This program is live captioned by Red Bee Media.
Good evening and welcome to the Alone Australia Season Two Reunion.
I'm Hamish Blake,
and I'm here tonight to see if I can survive a whole hour in a TV studio
with only minimal snacks.
(LAUGHS)
And I can only bring 10 essential people.
I thought on behalf of all of us that have loved the show
and have a lot of questions,
I would bring the participants from Alone Australia Season Two.
Tonight, we're going to be talking with them about their time
on the land and comparing their strategies.
And we've also got lots of never-before-seen footage
and some massive revelations.
They got 10 deer!
No, they didn't.
(LAUGHS)
Tonight, we're going to get the good stuff.
All trout, no eels.
(LAUGHS)
I am genuinely a superfan of Alone.
I'm thrilled to be here.
They have just watched the final episode.
They've just finished watching it together.
Tonight, we finally get the chance to compare their experiences.
I can't wait to hear what they think
and how they feel about the final result.
Speaking of the final result,
let's start with a massive round of applause.
Krzysztof, congratulations, mate.
(APPLAUSE)
Thanks.
Well, done.
Mate, it was probably the most unorthodox way to win.
What's it like watching it back?
Uh, definitely a unique experience.
I was not expecting it.
I thought I was gonna be medically pulled and that was it.
It was...weird, surreal.
It still hasn't sunk in.
From where I sat, I thought probably one of the standout features
of your experience was your positivity.
And your positive mindset.
And we do have a little bit of a, little bit of a clip to watch
for how that went throughout the series.
(SING-SONG)
Another beautiful day in paradise!
(SINGING TO THE TUNE OF 'I'M ON MY WAY' BY THE PROCLAIMERS)
# We're on our way to launch another boat and hopefully
# Catch lots of fish and lots of fish
Wow.
Anyone, if they ever get the chance come out here and check out
this unknown location.
It's stunningly beautiful.
Mmm-mmm-mmm!
Overall, life is good.
(SINGING)
# I'm making mountain so-oup
Nothing special, but it's better than nothing.
Who's the camera love?
The camera loves you!
There's snow on them mountains right there.
This place is just so cool, seriously!
This is Krzysztof and I am officially...
..ordering a pizza.
And you thought I was gonna tap.
Not happening.
Mate, was that your strategy going in?
To go, "I will always try and veer positively"?
I don't think that was a strategy.
I think that's just me.
Yeah, right.
The other thing that you talked about on the show
was your neurodiversity.
And it resonated with viewers.
Was it something that you're really glad you talked about?
Yeah, I was a little big afraid and a little bit apprehensive
about what the reaction would be.
But now that I've spoken about it, I feel really good.
The feedback that I've gotten from people
has just been nothing but support.
There's people that have reached out that are friends going,
"Yep, me too.
"I'm grateful that there's someone out there talking about it."
Yeah, it's been nice.
I think it's an awesome thing.
What is it that happens when you're out there by yourself for so long
that makes you want to face those things and want to open up
and then share them with the camera?
It is interesting in conversation because...
In the survival field they talk about you know,
the three minutes without air.
You know, the three hours without shelter.
Three days without water.
But they go into, obviously, three weeks without food and then they go
into three months without companionship.
And when you're out there alone for the period of time that some
of these guys spent there, you're looking to talk to somebody.
And you're looking to express the things that you really feel
like you need to talk about.
And you might sit there in silence for half an hour around a campfire,
and then something will come up.
And I think that's sort of what gets captured.
The fire can often bring out honesty and openness
that a person possibly can't.
Yeah.
When we're in real life, we've got yeah we've got things...
To distract us.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Beautiful.
Suzan, we can only have one winner.
What was your reaction when you, because you're only fresh off seeing
the exactly the placing.
You've just seen the episode.
What was your reaction?
it's pretty difficult,
because there's, you know, one day between.
I was really pleased to see Krzysztof...
..there at the end.
Yeah, yeah, that made me happy.
Thank you.
Mmm.
Um, it made me sort of second guess did I make the right decision
but then you know I've got to go back and remember that on minimal
exertion I'm getting this really big heavy heart rate and something
was just not right there.
And I really made the call
because my body was saying, "I need something.
because my body was saying, "I need something."
And it needed nutrition.
Yeah, we could tell, yeah.
Yeah, it really, it really played out because twelve hours
after I left I was in the emergency department.
Were you really?
Of a big hospital with a drip in my arm and my heart being monitored.
So, I made the right call.
You...
At the right time.
You obviously, yeah, you made...
Absolutely the right call.
And like so many people on the show, we saw you, your mind was so strong
going right up to that point where your bod was just like,
"Hey, I've been eating weeds for"...
"63 days.
"Could you please feed me?"
Exactly.
There was still one other person in contention
in that final episode.
Our Swedish model/mountain man/ hunter/provider/man mountain,
Andreas.
You mentioned in the last episode,
when, I remember on the beach they came to get you and said,
"Are you proud of yourself?"
And you're like, "Not yet."
Are you proud yet?
Not really, I think.
Really?
I think, I think, no I think if you're a If you're a competitive
person and you have a certain goal in mind and if you don't
fulfil that goal.
I think I did OK.
And, that, that's about it.
Like, I think there's things I could have done different, probably.
Um, a couple of things.
Interesting.
What would you do different? What are they?
Oh, just minor things, I think.
I think I would be - if I knew what I know now
I would probably be a bit more passive.
The only vegetable matter I really ate were the mamaku fronds...
Mm-hmm.
And that would be a good forty-five-minute walk to get them.
This is the hard thing I think for viewers to understand
because to understand how long an 1.5-hour round trip is every day,
that's an 1.5-hour episode - not a very exciting one.
But, that's the really diff - difficult thing for us to understand
at home just how much effort is being put into stuff.
Does anyone else feel like they spent too much energy,
I mean aside from deer which we'll get to later in the show.
But too much energy foraging for such a small return?
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yep.
Is that universal feel?
Even, even like for fire.
Like it's not just foraging for food.
But it could be foraging for wood, materials, bedding.
Yep The things you think you need.
And you just - and you get fixated on them as well.
And so, all of a sudden you've realised you've just spent three
days fluffing up your bed.
It's like - really?
But that makes you more comfortable and it puts
you in a good mindset.
It did but...
Or firewood, you've got three weeks of firewood ready to go but you've
just passed out asleep, you know?
It's like...
So, it seems like, I mean that, it's a game of constant trade-offs.
Mmm.
Like it sounds like minute to minute you're just always
evaluating the trade-off.
Would that be a fair thing to say?
Yep.
Absolutely.
I mean, Andreas like you know, it's so easy for us on the couch
to watch the episodes.
It's obviously so much different when you're out there and you're
just always making the best decision that you can in the moment.
You dragged in some big fish.
To borrow a term that you were very fond of, some stonkers.
Yeah.
Oh, look at that stonker!
Can you give us the dictionary definition of a stonker?
No idea.
I don't actually even know -
I don't actually know where I picked up the word.
It's a feeling.
It's a feeling!
And it was, it was, my first thought when I heard it was I can't remember
saying it and where, where did I pick up that word?
Um, I think it was quite fitting - like I like it, but...
Well, I mean, it, it's probably the raw emotion of catching a fish.
And there weren't that many fish caught in the series.
I mean Tamika you were another person like your sound effects
when you caught a fish.
I know!
It was like...
(GRUNTS)
(LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY)
You can't fake that stuff!
I know!
How did you feel watching it back?
But not really...
No.
I mean...
It's a feeling!
That was the most joyous moment out there!
Was that first fish.
It's, it's, you can't stop it.
Oh mate, we all felt it.
We were like -
this is the most primal noise a human has ever made!
Sheer relief and or it comes out as stonkers!
We all know like hindsight is twenty-twenty and it's,
I'm front and centre with this.
It's very easy to sit at home and go,
"Oh, what about this? What about that?".
"Oh, what about this? What about that?"
But is there any, are there any big ones where people would have done
something differently given their, given their chance again?
Not tap out?
Maybe not think too much about, because I found what I did was think
too much about all the things I couldn't do.
Interesting.
Like, you can't have eel.
You can't cut you know,
a tree that's this big or this small.
Yep.
Or take this.
You start to get caught up in that.
And then you kind of think, "Well, what can I do?"
It's interesting, it comes back to that positivity thing doesn't it?
Yeah, it does.
Of what, like - you're thinking of the, what can you do
or the things that are out of your control.
Yeah.
And I think yeah, I just kind of got really caught up in that.
Alright, in a similar vein if we sort of said,
"Alright, we've got the bus ready to go and you can all go back in
"tomorrow, hands up who'd go back in."
Same place?
Wow, OK, so we've got, we've got eight...
Yeses, one no and one conditional.
Conditional, yeah, definitely conditional.
So...
So, you're saying that you wouldn't want your location again?
What's the condition?
Absolutely not.
Had enough of that beach?
Yeah, never going to see it ever again.
Are you sure about that?
Yeah, 100%.
Ah, well look.
That was the sort of the people towards the very end.
From those final people to the very first to go on just night two,
in episode two, we had our first medical extraction.
And it was very scary to watch.
Mike, let's just remind everyone.
I'm sure you probably don't want to go through this again
but let's remind everyone how full-on
that night was for you.
(LABOURED BREATHING)
Are you there?
I've got these pains in my chest.
How are you going?
Man, I'm scared actually.
Yep, yeah I could tell on the phone.
So, I'll just check your blood pressure there.
In the, it would just come really intensely.
How old are you?
Sixty.
It would be a pretty scary experience.
You did the right thing, Mike, to call us.
MIKE: I've got three kids.
Yep.
I thought I was going to die.
I really thought I was going to die.
And it's not my time.
It's not my time to die.
Mike, you're laughing and crying watching it back.
Yeah.
It's still obviously very, very real and raw.
Have your kids seen that?
Ah, yeah, they have, yeah.
family saw that?
Well, they said they're so proud that I did the right thing.
Totally.
I did, I did do what I did on the night, yeah.
Yeah And we're so proud of you too.
You went and got checked out in hospital.
What was, what was the problem?
The problem was that I, like a lot of us here,
we'd sort of fattened up for Christmas.
(LAUGHS)
We'd tried to put a little bit more weight on prior to going out.
Well, fat mainly as a, as a source of food down the track.
And in that process, I put on 13 kilos.
And my metabolism reacted adversely.
Mmm.
And the pain I actually had was simply reflux.
Right.
Yeah.
But you'd obviously never had that before.
No, no.
Not like that and uh, and the sequence of events sort
of transpired over nearly two hours.
The pain came, it dissipated, it came back 45 minutes later.
I sat upright.
And on the third occasion, it became quite intense.
And that's when I started thinking,
"Wow, could this be something more?"
If this is a heart attack, I might not see my kids again.
The fourth time it happened,
it was so intense and I just shot bolt upright clenching my chest
and went, "No, I can't.
"I've got to ring up and say I'm having these terrible pains
"in my chest."
Mate, good on you.
You did the right thing.
You were out there with a sat phone and GPS for that exact reason.
Yeah.
It's interesting to see how far you can go.
But not at any cost and you know, well done.
Look everyone's Alone experience is really different as we're hearing
but something that is very important for every single person um no matter
how long or short their stay is, everyone is shelter.
how long or short their stay is, everyone's shelter.
We want to have a quick look here at all of this season's shelters.
I'll show you my building style.
Oh, you, you walk around and you, you pick up a bit of wood.
You look for a hole.
And you put it in.
So that's the first natural building course I'll be conducting.
Alright, some great shelters.
Rick, um, there was some online querying I think as to the...
(LAUGHS)
..the sturdiness of your shelter?
I believe there was someone who went so deep -
there were people going like, "Is this the most...
"..solid shelter we've ever seen here?"
But was that part of your plan?
It certainly was, to a fair degree.
There were probably three main reason I kept mine quite simplistic.
And one of them is definitely the light level.
Where my shelter was back in there, it was dark.
I'd have to put a headlamp on to get batteries for the camera,
whatever it was.
I couldn't find a sunnier position within proximity
so sunlight was a factor.
Yeah, right.
So, letting a lot of natural light in was important?
Absolutely. One I underestimated.
The lack of sunlight was something that hit pretty heavy.
The other one was being able to lie down if I was to hear
an animal, a deer or a possum moving around,
I would like to be able to just roll left and right
and see potentially what it was.
Yeah. That makes total sense.
I also, driftwood um, to, to make anything structural
around me, driftwood cove as I called it.
It was about four hundred metres away and there was a massive big log
that you would need to climb over to bring it back.
And I didn't want to waste that energy bringing it all the way back
so whilst I could have put a bit more around it,
it predominantly kept me pretty dry.
All in all, I wouldn't change it a great deal.
Tamika, on the other end of the spectrum
of not wanting to use too much driftwood,
you might have used all the driftwood in New Zealand.
I think I did.
It was, it was an absolute work of art.
..It was a work of art your shelter.
Someone tweeted, "Tamika shelter looks so good it could be put up
"for rent for at least $600 a week if it was in Sydney."
It probably would have, yeah.
Um, did you, did you get very attached to your home?
"Attached" is one word.
"Obsessed" might be another...
Yeah, right, so but...
It became a bit of a focus.
That's good.
It was kind of like my daily meditation.
"Oh, that bit of wood there. That will go home with me."
I, it was something to do
apart from being everything that a shelter should be.
I probably could have saved a bit of energy.
But that's interesting, though, that it became -
like everyone needed stuff to pass the time.
And that became yours.
That was mine.
That became your project.
Yeah.
Alright, this may not work but who,
who here if you couldn't have your shelter, who's
would you have chosen?
Alright, so Andreas, you can't have your shelter,
who's shelter are you picking?
In my location or a different location?
Ah, in your location.
Mmm, Krzysztof's.
He had a really good shelter.
I liked his insulation of the walls.
Is that a common answer?
I'm seeing a lot of nodding for Krzysztof's.
Tamika's is good, fireplace.
You, Jack, would go Tamika's?
Yeah, yeah.
Anyone else?
Any other options apart from Tamika and Krzysztof's?
I, I'd go...
I liked Rick's.
Rick's or Jack's, yeah.
Yeah, I like the minimal.
Well, I mean amazing shelters but there is so much more
to talk about.
We've got some incredible bushcraft stuff
that we want to get to.
Some of the stuff that didn't make it to the show, we'll discuss.
And I also really want to talk to you guys about the biggest foe.
It wasn't weather, it wasn't hunger.
Give everyone at home a little bit of a hint.
"Get off me!"
It's cryptic.
But we will talk about that next.
Welcome back to the Alone Australia Season Two Reunion.
Here in the genuine wild.
Now, no matter which version of Alone you do in the world,
it is a tough, tough competition.
But, whereas on the US version there's say like a one-in-1,000
chance a bear might bite you, for our participants in New Zealand
this year there was a one hundred percent chance that a thousand
sandflies would bite you per minute.
Everyone, look at the monitor I just want to see if this triggers you.
Does this...?
(LAUGHTER)
Does that take you back?
Even - even Rick's, Rick's got it going.
Ricks got it going.
Alright, we'll take it off.
We'll take it off.
Just because even, I'm getting annoyed by that and I wasn't there.
Imagine the worst time.
You've been attacked by mozzies and times it by like twenty.
That's what these sandflies are like.
They're just relentless.
(GROANS)
Learning to deal with them is an experience in itself.
Like they are ferocious, shitty, I think I hate them more
than I hate mosquitos.
Midges, these sandflies.
Oh, it's a challenge keeping it together.
I think they'd get even the most hardened Buddhist monk to crack.
Where did they come from?
What do they eat when I'm not here?
Ahh!
The god of the forest had a daughter -
she was the goddess of death.
And she sent the Namu Namu, the sandflies, to this land and this
lake to protect it from people.
Yeah, that was a pretty good job.
I think.
(SIGHS)
Oh, alright, I'm gonna try and show you the sandfly bites on me.
Ow.
I think I've got a couple of hundred bites on me now.
I've got them on my hands as well.
Nasty.
Even as you're doing that, you can see sandflies on the camera
and at home I'm watching going, "Don't, don't do it.
"Don't show us."
Like, "Don't take more clothes off."
And now, you run hot.
And so were sleeping with minimal clothing on.
Hot-blooded South American, so...
That's it.
Not the best thing to be around that many sandflies.
No, and some mornings I wake up and, um, yeah, they'd bit me
in some unmentionable places.
Do you still - like is there still scarring?
Either physical or mental?
No, no. No scarring.
And they only got me when I was making my bed.
Wow.
All those bites were from one moment?
Oh, not all of them, but the majority were, yeah,
because I was distracted.
I was focused on making my bed and they just,
because I wasn't moving around.
When you move around a lot then they're not on you.
Oh, cool so you just have to stay moving for a hundred days.
That's right.
I'm seeing a lot of nodding here, a lot of flashbacks.
Did anyone anticipate that something so tiny would have such
an outsized effect?
Um, no nothing prepared me for that.
I had a bit of a thing with sandflies.
My parents live in sandfly country so, the fireplace.
I literally was like I'm going to smoke these bastards out.
Good.
So, yeah.
It just shows though, it doesn't matter the size
of the enemy.
No.
They, they consume so much of our energy to, to make sure
that we didn't get put out by those things.
It was amazing to watch...
Yeah.
Because it was like no one could withstand the relentlessness.
..of the flies.
It didn't matter if you yelled at them, it didn't matter
if you were angry, it didn't matter if you were in smoke.
They just kept coming.
I was covered up all in my eyeballs and they just quite simply stung me
on my eyeballs.
(LAUGHTER)
So, the sandflies, big issue for everybody,
but for one of our participants there was an issue that would not
have occurred to most of the people here myself included until I saw it
play out, let's take a look.
I've been bleeding for almost thirty days and as a woman
in the bush, that's hardcore.
That has exhausted me.
There's been a lot of self-care.
That's every few hours.
(SIGHS)
Oh, my God.
I'm washing myself, I'm sore, I'm bloody you know it's just
so freaking annoying.
I had to do laundry out here for God's sake.
A little hard for us women out here at times.
You've just got to take that extra care.
Silly as that might look, you've gotta keep your health in check.
Oooh, it's chilly on the nether regions.
Ah, acceptance of the body and its limitations.
Sorry, my family. Sorry.
I think, ah, well it's so real and it was obviously so exhausting
for you out there.
Now seeing that footage that has not been seen before...
Oh, thank God.
Is that going to?
Yeah, this is on TV.
Woo!
Was there a part of you that remembers filming that and then
you saw the episode and you were like, "OK, great."
I'm like, "They'll cut that."
That didn't make it in...
"They'll cut that."
But it must have been exhausting.
What impact did it have physically and psychologically?
Both equal, I think.
I've come from warm climates as well.
So that um continued coverage in moist environments was tenfold
and so hence the drying because I...
Of course, there's no towels.
..I was sore.
Yeah.
You know and um, as a woman when you're bleeding out there,
yeah, OK, you expect it in life.
We've come to know what that feeling's like.
And you do it for maybe seven days, ten if you're hardcore and do it.
And you're, to go that long?
I was just hating it and hating myself and I'm like "What?"
And it took me a long time to just settle down and go,
"This is my journey and I can either tap out and whinge my whole life
"or I can just get on with it."
So, yeah - it was annoying, to be honest, yeah.
I know even from my household,
but also from the viewership at large,
people really, really connected with what you were going through.
Mmm.
You can see some of the tweets here.
One of the questions though was like -
what are the actual rules on, on...
Mmm.
..Items that you are allowed to take.
And I'm interested too.
What are the rules?
You can have a chat with the doctor before you go on the show
about what sort of methods you want to practise
while you're out there.
And I, too, received a lot of messages about -
why didn't I just go on the pill?
But I haven't been on the pill for like 30 years and I don't
want to change my body just for that purpose,
so I chose just to choose my natural patterns of pads or free bleeding.
But out there, it's cold, and when blood comes out,
it's really freaking cold.
So, it was pads.
And when I ran out of pads or I couldn't get up
through the night, I had a hanging in my shelter that was different
coarses, coarses of moss, so it was like grade one,
two and three for whatever I needed.
(LAUGHS)
So...
Wow.
And it was really soothing in comparison to the cotton pads.
Is that something you researched beforehand or you improvised it?
No, I founded that on Alone, I was like, because I was wiping
other areas I was like, "Well, that actually feels pretty nice."
My god.
I'll just whack that there as well.
Critical effort.
I just love that you talked about it.
Yeah And that you used the word blood rather than all the other...
It's an everyday thing and I think it just doesn't,
yeah it's just not normalised enough.
In our society so...
I agree with that too.
Yeah, agree with that.
Beautifully done Tamika.
Thank you mate.
Alright, it's time to talk about one of everyone's favourite things.
Bushcraft.
Right now, we're in for a treat.
There is a bunch of stuff that didn't make the episodes.
never-before-seen macgyver-level bushcraft. Please enjoy.
I've sort of set myself, sort of some goals of some things
that I was to achieve during the um, the course of the day.
They're really good little morale boosters.
I've got a concept of what I want to build.
Two posts coming in from the front and meeting at the back.
And then you have two coming up from the side meeting at the top.
And the back against there.
That's the plan.
I've started stripping some flax because I want to make
like a bulbous canister with a little lid for the fish
fillets once they're dry.
I'm just going to half a look if I can turn a reed into a bit
of a needle.
Oh, yeah.
And then I can just poke that through and we're away.
So, I'm a bit paranoid about spilling my soup in the fire
so I'm just going to make up a quick swivel for holding the pot.
Which will sit like this on a stick and then you can just sort of swing
it out and in over the fire.
There we go.
Woo.
What I want to do is tie this onto a hook and make a lure.
This is prickly stuff but it's really bendy now my hope is that
it's bendy and strong enough that I can make a perfect hoop.
And then I've got a perfect fish net shape.
Step one, step two, net making.
I'm whittling basically like a little - a little tool that
makes tying a net easier.
So, you basically use this.
You wind up all your thread and you use that as a needle
as you weave.
Tying a net if you've never tied a net.
It's a very simple sheet bend knot.
Once you get started, it's really simple.
It's just repetitive.
(SIGHS)
There you go.
You won't find that in the Ikea Christmas catalogue
I can tell you.
Duh-duh...!
There's the finished product.
I'm pretty happy with it.
And that should work.
I hope it works anyways, so let's test it.
Ooh, it's starting to look like a fishing net.
Actually, quite good.
Hopefully it will hold a fish.
So good.
So many awesome things built.
Well done, well done team.
Leanne, loved seeing you use the pompom as a fishing lure.
Was that the plan going in?
Were you like, "Oh, I could repurpose this pompom?"
The pompom, it kept getting caught on branches and things.
Whenever you go for a walk, my beanie would fall off
and I, like I love that beanie.
But I thought "That's gotta go, the pompoms gotta go".
It's your time, pompom, it's time...
And I can use it!
It's time for the greater good.
You know, if you can't get any worms or anything,
yeah just repurpose what you have.
Krzysztof, you made quite a lot of rope.
It was very impressive to watch.
Did you do anything with the rope though?
Did you?
Oh yeah, I think you can even see in some of the shots on my shelter
there's lashings that are done with all the rope that I was making.
Have you made any ropes since the show?
Have not had the opportunity as yet.
You can now buy rope.
Huzzah!
Well, speaking of ingenuity - Rick, can we talk boots?
Yes, let's talk boots.
OK, look, one of the big storylines from the series this year
was Rick's broken boots.
I think it's one of the things that I love so much about this show,
where you're like if someone said, "You'll be so deeply invested
"in like 10 minutes of watching a man
"essentially be a cobbler in the bush..."
I'd say, "I don't think that sounds
"like a TV show."
But on this it really is.
Like, why didn't you get new boots before the show?
Those boots like have done Kokoda's, they've done South Coast
track of Tassie.
But once they're so worn in ah, it's like I've got an option here.
I go and buy another pair of four-hundred-dollar boots
with not a lot of time to wear them in, or I get
them professionally resoled.
So, I'd been, I had that done six months before.
Yep Um, I'd certainly checked all the seams and beeswax into...
..them.
Double-checked before I left.
And I was one hundred percent confident that they would hold up.
Oh, there was no doubt, we could just clearly see
that it was just horrible luck.
That's right, yeah.
And did the hose, did the melted hose work?
It did surprisingly well.
Mixed in with the - with the charcoal.
Not necessarily waterproof but they held together
and they were comfortable to wear.
Well, Rick, we have something for you.
On behalf of everyone watching I'm going to do something that
I know a lot of people would have loved to have seen happen in situ.
Just using a bit of my bush skills here I'm going to forage.
Oh, my God - what's this?
Here you go!
Wish, wish we could have done it for you out there.
Thank you.
I know, yeah, that, that's awesome.
Super appreciative.
Alright, it's time for another break so in the spirit of Alone
and to honour the participants here,
see if you can go the entire ad break without eating anything,
Welcome back.
You're watching the Alone Australia Season Two reunion,
where we are finding out exactly what it was like
to be a participant on Alone.
It's time to talk about the one thing that nobody here
had any control over - it's the weather.
Let's see what our participants had to deal with.
Whatever the storm's got to do, bring it.
The wind is shaking everything around.
Oh, my God!
There you go - look at that!
It's raining ice.
I'm not sure if I was dreaming but I think there was
a little earth tremor.
It wasn't big but it was enough.
I felt almost um, almost a little bit seasick?
It's something like 150-200 earthquakes,
significant earthquakes, in New Zealand every year.
And the ground definitely shook, just before.
I just want this storm over.
Right, first things first.
Tamika and Suzan, you guys were talking about earthquakes.
Fun fact, we've talked to the seismologists.
While everyone was out there filming, there were 156 earthquakes
in the area.
All minor, but you guys did feel the ground shake.
There were two significant tremors and, and did anyone else feel
the ground shake while they were out there?
Yeah.
Chase, you could feel it?
And ah, there was a rock slide across from where I was.
I was, I was...
On the, I was by the lake.
And then across over on the other mountain it came down
and I was right in front of me I was like "Oh!".
and I was right in front of me I was like "Oh!"
Oh, that's yeah...
That's gotta be a difficult thing to watch when you're.
I mean you have the tarp to protect you but apart from that.
(LAUGHTER)
I mean, you knew it was going to be wet obviously.
Like, there, you know that the weather is going
to play a factor.
But, a show of hands, for who was it more of surprise
than even what you were expecting?
I didn't think it would be as, quite, I don't know.
In the early days it was quite humid some days?
Humid and cold?
I know that sounds weird, but I've never experienced that.
I think of humid and I think like Darwin and the Tropics.
So wet air, but freezing.
Like freezing, yeah.
I think it's the fact that just nothing will dry.
The idea of washing your clothes.
I can only imagine Tamika -
you were needing to wash more than most.
But it's like, I would prefer to have it probably dirty
and on than be washed and wet and not really being able to use it.
Yes.
So, the dampness was?
Yeah it just, it would still be as wet two three days later
in most cases.
I think I washed my undies once because of that and then put them
in my sleeping bag and they dried out over like five days
in my sleeping bag.
Five days?
Yeah.
Of body heat is what it took?
Yeah.
I think my sleeping bag was reserved for mosses and things
for tinder, but...
(LAUGHS)
Yeah it was full of tinder and stuff for keeping that dry.
Yeah, me too.
So, is that, and this just me, you know again as a city boy,
is that a trick? A common trick?
Yeah, absolutely.
Probably common for everybody.
I had a giant pillow...
A pillow of tinder that I just crammed full.
Every night, I made sure it was full and that was my pillow and my warmth
dried that for the fires to come.
Yes, so that's really.
That's the only heating you've got I suppose is just your body heat.
Mmm.
In your sleeping bag...
Um, Krzysztof, did the weather ever get you down?
Not really.
Like, I love the sound of rain on, on your roof.
It actually helps me sleep.
I prefer some sort of grey noise or something.
And there was a few times towards the end
where I was really struggling to sleep.
And I would have like a patch of rain,
like I feel like, "Thank god it's raining.
"I can actually get some sleep tonight."
Wow.
And then the rain would stop and I would wake up and say,
"OK, here we are again."
Wow. It's interesting.
It comes back to that idea of just, you know, you can turn what perhaps
what other people are not loving,
which is the rain, into something that you're enjoying.
Mmm.
And so, something that I think might have been tougher than you know
perhaps a few people were expecting
was just the sheer loneliness of being alone, missing home.
It was a big deal for everyone, but here is a little unseen moment
from Tamika that I think captures how everyone would have felt
at some point.
I miss the girls.
I miss girl.
I miss Bill.
I miss them, I love them.
But at the moment, I'm just jealous of them.
Imagine sitting by the shore, Having an evening fish,
drinking my Pina Colada.
No, I don't drink Pina Coladas.
Drinking a chai.
oh, my god!
There you go.
Ooh!
(TEARILY) Why would you cry over chai?
Oh, the ritual.
OK, so I miss my kids.
Bill doesn't drink chai but the girls do.
Oh, so it's not the chai I miss.
It's the connection you miss.
(QUIET LAUGH)
Tamika, that was actually on Day 3.
I know!
God help me!
You know, it's amazing that again you were dealing
with that obviously...
The whole time.
Yeah, just one little thing opens up to bigger realisations.
And you just think, "Oh, it's not the chai."
And then all of a sudden your mind go deeper and it just bubbles out.
Well, it does for me, so.
How often during the day is your mind being pulled back home?
Is it always a constant spectre that's there?
Food is.
Food.
Food is, food is the memory.
Food is overwhelming.
Pizza.
Mmm.
Cheesy sandwiches.
Vegemite.
I think just those insignificant little exchanges throughout
the day as well.
Like you mentioned getting a Chai and the ritual
or going for a cup of coffee.
You're not necessarily sitting down to chat
with someone but even...
..the cashier saying to you, "Morning, what can I get for you?"
That simple human interaction that you get - you really -
I really notice those, anyway.
Leanne, you know, missing home was a huge part of it for you.
Did you expect it going in?
I mean I know everyone expects to be lonely but were you expecting
to feel it the way that you did?
No.
I thought I'd go out like - when you're with family all the time
you, and you're a mum you kind of want a break because you never
get a break.
And there's always somebody wanting something from you.
And I thought that would be my thing for me.
Um and I - I'd love it.
And I wouldn't think about home so much and you know.
But it was my daughter.
Like, she was only three.
Yeah.
Like what are you doing?
Like, do you really need to be here doing this right now?
Worth pointing out that you did double the time on the show
that your partner Rob spent...
So that is a huge win!
For you - have you made that known to him?
(LAUGHTER)
Yeah, you know, we have a little laugh about it, of course.
Do you say to him,
"You don't really know what it's like to be on Alone"?
"I was out there for twice as long as you!"
Yeah, exactly!
I mean, there was actually almost a three-week gap between the fifth
person to go home and the sixth.
So, like quite distinctly two halves. I mean, I'd say Suzan,
what was it for you that mentally
was able to get you there?
Because you had zero protein.
That's right.
For the whole time!
Yeah.
I did a lot of foraging.
I'm post-menopausal.
I put on 15 kilos.
I conserved energy.
I minimised my energy expenditure wherever I could.
That was my main strategy.
You know, not having a fire.
Only having a fire once a week
so I didn't have to collect the wood.
You only had a fire once a week?
That's right, yeah.
So, my shelter was my clothing and my sleeping bag.
And that kept me warm.
Going into hibernation,
going to bed at five o'clock at night.
Getting up at ten o'clock in the morning.
Wow.
Spending hours in my mind in my sleeping bag.
Constructing a story.
Like, not using my hands to entertain myself,
but my mind to entertain myself.
And then, you know, I felt John there.
He was palpable, like he was thinking to me every hour of every
day and I could feel him.
It was a lot of things -
the main thing was probably the psychology.
I mean, it's a huge credit to you.
Like it's one thing to say,
"I'm going to hibernate my way through two months."
Mmm.
As a human being - a species not known for its hibernation.
But it's another thing to be able to mentally
do it -
pretty phenomenal to watch.
Thank you.
Chase, you had also, you had a huge pull.
It was unknown to the, the show.
And, and you made that clear.
You were like "Ah, I, haven't talked about this but
"this is what's going on in my life,"
that your partner was pregnant.
We actually do have a little look at your final hours
here as you grapple with that in the wild.
I've got a bit of a confession.
Right before I got on this show, right before I got on the show.
I found out I was going to be a father for the first time.
Day One when I got out here, she was eight weeks.
Like, nine and a half weeks tomorrow and a couple days after you can find
out whether it's a boy or a girl.
They're all big moments, that I'm not there for.
I would be absolutely kidding myself if that wasn't wreaking havoc
on my mind.
This whole time.
Home's calling.
It's a hard call to ignore.
It was a surprise to me, obviously,
before going on the show finding out right before we left.
And things started changing, I suppose, internally
before I really realised.
And going out there I thought to myself like I was really trying to
enjoy myself to justify staying there.
Um, because I knew how much um, how much um pain was going on at
home being sick every day.
Mmm.
So, I was alone but she was also alone.
We have a picture of your child here, this is what was,
this is what was pulling you home.
I understand that baby doesn't look like that anymore?
How's everything? Happy, healthy?
Fat.
Great, great, loving it.
Yeah, absolutely loving it.
Have there ever been moments when you look back and go,
"OK, now I would have done it differently"?
Or zero, zero regrets?
Um, nah I'm very happy with the way that it all went.
Um, no regrets at all.
I mean, I'll be honest,
I've got two kids that are like older, they're 10 and 6,
and as a dad myself I was watching going...
(BREATHES IN)
"I don't know, mate.
"I don't know if you'll ever get two months off again!"
I'd stay freaking longer!
This is not the kind of thing you can do when they're two!
But, I mean, very, very different circumstance for yourself
as you're sitting there.
And um, I'm glad.
I'm glad that as you went home it felt...
It felt like the right thing.
Well done, mate. Beautiful.
Alright, after the break please stick around because it is time
to finally talk hunting.
Um or more precisely - stalking.
We've also got some unseen footage from after Krzysztof was announced
as the winner and we do have a bit of a surprise
for you Krzysztof as well.
So, we'll see you right after this.
Welcome back.
You are watching the Alone Australia Season Two Reunion.
And not everyone would know this,
but as well as being incredible survivalists,
the people here tonight are also incredible musicians.
Please enjoy.
(SINGING TO THE TUNE OF 'LOUIE LOUIE' BY THE BEACH BOYS)
# Bring-bring-brink brink-brink-brink
# Brink-brink...
(SINGING)
# I wanna be in the land of Vegemite sandwiches
# I wanna be in the land of vegemite sandwiches
# Gimme the land of Vegemite sandwiches
# And let me eat a Vegemite sandwich!
(SINGING TO THE TUNE OF 'ACHY BREAKY HEART' BY BILLY RAY CYRUS)
# 'Cause if you break my heart, my k-k-k-k-heart
# It's really good for indigestion
# A little bit is good
# Too much is bad
# Too much will give you really bad shits. #
(SINGING TO THE TUNE OF 'AM I EVER GONNA SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN?'
BY THE ANGELS)
# So I stake it out to my bush latrine at 7am to pee
# And in came a squadron of these little flies you see
# Do I ever want to see Namu again?
# Do I ever want to see Namu again? #
(LAUGHTER)
# Happiness is a ripe eggplant, fresh basil and a good dog
Great lyrics.
(LAUGHS)
Really, I mean eggplant and fresh basil and a good dog.
That's powerful stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, that's an album.
That was an old mantra from when I lived alone
and built my house and things were pretty tough.
So, it was just that framing of - you know...
Love it.
Yeah.
Love it.
Did anyone have trouble going back then into the real world?
Was it too much too soon for anyone?
My head was definitely still there for weeks later.
Waking up in the middle of the night trying to justify that you're not
in under your shelter and you've got your wife lying next
to you and you're just like, "Rick, you're not there anymore."
But that was weeks and weeks.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
Getting in, into the airport.
The airport was strange?
All the people around me.
Oof, that was a bit of overload, yeah.
It must have been strange just to look at like a candy bar and go,
"I can't believe you're right there."
Like I can, I can just have you.
Yeah.
Or clicking on an electric jug...
(CLICK SOUND)
Oh, yeah.
It seems that that's one of the rewards of going on the show.
Is to have everything taken away,
that it just when it comes back and feels like an amazing...
Or to realise that you don't need that stuff as well.
Yeah, right?
And that you might choose to live even more simply.
Mmm.
Is there something...
Like that happened for you, Tamika?
For sure, yep.
So, I'm not even living in a home anymore.
I'm just in my truck and I'm just realising I need so much less
than what I thought I did to be happy, so yeah.
Chase, some solid nods from you?
Yeah, well I'm trying to move out of the city.
Yeah get, downsize a lot of that sort of life.
You know, to something a bit more simpler and um for the kids as well.
Totally.
Um, well before we completely put a full stop on it,
there is something that um that I know everyone was fascinated by.
The elephant in the room.
Or should I say the deer in the room?
Or should I say the lack of deer?
(LAUGHS)
In the room.
I mean, in New Zealand, they're regarded as an invasive species.
But in real life, they were an evasive species...
..because they were extremely hard to find.
If you can see the monitors, is this about what you were hoping?
Oh, you wish!
That - that happened.
That happened?
Right at the start.
Like, I had a deer trip over my guy rope of my first shelter.
You saw the deer?
On my first night, I could hear it coming.
I was in my sleeping bag, my bow and arrows right there.
But, in New Zealand, laws are you can't use a projectile weapon
at night time.
So, I couldn't even get out there.
And then the third night it happened again.
And then after that they were onto there's a homosapien here,
let's get out of here,
let's get out of here lets disappear up into the hills.
And you could...
And they were gone.
You could hear them reading the hunting rules laughing going...
They were going...
I don't want to rub it in, but there were so many "nearly"s.
But there was.
That's why they call it hunting and not catching.
That's it.
It was a lot, a lot of stalking.
I mean there were, there were a lot of close calls.
That looks like a deer track to me.
Ooh!
Oh, look at that, he's right there...
(DEER CALL)
(CALLS BACK)
Can you give us the call?
(LAUGHS)
Come on, I really want to hear it again.
It was really...
(DEER CALL)
It just sounds like a bark, it's um yeah it's a weird noise.
I just kind of heard you know gravel movement and he was on the beach.
And I think he'd seen me before I saw him and he kind of took off
back up into the - into the thick of it.
And um, yeah as he was running away he, he sort of made that noise.
He called back as he was running away?
He did it when he was going away and then that's why I did it.
And then he called back.
So, it was like a, "See ya later"?
Yeah, kind of, yeah...
Um, so yeah it was frustrating but it's um, yeah that was the only
time I saw him or heard him.
One of the things that I mean, this might be true for everyone,
but certainly for the footage that made the show, like the unluckiness,
the close calls that you had. made the show, like the unluckiness,
It was breaking my heart watching it.
The bounce of the lid of the mouse trap.
I mean, brutal.
Hold on.
She's a mouse!
Oh, that is just freaking awful.
(SIGHS)
I probably could have made the trap better.
Ah, I probably could have made a locking mechanism
or something like that.
A mouse can probably squeeze through a five-mill gap.
Yeah Like, they're the size of their skull.
That's what they can crawl through.
So, it's a little bit angled because I hoped that the weight
of the lid would stop it.
But, but, you know like...
Oh, getting it out too.
It could be very tricky if it was in there, trying to get it
out without it going.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would have just shaken it
until it died.
Yeah.
A bit morbid, a bit brutal, but, yeah...
Yeah, well, that was the plan, right?
And if you win, you get a mouse, which is a very small prize,
so totally understand.
I do want to talk about the eels.
Twice as many eels hooked than actual fish. Ah, I think it's a
Twice as many eels hooked than actual fish.
Ah, I think it's a big eel.
Silly bugger.
It's a shame we can't eat them.
That's a lot of food right there.
I mean fish caught, thirteen. Eels released, twenty-seven. It must have
been so frustrating. Krzysztof, I mean I think in the series you had a
couple in a row.
Is it hard to remain positive when that keeps happening?
I got a little bit frustrated, but catching something is better
than not catching anything at all.
And it's something that changes the day up a little bit so...
Excitement, to meet an eel for a while!
Absolutely.
It helps you...
And if I, if I get my hook back at the end of it, even better.
Alright, before we wrap up tonight let's go back to the episode that
we've all just seen, the finale.
As soon as Susan had tapped, Erin your partner was contacted
but the medical team pulled you out immediately,
they couldn't wait for Erin to arrive before extracting you.
Krzysztof, was she disappointed not the be able to get there?
Because I understand that she was in the middle
of something also important, because she has her own life.
She was, yeah she was incredibly disappointed that she couldn't be
there, but after I found out where she was, if she would have
rocked up I would have been a little bit pissed off.
Where was she?
What was she doing?
So, she's studying um, Astro space.
And at the time she was doing a planning project for a return
sample mission to Mars.
So not only was it like a world first that there wasn't
a loved one there.
Could have almost been a world first that when the loved one
was contacted they went "I'm busy".
(LAUGHTER)
"Tell him to stay another week."
Yeah, um, yeah tell him congrats I'll catch up
with him when...
OK, that's pretty awesome.
Krzysztof we saw the moment that um, that you guys were reunited.
And stuff, so...
Oh fuck!
Aww!
And I apologise for the profanity.
No, I thought it was...
I thought it was...
I thought it was exactly what you should say when suddenly
your girlfriend is there next to you.
But, what we didn't see was that Krzysztof you had the opportunity
to then take Erin back to where you'd been living
for those sixty-four days.
And that's also pretty special,
that's never happened before on any of the Alones,
where you can actually go back fed,
slightly recovered, and see it with fresh eyes,
not the eyes of someone that's in shock.
So, let's take a little look.
Oh, the water is so clear!
Yeah, it is!
This is gorgeous, but also terrifying.
I couldn't...
(LAUGHS)
Thank you, baby.
Welcome to my land.
Oh, my gosh!
This is my spinning wheel!
Oh my gosh!
And I would sort of sit over here all the time.
Yeah, and then it was just literally you tie a little piece on and then
This looks so beautiful.
I've built this little sculpture.
This is so cool!
This one's me and this one's you.
I love it!
Fort Kick Ass!
Come inside Fort Kick Ass.
This is the bed I built.
This is pretty good!
Yeah, it's solid.
This was the stuff that I was using to make rope.
Wow!
Pull on it.
Gee, that is awesome.
So, yeah babe.
That's me, home sweet home for the past sixty-four days.
What do you think?
This is amazing, baby, well done.
I'm so proud of you.
(APPLAUSE)
Mate, congratulations.
I am interested to know,
what did Erin think of the statue that you built of her,
and what was the thinking behind that?
So, I was having a day where I was feeling a little bit
lonely and homesick and I thought I need something to just you know,
similar to the, to your ox as well.
I decided to build this sculpture and it was,
"This one's going to be Erin and this one's going to be me".
And I put Erin up a little bit higher because I see her as my
queen. She's just absolutely amazing, I look up to her, she's my
world. And even though we're not together at the moment,
I know that we will be soon.
Well, congratulations again, mate, for making it all the way.
As a little bit of a treat, the show has organised something.
Now we won't tell Customs we did this...
..because you're not really meant to bring wood back from overseas.
But, one second, we have got...
You've got the Fort.
You've got your Fort Kickass sign.
That's awesome.
There you go.
Thanks!
(APPLAUSE)
I love, I mean, not too many other shows where it's not a giant cheque,
it's a piece of wood.
(LAUGHTER)
And it makes him happy.
Oh, it's better than a giant cheque.
Thanks.
Total pleasure.
How awesome.
Um, just kidding, you know obviously if Customs is watching,
we fumigated it etcetera, etcetera.
Um, but well-done, well-done mate.
And well done to everyone - like thank you, on behalf
of the viewers, I'm sure people sitting at home and watching this
online and you know, I get to be their voice as someone
that loved watching the series.
Thanks to everyone for the way you put yourselves out there.
How honest it was, the way you conducted yourself.
It was awesome, thank you for being a part of it.
That is the end of Alone Australia Season Two: The Reunion.
It has been a massive pleasure.
Have a great one. Thanks, everybody.
Captions by Red Bee Media.
(c) SBS Australia 2024