already feels good.
It's so hard to be out here
and not fantasise about winning,
to use that money to help improve animals' lives.
If we win, Brady and I could get more animals in.
I think an ideal partnership is respect and support.
Brady and I have that, for sure.
He's my rock.
I need to stick it out for the rescue.
We made it.
It took a lot of energy to get up here today.
I hear baboons.
This is where I clear my mind.
This is where I get mentally strong.
I need this
to stay in the game.
I feel like it's coming down to the mental game.
And I'm digging deep every day.
I'm finding grit I didn't know I had.
I'm not sure where it's coming from.
But once I get to the rock,
the universe is like, you're okay now.
There's a whole bunch of them.
You have to be mentally strong to stay out here.
There's a lot of people with jobs they gotta get back to,
families, children.
Eventually, that pulls on them,
and then they wanna go home.
I don't have to be home for anything,
so I tell myself to suck it up.
This is my adventure, and I can do it as long as I want.
And Brady knows that about me.
When I leave here, it's gonna be--
absolutely could not have made it another hour.
And it could be mental.
You know, my mental game could decrease in the next few days.
Hopefully not.
But you don't know.
You don't know what's gonna happen.
This is "Alone." Haven't you seen it?
Anything can happen.
Nothing on that one.
Damn it.
I haven't had any more luck on fishing,
so I'm officially out of food.
Expected to be doing better,
especially after coming in and easily catching fish.
There's still a little bit of breaching going on out there.
Sure wish I could catch one of them.
If I cast out, I'm gonna hit a snag.
And I'd end up having to swim for the hook.
It's just a lot of energy to get up out of this.
And I just can't keep burning calories.
One of the downsides to building a shelter...
I put thousands of calories into this shelter.
I hauled so many loads of rock,
and gotta balance that out with food.
I need food coming in.
And fish seems like the best option,
but it's just not happening.
I feel the stress.
If you don't eat, you get a little bit lightheaded
when you stand up, that kind of stuff.
So I'm gonna harvest prickly pear today.
I don't think I'll get a lot of calories out of it,
but it's just good for the gut biome
and all that, I'm sure.
I'm ready to get back to hunting.
Problem with that is, the big game are up on top,
and that's a very big calorie expenditure
to get up there.
All right, well, that ought to do.
I'll go burn all these thorns off
and then have a little meal.
I really think that if I climb up on top
and I'm not successful, I will burn through calories
too fast and I will not last.
So I've gotta stay close to home here
and just hope that I can find the calories
sooner than later.
Prickly pear kebab here.
We're gonna roast them for a bit and then boil it up.
Erica and I have ten children between us.
Each day, I've been picking a different child
and thinking about them.
And today is Isaiah.
I think about you all the time.
I hope you're having a great summer,
and I can't wait to get home and hear about it.
Isaiah is my little world traveler, you know.
He's been all over the place.
He was the last one to be with his brother
before his brother passed.
They were traveling in Vietnam.
And Isaiah came home, and Porter stayed.
Isaiah was closest in age to Porter, and they were buddies.
They did everything together
and were really bonded as brothers.
And Porter looked out for Isaiah.
Porter's death, it was very, very difficult for all of us,
but I think especially for Isaiah.
I think that's good.
Now I'm just gonna boil them into a mush.
And as Porter,
you know, eventually struggled with his use of substances,
those roles changed.
Isaiah significantly became
the caregiver to Porter.
And I really admire him for that.
In a big family structure, that's pretty important.
The older siblings especially
tend to fill some of those roles to supplement the fact
that the parents can't be with every child
all the time.
When I was considering coming on "Alone,"
it was one of the hardest things for me to consider,
was being away.
So Isaiah really allowed me to be able to
come and have this experience.
Yep, just like I remember it. Not great.
I just wanna make sure I don't get too depleted.
I'm gonna spend some time on catfish again tonight.
See what happens.
Pretty tired. It's been a long day.
It started really early, fishing.
It's just not happening.
So I'm just gonna drink some coffee and think about it.
How strong of a mind do you need to have to win this game?
I don't know the answer to that question.
Maybe it's less about strength
and more about your personality,
the way you're wired.
I was thinking about my mom.
When I was young, the cows got out, and...
My dad sent...
my two older brothers and I to get them.
So we were hiking along, and I couldn't keep up.
And I got so tired that I thought,
man, I just can't make it.
And I just laid down on the ground,
and I was just looking at the sky.
I was cold, tired,
and I thought I might die.
And I fell asleep.
And I woke up to my mom,
her hand on my shoulder.
I was like, oh, man, she's gonna rescue me.
She's here for me.
I'm saved.
That's not what happened.
She said, Nathan,
you're supposed to be getting the cows.
Why are you laying here on the ground?
You need to get up and go join your brothers
and bring those cows home.
So...
I got up, and I started walking again.
After a little bit, I met my brothers.
They were coming back with the cows,
and I brought the cows home.
I remember feeling like, wow, I did it.
And my mom could have said, oh, you poor thing, you know,
let me take you home and make you some hot chocolate.
She could have been that kind of mom, right?
She wasn't.
She said, you know, get up and finish the job.
It's experiencing those hard things
makes us into the people that we are.
And if my mom had just rescued me,
I wouldn't be the person I am.
And that's...
That's what my mom taught us.
You're the best, Mom.
I love you so much.
My family's tradition around wilderness survival
came from my mother and my father and their life's work.
I got two poles set up here.
I'll just wait and see if we get any action.
It's so much a part of our family culture
that I feel a responsibility
to represent well.
So far, I have not been successful
in solving the puzzle of calories.
I have noticed that I've lost quite a bit of weight.
I feel the lack of energy
and lack of cognitive ability.
This is a difficult thing to figure out right now.
My game plan is to just keep trying, not give up.
Oh, my gosh.
.
Oh, yeah, a big--
Wow.
Oh, a big ol' dandy.
Wow.
Wow, that's really exciting.
It feels so good.
This long dry spell of not catching more fish
has been broken.
Well, I'm not gonna carry this and all this stuff back
at the same time, so I'll make two trips.
Whoa.
It's incredible to know that my need for food
is gonna be satisfied now for several days.
The best day yet.
I'm really grateful for it.
So I'm just trying to, like, walk a little.
Circulation.
It's going pretty slow.
Man, I'm exhausted.
I can't go much farther.
I'm pooped.
I'm not doing well.
My heart, my breathing makes me a little concerned.
I feel like-- I feel like there's a heavy...
weight on my chest all the time.
And, like, literally every couple minutes, I have to--
Deep breath because I feel like
I'm not getting enough oxygen.
It could be from low blood pressure,
dehydration, malnutrition,
all of the above.
I have no energy for anything right now.
We're gonna get up.
I just wanna be in the sun.
I'm very winded all the time.
My legs are Jell-O.
I get lightheaded when I stand up.
Add all those together, and I just don't know
if I can even hike anymore.
As you see, everything I do exhausts me.
So it's not like we could do a whole lot.
I'm a licensed vet tech, and I tell clients--
they always have the question, when do I put my animals down?
How do you know?
I say,
mark on a calendar when the bad days
outnumber the good.
And a lot of people bring their animals in,
carrying them because they can't walk, they can't eat.
They're suffering. They're in pain.
And that's their decision. That's fine.
In my opinion,
don't let them get to that point.
Why let them go out in pain and suffering?
Let them go out on a day that they can walk on their own.
We love them so much that we hang on till the very end.
We have to be strong enough, I feel, to...
Realise that they need--
they might need to go before that.
It's getting hard.
I wanna walk out of here on my own,
and I'm almost to the point where I can't do that.
Man, it hurts.
I don't want the safety team to come in
and have to scoop me up with a shovel and take me out.
I don't need to prove anything to anybody else.
I don't need to prove anything to myself anymore.
I'm just tired of fighting with myself.
I wanna go out with my boots on.
I wanna go out kicking, go out on a good day.
This is Kelsey.
I'm officially tapping out.
I'm exhausted. I can barely stand.
When I walk, it feels like
there's a cinder block on my chest.
So I know I'm just getting weaker.
And I hate to use that W word, but I'm--
I'm there.
But I'm proud. I'm proud of what I did.
You know, I've never gone a day in my life without food.
And I've done a lot of days without food,
you know, and did a lot.
I just wanna go out on a good day,
and that I'm not leaving because I hate it.
I'm just leaving because this journey needs to end,
and another one needs to begin.
Yeah.
I came in as the underdog,
with people doubting me,
with me even doubting some of my skills.
I've accomplished things that I didn't know
that I could accomplish.
But it was a lot harder than I thought, mentally.
I had so many meltdowns,
but then I pep talked my way back up.
The animals really helped me.
And I know that's weird to say that,
but, man, they built me up.
This experience will help me with the rescue
because if the animals
were being malnourished and starved,
if they were dumped on the side of the road,
cold and wet and hungry, I can truly
make them comfortable because I've been through it
here in South Africa.
I feel like I represented women very well,
being the first woman to shoot a big game animal
and having the grit to endure storms,
rains, many flash floods and not giving up
until your body physically can't go anymore.
And I do feel like I've let women know that you absolutely
can go out all by yourself.
You absolutely can do that.
You just have to go and do it.
My journey here has ended, but my story
has just begun being written.
Now nobody can call me an underdog ever again.
I am a force to be reckoned with.
My daughter, Eliza, before I came out, she said, Dad,
you just have to do one thing for me.
And I said, why?
She didn't give me an explanation.
She just said, it'll be meaningful to me.
Just do it.
And that's write "No Regrets."
And you have to spell it like this.
And she showed me.
So I decided to name the shelter
Fort No Regrets--
"Regrats."
And because that's meaningful to you, Eliza,
it's meaningful to me.
I like it.
I'm gonna drink some coffee.
I know it's been a month, but the time has just flown.
I'm sure part of that was just because I was so busy trying
to solve the puzzle here.
And I'm looking forward to slowing down a little bit more
and just enjoying the pleasure of being
in this beautiful place.
I'm gonna get that catfish head cooking in here.
And that's all I have planned at the moment.
The crew is coming by to do a med check.
I just saw the team pull up in a boat.
No.
The weather's been fantastic--
a little windy at times,
which is great for drying out meat, so.
No, I still need to build a door.
But honestly, I call it a fort because
I feel like a kid again out here.
I feel like I'm just out here playing and having a good time.
It's an amazing opportunity.
And the reason I can do that is that my kids support it.
I feel like a kid again out here.
I feel like I'm just out here playing and having a good time.
It's an amazing opportunity.
And the reason I can do that is that my kids support it.
And--
What about your kids?
Oh, my God.
What in the world?
Isaiah.
You won.
I love you, man.
I love you too.
Wow, look at you. You're right here.
- Yeah, you look terrible. - Holy smokes.
Oh, my God.
Oh, wow.
I love you, Dad.
And the world traveler--
Yeah.
And you're down here in South Africa now, huh?
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm so excited.
Oh, it's so good to see you.
Holy smokes.
- You gonna give me the tour? - I would love to.
Unbelievable.
"Fort No Regrats."
Holy crap, Dad.
Unbelievable, but totally believable at the same time.
It's not bad.
No, it's super comfortable.
- Wow. - Yeah.
Remember, Eliza asked me to write that somewhere?
I decided just to name the--
name the shelter that.
They're all doing great, by the way.
Everybody's good. - Oh, that's so good to hear.
I knew that was true. - Yeah.
You guys are amazing.
So yeah, let me show you.
I can't believe it.
I'm so excited.
And there's a sense of relief.
Well, do you wanna eat some catfish head?
- Yeah, let's do it. - All right.
I don't have to struggle anymore.
I set out to do this, and I did it.
I'm feeling all of these emotions at the same time.
It feels good.
Ta-da!
Let's go sit by the water.
It means so much to me to have Isaiah here.
I've thought so much about him while I've been out here.
I'm glad that he gets to be here and be a part of it.
Let's eat.
It's just a beautiful thing.
This is massive.
Look at the size of the mouth on that thing.
Wow.
And the head is just full of fat and muscle.
There's so much food in a single catfish head.
It's amazing.
- Give me a meaty piece. - Okay.
So yeah, the cheek meat is really good, so right in there.
Oh, wow.
- Yeah. - Cheers.
Yeah, let me get a piece too.
All right. Love you, son.
I love you too.
Mm.
It's not bad. I mean, it's--
It's so fun to hang out with my son,
just enjoy this spot.
When you really feel that closeness with your children,
there's nothing better than that in life.
Money is like the cherry on top
because I had some of the most fun of my life,
enjoying the opportunity to have this kind of
an adventure, to be challenged in this way,
to really have left behind all the cares of life,
all the responsibilities of being an adult
in our modern world, and to reset the clock,
behaving out here just like my 12-year-old self--
hiking, building a fort, trying to hunt,
trying to fish.
Having the opportunity to relive
those childhood experiences was deeply satisfying.
Not that it was easy, not that I didn't suffer,
but that's a big part of the reason I'm here.
The human experience includes suffering.
It's the other side of suffering that creates
the opportunity for joy.
You can't have one without the other.
And that is one of the best parts.
If you can have experiences that really test you,
you also get the opportunity to have
the joy and fun that follow.
One of my takeaways from this experience
is the deep joy in our life really
comes from the relationships we have with other people.
I think it's one of the biggest lessons of "Alone."
And the time I've had out here to reflect
on each of my children, on Erica, on my mom,
my love for them has just continued to deepen.
This is a theme that other "Alone" participants
just keep coming back to.
We're showing our children we have the courage to go for it.
And we want you to do the same thing in your life.
When you have an opportunity, seize that opportunity.
This is a chance in a lifetime.
Coming and having the courage to do this,
and then to be successful at it, it feels like momentum.
I have renewed energy to play the game of life
with more focus and intensity,
and take advantage of this amazing opportunity
that we get to be alive.
You did it.