[music playing]
The south island of New Zealand.
It's an epic place.
It's wet.
It's cold.
It's snowy.
If you don't respect the environment here,
it will slap you hard.
I just need to bring some food in.
Look at that stonker.
Last night there was deer all around me.
That's freaking delicious.
I know how tough it's going to be.
Oh my god, I miss them.
You've got to feel safe, otherwise
you just die out here.
It doesn't feel as bad as it looks.
It feels worse.
This [bleep] just got real.
Jesus, I'm scared enough to have an emergency tap out
in my hand.
The last person standing, they take home $250,000.
Somebody help me!
It's been 16 days without protein,
so I'd like to pull the pin.
I don't think my boots are waterproof.
Busted arse boot.
I'm pretty soaking, and that's a recipe for hypothermia.
I'm leaving camp today.
I've got to get closer to the water.
We've got a fight on our hands.
Oh, look at that stonker.
Oh, it's so good.
Two stonker trout.
Oh, dammit, it's an eel.
Big fellow too.
Yeah, to catch eel and have to release it,
it's-- it's frustrating.
Yeah, the lack of food's definitely
making things more challenging.
On a personal note, I've started bleeding again.
I just had a normal cycle.
Now I'm having another one.
Well, you just start to worry.
It's not in the game plan.
Another beautiful day in paradise.
I'm actually feeling pretty good this morning.
Oh, wow.
Snow on the mountains.
Water's come up.
Yeah, it is a bit more chilly this morning.
But, yeah, check it out.
There's snow in dem mountains right there.
This place is just so cool, seriously.
Plan for the day, I think it's going to be setting myself
up comfortably on the beach.
I'm going to grab some of those flax leaves.
I'm going to strip the fibers out of them to make some rope.
I've used up most of my paracord on my shelter,
and I'd really like to have some more
rope for some different projects,
so the first thing I need to do is make a spinning wheel.
Cordless drill would have made this so much faster.
I've never made rope before.
I've read about it, I've seen it in videos,
so I wanted to try it for myself, you know,
see if I can do it.
Going to sit like that with a couple of sticks out
and we'll spin.
I'm actually going to make it the axle.
Yeah, it'll be good to have this done, because then I
can build some more things.
Building things keeps my mind occupied.
When my mind's occupied, I'm not bored,
because that's the last thing I want to be out here, bored.
Very rudimentary, but it works.
The next step is to extract the fibers
from these harakeke leaves.
So I've got this leaf that I've been soaking now
for a few days.
Take this middle bit out, take the edge out, and then split it
up, extract some of the fibers.
So this is actually my fire striker
that I made, and apparently it works really well for stripping
fibers as well.
The first length of fibers.
And now we repeat the process another 100 times.
Who am I kidding?
It's going to be more like 300 times.
No, probably even more than that.
Stripping fibers, stripping fibers, stripping fibers out
of flax.
Pop him over there for the time being
and just plug him in there.
Now I can just grab one of these,
and now twist the fibers together to make rope.
Grab the next length and simply add him to what we got.
Well, this is working better than I thought it would.
OK, we'll fire up the spinning wheel.
Now I'm going to take this excess fluffy stuff, which
is a bit like wool, and use the spinning wheel to spin it
together to make another rope.
So nothing is wasted.
The system works.
So I was thinking about different things
that I could build.
You know, I might make a crochet hook
and then knit myself a beanie or something.
I like the idea of maybe having like a swing--
you know, like the kind that you see that the old people have
in their backyards, seat for two, that sort of just,
whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.
Something like that on the beach would be nice, I think.
I can sit there over an evening by a toasty warm fire,
warm my footsies, and just rock back and forth.
Guess what, it's not raining, and it's definitely
a clear weather pattern change, so even though we've
got fog and clouds, there's a solid dusting of snow
on all mountains, and it's a dry air pushing through,
which feels great.
Man, that was one wet week.
Rain's got even worse.
I now have a couple of centimeters of standing water
in most of my campsite.
It's not helping with my sleep.
I've got a tree I can sit under it doesn't get as soaked,
but I doubt we're going to get any deer coming out in the rain
now, but I'll sit here for a little bit.
I wonder if this is normal.
Like, it's rained nonstop for days now.
Maybe this is just a test for me.
Can I make fire inside?
Everything is wet.
Here we go.
I'm pretty proud to have stick that one
out in the freaking rain.
My success here currently is weather dependent.
Can't let my fate rest in the hands of the weather gods,
and that comes down to being more comfortable in my shelter.
So today is bed day.
I'm still sleeping on the ground.
I've got a bit of a debris bed, but it's not enough.
I definitely need to get off the ground,
and then I'll be better prepared next time when the bad weather
comes in.
There should be a structural bed in place by today.
Not 100% sure if I get time to do all the slats,
but I'm hoping so.
So this will be my first runner, and it's not really
secured yet, but it's still just one runner,
and it holds my weight.
Then I'm going to notch it and tie it
in place, a couple of stakes, and the bed frame
should be done.
I've also got to notch out the wood so that once they are
laying on top of each other, it doesn't have a funny lean
to it.
You've got to be kidding me.
I just cut the notch on the wrong side.
Measure once, cut twice, kids.
I don't know why, but it's important for me
to get things done, and get things done fast, efficient.
Just in the wrong freaking orientation.
Want to basically make things as well as I think I can.
And the worst part is I've got to stare at it
and know that I made a mistake.
And I think it's a little bit of a Swedish--
Scandinavian, Swedish thing, trait.
If I think I can make things really well,
I don't want to stop until it is that good.
Mission and a half to make this bed.
Looks so much easier in the IKEA catalogs.
It's a bit over engineered.
Silly.
(SINGING) Here we are again
Sort of nuts
Don't know what it does
My mind's seen a plot
Do I order a pizza or just go home?
I don't know how to call because I don't have a phone
My boots are wet
I made a net
Didn't even get to try it yet
I don't know what a girl's to do
I still haven't done a number two
Focus is just-- it's 100% food at the moment.
I can't think of anything else, just fish, fish, fish.
It'll do.
It'll do, donkey.
Since that moment where I decided that I wasn't going
to bow hunt, I have spent every waking moment trying to come up
with ways to catch fish, and bait fish,
and I'd try the other sides.
I'd walk the headland.
There's probably others out there catching fish.
I know.
I just found that the shallowness and the snags
and the weight of my lure and trying to get it out
far enough--
It's days like this where you really
start to assess how long you've got left,
which is a terrible thing.
But the hard reality is, if I don't get food,
my body's going to start packing it in.
I've not seen one fish in the water since I've been here.
There's, like, a threshold, I guess,
a balance where your experience is positive and you feel
hope that it could go longer, but I've caught nothing
in two weeks of thrashing this water.
Then I don't have hope that I'm going to be able to feed myself
at all.
That in conjunction with bleeding, no food,
getting colder, and my body is telling me
it's only downhill from here.
Oh my god.
Damn.
I can't believe that.
It got smashed.
Just idiot of the year.
Idiot of the year.
So I put on the best grub that I had found.
I had it on my--
my float.
I had it attached to my bit of wood.
I cast it out.
I took it off my little bit of wood
and was attaching it to the big bit of wood,
and bam, it got taken.
My float.
Just bam, smashed me.
I lost a float, I lost a hook, I lost a fish, or an eel.
I don't know.
Damn mistake.
One mistake.
Mistake of the century.
Do you have to put nugget on your shoes
every night, your school shoes?
I did.
I hated it, and I think it was a good discipline, actually.
I made it a herbal ointment before I left, and it's--
it's a waterproofing material as well as
being a herbal medicine.
So my hat's impregnated with it to make my hat waterproof.
It's got so much on it that I can actually
rub a bit on my boots to help keep my boots more waterproof,
because I want these to last me the whole time
and stay waterproof.
They're much better than the gumboots
for moving around over this really uneven surface.
I'm hungry.
I'm really keen to get a possum.
Going to take my shovel.
I'm going to go slow.
Slow and steady.
Ridiculous.
I am going to have a wee rest.
Crazy.
I reckon I've had about a flat dessert spoon of food a day
for the last 18 days.
Aha.
That's looking possum den-ish.
And I don't see any possum.
Yeah, right, there's bracken here.
Right, fantastic.
So that means that there's a lot more food here than what
I thought.
That's one bit.
I've got some bracken.
Bracken, rhizomes, and fronds, shoots.
What are they called?
Fiddleheads.
Bracken fiddleheads.
Sort of like asparagus, I think.
The little curlies, are they not beautiful?
I'm going to try and get a fire lit
and start cooking those things, because they have to be cooked,
otherwise they're carcinogenic.
Got a spark, but it's just not catching.
Let's make our tinder bundle a bit bigger.
Oh, no fire tonight, so maybe I won't be eating them.
I'm just feeling miserable, cold, without any food,
and really wondering if it's worth it.
What do I achieve by being out here?
I'll probably feel better tomorrow, though, I think.
Tends to be the way.
Right.
Sun's coming down and it's pitch black out.
That's it.
Homemade fishing rod, late at night, subzero degrees.
The beaches are literally frozen.
See if I can spot a trout.
Another trout would be great.
When it comes to fish and water, there's
definitely different life at night versus day.
The only thing I would say, at night they're
probably after small bait food, bait fish and stuff, which
is different to what I've got.
See one.
Oh, god, I've got one, I've got one, I've got one.
Oh!
Don't lose it.
Oh, I want another trout.
Seems shallow.
There's nothing to tangle him.
Man, this is where I need my net.
Caught another one.
It's my third trout.
It's a-- it's a fair bit smaller than the other one,
but that's my forearm, and I'm 190 centimeter,
so decent sized trout anyway, and probably two more days
of food, three maybe.
Means I can eat trout every day which is great,
and I can have a little bit extra here and there.
Thank you, fishy.
Oh, yes, this piece of bark again.
It honestly feels like every day a little bit better,
like I figure out one or two things more.
I improve one or two things more.
I think I'll take a fillet.
Going to cut myself a really nice steak out of the trout.
I just want to have a nice, crisp, meaty piece, barbecued.
I think that's-- that's me tonight.
Just went down to fill up a pot with water
for the soup, and possum peered back on me on the ground.
Ran back, got my--
my shovel.
Thought if it works once, it works twice.
But it was blocked a bit, and then I got closer, he ran up
a tree, so he's sat quite high.
It was too far to throw my shovel.
He climbed up like 15 meters, just looked down at me.
So there is one more possum here, and fairly nearby.
I can see him.
He's just over camp.
He's looking at me, the little [bleep].
Oh, it's just out of reach.
I'm about to throw my shovel, but it was like a eight--
eight, nine meter cast.
I don't think we're going to get him.
He's still there, looking at me.
I wonder if he wants something down here.
The only reason I can see is that he can smell food.
It's a bit of a cat and mouse going on for the moment.
It's bloody delicious.
Might hang the fish inside the shelter tonight,
so he'll have to fight with me to get it.
I reckon I could fit like a whole other person
inside my pants.
It's just, like, they were tight.
That's sad.
I thought about that fish all night, but I didn't get it.
Oh, a little bit of afternoon sun.
My mind won't focus today.
I've really noticed a change.
It's bizarre.
One little personal battle I've had while I've been out here,
I have been bleeding for almost 30 days,
and as a woman in the bush, that's hard core.
That has exhausted me.
I am so sick of bleeding.
I am so sick of it.
There's been a lot of self-care.
It's every few hours I'm washing myself.
I'm sore.
I'm bloody.
You know, it's just so freaking annoying.
The extra water, extra care.
I had to do laundry out here, for god's sake.
Laundry.
Who the hell comes out here to do laundry?
[sighs]
Acceptance of the body and its limitations.
Yeah.
I don't know what's going on with my joints,
but they are throbbing.
I find it very hard now to even light the fire.
I've tried not to let it worry me.
Sometimes I just want to cut my insides out and let them go.
I don't see the longevity of my journey.
I -- I don't see it.
I wanted to leave the winner or I wanted to leave happy.
I've come to accept that it is having an effect on my body.
May as well do your tap-out right if you can.
Oh my god.
I wished I could have got some food.
I just wanted to--
[muffled speech]
[sobs]
[bleep] body.
I've worked so hard to get to this point and leave.
[sobs]
Are you 100% sure?
I've just come across some--
some deer prints.
The young one, young one here, he's got a--
maybe its mother, mother with it.
Getting pretty close to some deer with very recent signs.
Probably been the most reliable sign since I've been here.
They've gone up over the bank here somewhere.
Been activity in here.
A fair bit of disturbance.
I'll sit for about five minutes and just rest my feet.
The other day, getting my feet wet--
I don't think my boots are waterproof.
--was a dangerous thing to do.
Busted arse boot.
You need to be mindful that when your feet are numb,
you don't know what damage is happening.
After that day, the following day, I sort of
had pins and needles sort of sensation
through the tips of my toes, and, yeah,
last night super sensitive to touch.
The joint itself is sort of-- seems to be swollen and shiny.
I've seen that in the past.
I guess I was on the edge of frostbite.
Yeah, when I look at--
I look back, and you sort of think, OK,
what do you think will be the hardest
part of the lone journey?
You know, I never--
I never thought feet being an issue.
Plays with my mind a bit.
I hit a real low.
I wanted to tap out.
Actually wanted to tap out real bad, like for about four days.
I just lost my mojo, you know?
I-- the lack of food, all of it.
The stomach cramps, the bleeding, just everything
got on top of me, and the fishing was frustrating
the hell out of me.
I think I just--
I just give up a bit, you know, and then
all the odds-- all the little things
seem to stack against you.
It's like, what are you here for?
But I'll never get this chance again.
I'll never, never have this experience again.
So I don't want to leave until I've just tried everything
I can.
Oh, one more swig before I go.
There's one fishing spot that I just have been a bit scared
to get to, so I'm going to rig up
and I'm going to head out to that fishing spot, I think.
This is my last chance.
If I don't catch a fish there, I reckon I'm just
going to have to go home.
So it doesn't look like far, but you've
got to go all the way around the back of the caves
there and up over, and then try and find a way down death hill.
There is so much I could trip on here.
It's just a rabbit warren of possibility of hurt.
I just don't want to live not trying because of fear.
I want to show my daughters what my father showed me.
I want to show them that they can do whatever they want to
in life.
If I can show them that I just gave it a crack
and gave it a go with all the things that I have
and put that into place, then I'd be happy.
She's a cliff
I think I've found an entry point.
It's probably on the skids of my arse,
but straight ahead, just through this little gap here,
I can see rock.
I reckon I can bush bash that bit,
but it's pretty much you got to get over this ledge safely
first.
Excuse me, in my eyeball, Oh, [bleep] balls.
That was close, man.
That was close.
Oh, I've wanted to get here for so long.
Oh my god, I've made it.
I've made it.
I'm happy I've made it.
And I can walk a lot of this.
I thought this was going to be not walkable at all.
Mind you, it is a pretty good drop.
Oh my god, the possibilities.
I feel a little bit of hope.
So didn't-- didn't get the outcome that I was after
for today, but, yeah, you've got fairly close to finding some
deer, I think.
They were-- they were definitely very fresh sign.
Mindful of the daylight.
I've got things to do back there,
so I'll push my way back and get back to camp.
Empty handed, but not too empty in spirit.
That's right.
They seems to-- seem to try to test us.
And some more glue there.
All right, you want to hear my bird-brained idea?
I was thinking about ways that I could potentially come up
with making a glue.
This piece of hose I found, I'm thinking
of cutting pieces of this off, melting it, sticking it
into there, and seeing if that won't reattach
in a mildest way.
I think-- I think it's wishful thinking, but, look,
it's worth a crack.
Put the charcoal in there.
Some hot wire, which I also found in the bush.
That's a red hot metal.
And burn a hole through the main rubber.
Put some paracord through there.
All right.
While I attempt to delicately put that hot--
that rubbery sticky material in my boot.
We give little credit to them, boots and our-- and our feet,
in the importance of looking after them.
There's things, of course, you wish
you could change if you were selecting your items again.
I wonder how sticky that will be,
or if it'll even work at all.
Rope's in there.
The end result, I was able to secure the front
with some paracord going in underneath these ribs here.
Hopefully they-- they hold all right.
Might be sitting pretty, but we'll see how we go.
Nothing's a given.
And we're back, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
And you guessed it, we're still stripping the fibers
from the flax leaves with a quest to make more rope.
Found myself wondering, why have I picked such a menial task
just to occupy my time?
Because it is pretty time consuming.
It's just to keep my mind occupied and my hands occupied.
If I don't have something to do, I'll get bored,
and then if I get bored, I start to feel down.
If I start to feel down, it all just spirals,
and I don't want to get into a mindset where I'm feeling down,
because I feel that will just lead into the spiral
where I'll be like, OK, that's it.
I've had enough.
I'm tapping out.
I just need something to keep myself occupied, stay out
of a negative mindset.
You know, coming into this experience I was asked what
my superpower is.
I'd say it's probably my neurodivergency.
It allows me to think outside the box a lot of the time
and just come up with creative solutions
to different problems.
It is quite handy.
It's meant that I've picked up a whole bunch of different skills
and hobbies over the years, because I tend to hyper focus
on something.
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11 years old,
and since then, the word Asperger's was thrown
around a little bit as well, but we don't use that term anymore.
It's ASD.
My neurodiversity is not something
that I speak about openly that often at all,
and I tend to play my cards pretty close to my chest.
Not something that I've ever even told my friends,
although some of them probably worked it out,
but there's a lot that would have no idea,
because I just mask it, so it's--
it's almost like coming out and it's a little bit difficult,
but I'm hoping it's going to get received well.
Downside is that, yeah, sometimes social situations
can be a little bit awkward.
Like I'll spend time sitting at a table chatting to someone,
and then I'll spend like 15 minutes thinking,
OK, I'm going to be leaving soon.
Do I shake their hand?
Do I hug them?
What do I do?
Just focus on really silly things like that.
But I think neurodivergent people have an advantage
over neurotypical.
Hear me out.
So neurotypical, let's say there's a particular way
that brains work and then you're going to think the same,
you'll act the same.
Long term you'll probably have a pretty good life.
But because you think along the same lines,
you won't be capable of any, like, true original thought
or any great piece of art, so you're doomed to mediocrity,
whereas neurodivergent people that are built to think
outside the box and, yeah, sure, you might suffer a little bit
in other areas, but, hey, you've got
the potential for greatness.
So, yeah.
My message to all the neurodivergent people
watching this, the door is open for you
to do truly great things.
Embrace your passion.
Become the next Einstein, become the next Mozart,
become the next Da Vinci.
You can do it.
You have the power.
Yeah.
Anyway, let's make some rope.
[hums]
Smells swampy here, but fish might like that.
You wouldn't come on here if you didn't believe
you could feed yourself.
It's a truly humbling experience when you have what you believe
to be one of your biggest assets or skills,
fishing, just thrown back in your face a little.
Let's see.
This is going to be a bit difficult to cast.
OK, come on.
That's it.
Come on.
Oh, I'd love a trout.
Big, oily juicy trout.
Oh, [bleep] me.
I just saw the biggest brown trout.
[grunting]
[laughs]
Oh my god.
OK.
[grunts]
Almost fell in the water.
I knew the headland was going to do it.
I knew it.
Oh, I don't even want to hold it near the water.
I don't want to hold it near the water.
OK.
Oh my god.
I was so worried it was going to get off.
But do you know what?
I'm going to go home and cook trout.
I knew this headland.
I knew it.
Me and my big trout have to make it home through that.
It's so worth it.
Man, that was just an intense moment.
So elated, so grateful, and so desperate all in one.
Oh, if you could smell this.
Oh my god.
Oh.
Oh my god.
Thank you.
Have I thanked you for your beautiful life?
Have I thanked you?
Man!
Just such a relief to know that I can get to that spot
and I caught a trout.
Damn, it's good.
It's like all the pressure of what I should
be able to achieve just got lifted,
and there's this real relaxation within me now.
It's-- it's lovely.
So I guess I'm not done.
I guess I've decided to stay.
I have a full belly, and it doesn't feel much better
than that.
What a perfect afternoon.
Definitely only one thing better than that,
if I got to share it.
Going to bed not knowing when your next meal's going to be
is not a really nice thought.
There's a bit of a storm coming through.
There is not anything else I can do except just be prepared
to go if I need.
It's just-- that's just not happening.