[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 [bleep], 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.
[bleep]!
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!
Oh, I think he's bigger than the other one.
I'm eating a lot of greens that I haven't really
found overly palatable, but I'm not going
to waste this opportunity.
In the back of my head I've always been saying, 100 days.
Let's try 100 days.
I'm learning that my capacity to bring in protein
here is very limited.
Time to finish off the little mouse trap.
I have no food.
I've seen a couple of mice around and possum.
That worked.
This is my future protein supply.
Oh!
Oh, that is just freaking awful.
I know my wife would be saying, just
listen to your heart.
Your heart's where the answers are.
[phone ringing]
I'm calling up to officially bow out of "Alone Australia".
I look forward to the loving embrace of my wife again.
Time to return to family.
Something changed yesterday big time.
It's freezing cold.
Got up this morning, it was a very cold morning
after a very cold night.
Ice everywhere.
Just not a lot of fuel, unfortunately.
Haven't caught some fresh trout in a while.
I think it could be the cold snap.
Hey, this is exciting.
It's the first snow.
A little bit more and we've got snow angels and snowmen
and snow fights.
It looks awesome.
I love it.
In Sweden, when the first snow comes,
you get up in the morning and you go, yeah!
Like, I love running in the first snow.
It's sort of cool to walk around and there's
some snow on the ground, and when you're walking,
it squeaks.
As soon as it comes in, it just lifts the light a little bit.
It just gets a little bit lighter.
There's still a bit of wet rain, so I've got to get in shelter.
Even though, like, it looks beautiful, let's
be real here, like, it's much more serious.
I need to get food, and, like, snow makes it harder.
So I've had two weeks now without any protein.
Two weeks with tree fern fronds and a few berries.
Now I'm sitting in a situation.
The weather has been so cold that not even the mice are out
on camera, so trapping is sort of out of it
for the moment, where hunting had no luck,
and fishing is the most challenging concept.
Like, it is super high water.
Today I've got planned a whopper of a day.
I plan to go and get some fern fronds.
The reason I go is I only have two pieces of fern frond left,
and they're two skinny pieces, which is hardly any food.
And because I can't get anything else,
that's my only food source, so I have to go, no matter what.
Mud.
For me to go and get the only food I can get,
tree fern fronds, 45 minutes each way, it is a hard trip.
You have to move slow.
You're tired.
Snow mixed with mud mixed with wet logs
is a lethal combination.
[groans]
There's some good tree ferns.
Take a couple.
This is a big energy expenditure for me, and to be honest,
I don't even think the calories you get out of it is worth
the walk you're doing, right?
But what options do you have?
You either try or give up, and I don't give up.
Fingertips are really cold.
Just going to heat them up a little bit.
Get your hands in your armpits and just wait.
Might as well process this.
On face value, I don't think that a lot of my city friends
and acquaintances pick me as a hunter and gatherer,
but then again, my hunter gatherer friends
wouldn't pick me being a city person modeling either.
I guess I've done it right.
Not bad for a model from Darlinghurst, right?
All right, I think I'm done.
This shall see me through to protein arrives.
So I've been lying here for what, the last three hours
or so, trying to fall asleep.
Yay!
[sighs]
My brain is going a million miles an hour just thinking
about completely random stuff.
Thinking about how much the average walking speed of humans
has increased over the last couple 1,000 of years
with the average increase in height of people.
Yeah.
If anyone's got any tips for how to slow the mind down out here,
send smoke signals or something.
Didn't sleep much last night at all again.
Mind races.
Can't sleep.
F is for fort.
I'm, making a little sign for our shelter something
that says Fort Kick[bleep].
I do feel tired.
Why am I finding it so hard to fall asleep here?
Yeah, when I was 11, I got diagnosed with ADHD,
and as most kids in what would have been the '90s, when they
got diagnosed with that, it was straight onto the Ritalin.
And so I was on that for a couple of years,
and that really turned me into a bit of a zombie,
all because I really didn't concentrate at school.
And with it, with that, I still didn't really concentrate.
I'm more of a visual learner so classes where it was more hands
on and stuff, I excelled at, so things
like ceramics, metalwork, woodwork, home economics.
I loved those classes and did really well in those, but stuff
where I'm sitting in a classroom for like six hours staring
at a blackboard, no.
No way.
Not my way of learning.
So I've found a way to cope, and it works,
and there's definitely a bit of aspie in there as well,
but, hey, just makes me more interesting.
I think that's part of the reason why I really
like the outdoors as well, because any skills you learn
for the outdoors, they're are all hands on.
Did I just have an epiphany?
Lightning just struck my brain.
Oh, that must have hurt.
Fort Kick[bleep].
Pretty chuffed with that.
Morning.
It's cold.
There was ice on everything this morning.
Maybe because I'm losing weight, I'm
just finding it harder and harder to stay warm.
I have zero to eat.
My belly is saying, come on, come on.
Fish were on, bam, and hit me at once, then nothing.
I have to fish more.
There's something happening in my body.
There's this weakness that's just overcome me at the moment.
It's like my mind is just a microsecond ahead of my body
all the time now.
It's like I'm walking, but I'm not quite keeping up,
and the ledge is dangerous.
But I'm back to drinking lots of water,
because every time I feel hungry, I just drink water.
You know, it's not just hunger.
It's not just doing without a few meals.
I'm starving.
Now, I know it's cold, fishyoes.
God, even if I saw a trout swim past
I'd be happy at the moment.
Just tell me if I get a fish on.
I'll wake up.
Oh my [bleep].
There's a big one just right in front of me.
Oh my [bleep], that was just--
[bleep]!
Snapped off.
That was so freaking big.
[bleep] missed one.
[groans]
I knew it'd be a good time to fish.
I wanted to catch that thing and eat it.
I'm so hungry.
[sobs]
I'm so hungry.
Well, I don't think I've felt quite as frustrated as this
yet.
My patience is just so thin at the moment, like so thin,
and I think it's just because I haven't got enough sugar going
in my brain and I'm just--
I'm hangry, basically, and just frustrated and--
I've been fishing every day for a number of weeks
now, with a number of lines in the water,
with a few different sorts of lures.
No bites.
Doing a huge amount of foraging, so lots of berries,
lots of supplejack shoots.
The agriculture is what I know and the foraging.
But it's just like, if I want to be here on day 80,
I need to get more food.
So one thing popped into mind, which
was this sedge on this point right here behind me.
I'm going to check that out today it may
have viable seed in its head.
If it does, I'll be harvesting it.
Beautiful sedge.
This looks promising.
Yeah, that's got seed in it.
OK.
These chunky ones are probably the female ones.
The seeds are actually a little green.
See those lovely, lovely seeds?
So that's carbohydrate in those seeds.
I think I'm starting to harvest them now.
It's just happening.
OK, let's do this.
I'll just stick them in my pocket.
Collecting the seed at the end of the season
is my job at home.
Harvesting the rocket seed and the kale seed
and the parsley and celery and tomato and pumpkin.
That's what I do.
I'm the seed woman.
And the intelligence in a seed that then turns into a plant
that then fruits and that we can eat that fruit
and then save some of that seed for next year.
The seed is a miraculous thing.
Just separating the seed pod from the husk,
and you can see that the seed, so the seed's the green bit
and the husk is the brown bit, so the seeds have come out
of the husk.
So we just want to be left with the little green seeds.
I'll be harvesting as much as I can
and roasting it and grinding it and making
a sort of a carbohydrate.
This is so much more labor intensive than any calories
I might get out of it, but I'm really enjoying myself, so--
Smells really good.
It smells like roasting sesame seed.
Mm, it's like a seeded biscuit.
So good.
I think I should leave some for tomorrow.
Yeah, it's really good, if you're into grit.
Wow, what a beautiful evening, and I feel happy.
I started physically missing my pack, missing the skin contact.
The silken fur of Toby and Charlie and the warmth
of John's body.
I just really want that skin on skin touch contact
with my pack.
I'm feeling lots of emotion coming up,
but I'm OK with that.
I feel-- I feel strong still.
I thought I'd go to bed last night or yesterday
afternoon, because I just--
I didn't want to look after the fire.
I just-- I just didn't want to do anything, to be honest.
Lying in bed for 15, 16 hours probably did my body good,
but I don't know about the mental state for the first time
out here.
I feel like I've done a lifetime of therapy in one night,
but without support.
When I first met my husband, I used to have these dreams.
I call them shredded dreams because it feels like I'm
shredding up life.
And I figured--
I put it down and still do, put it down
to the trauma of being in the police force and the things
that I did, things that I witnessed,
things that other people did, all of it.
And I was drinking pretty hard by then.
Anyway, I haven't had those dreams for 10 years or so.
They-- they stopped.
So last night I had one, but tenfold on the vividness.
And so I don't need to get into graphics, trust me.
Just take your worst nightmare ever, wrap your family up
in it, and just play it out for hours.
Add a really good dash of helplessness
and then wake up and not know where you are.
Last night was the first night I actually really got
to look inside the depths of what's happened in my life.
And I don't want to run, because I know it's probably
really good for me.
I've actually realized I have PTSD from the police force.
I didn't realize.
I probably should have got some help long, long ago.
Not crazy all right out here, let me tell you.
I'm so laid up, I can hardly move.
There's snow covered alps around.
Thick, white snow.
It was cold last night and I feel a bit cold now,
so I've just got all the rain gear and all of the stuff
on because I have a plan today.
I'm off for a little fishing trip.
Getting fish is getting to the point where it's--
you know, that's going to be the difference between me staying
or leaving.
I did an explore trip a while back where I walked up
the river, and it was a bit of a bush bash, to be honest,
but I saw a few big trout, and then
I ended up at this place which was really accessible.
It had a big sand bank on it, and there was, like,
one sort of turbulent, deep pool that looked like it should hold
fish.
We'll see.
Almost there.
Getting protein is difficult right now.
Like, is it crazy to think just a few weeks ago, I would see,
you know, 5 to 10 of them cruising?
Right, we just got a revelation.
I've just physically watched two pairs of trout spawning,
so this is not post-spawn, which I thought it was.
This is actually during spawn, which changes everything.
Fishing's going to be seriously, seriously tough because they're
obviously not focusing on eating.
Now, just across the river, in the water on the other side,
there is a self-dead spawn trout which I want to eat.
Now, just where I am, it's not very deep.
I can get over mid-thigh, so I'm going
to take my pants off, walk over, grab the fish, walk back over.
I'm hoping there's a fish.
It looks like a fish, and I'm happy to eat that.
That's not a problem.
Here we go.
Oh, ow.
I haven't had food for so long that even
a self-dead spawn trout is wanted,
so I'm going to take the risk.
Where did I see it?
Over here.
Oh, it's just--
You've got to watch for a step on the rocks.
Get the holes.
Oh, [bleep].
[bleep].
It looks like there's a hole in between,
and it's deeper than I want.
Deeper than I can go.
No.
Not worth the risk.
[groans]
[bleep].
And this on first.
One second.
I misjudged it.
It's in front of that--
I meant to pass over in front of that triangle of rock, you see?
And the clear water makes it look like it's groin deep,
but it's a big hole.
Like, I'm hungry, right?
I want to eat.
But cold water and current is not a good combination,
and what would it mean if I didn't get it is I'm hungry,
I'm here, I can keep fighting.
If I fall in, I'm home.
So I'm going to head back.
Fishing wasn't that interesting, but I found something waiting.
I'll show you.
There's a deer print there.
Couple of hoof prints.
And you can see how they've got rain dribbles in it,
so I would say this is last night, not this morning.
It looks like one deer.
They didn't walk up here.
They continued out.
I don't know if you can see through the water.
Those pebbles there, that's deer poop, red deer poop.
So that puts the question to me, is it worth
just taking the bow and arrow and just sit here just in case?
I think so.
Well, that's another day.
I've actually got quite a headache this morning.
I really like falling asleep again,
and it just means I'm sleeping in later as well.
It's annoying.
I'm quite tired.
I'm beyond tired.
I'm exhausted.
Such is life, as one criminal once said.
I mean, I do miss my family and I miss Erin.
She definitely gets me.
The most supportive person in my world and my best friend.
If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be on this adventure.
I'm just going to climb in my sleeping bag
and try and sleep this headache off.
Yeah, there's a bit of a spinning going from vertical
to horizontal.
Oh, man.
That's vertigo.
Nice.
That does make me feel nauseous.
I hope I can shake the vertigo.
[groans]
I want to see how long I can last out here.
But between the headache and the lack of energy,
I don't think it'll be too much longer.
Well, I've got to say, I feel like [bleep] physically.
I wouldn't be safe on the ledge.
I'm so tired, I can't get up.
Oh.
My [bleep], I haven't caught a [bleep] trout in days and days.
I kept hearing the Canadian geese going crazy.
I swear I was thinking about shooting one.
It's just this whole, could I do it?
Can I do it?
Do I want to do it?
I haven't eaten meat for about eight years.
I think when I first came out here,
I decided that I wanted to try and stick to trout fishing.
I ruled out a lot of my food source by not hunting.
Ah!
Kill, not to kill.
I'm going to sit again, maybe even with my bow and arrows,
down where they hang.
The geese are on my shore almost.
They're about two or three meters off.
They are plump.
Oh my [bleep], I could just plop you with my arrow.
Oh my [bleep].
I don't know what's going to happen, if I will or not.
I just thought I'd come and put myself out of the torment.
It's like there's so many things going around in my head.
I've noticed if you're not receiving healthy foods,
your body goes into defend mode, survival mode.
What do I do?
Do I take one, stay a couple of days?
Then do I start taking more and more to stay longer,
doing something I don't really want to do?
[goose call]
There.
There you go I don't want to do it.
No, I don't want to do it.
I don't want to.
I don't want to kill it.
I'm not here just to kill to stay longer.
What if I had?
Oh, thank goodness.
I tried.
I can't.
I don't want to kill anything else.
I think I thought I was going to bring in a bit of my childhood
and a bit of survival mode, mix it all up,
and just hunt, I think.
So with that off my shoulders, where do I go from here?
[beeping]
Hey, it's Tamika.
I'm officially tapping out.
How are you, Tamika?
50-50, but I know it's--
I know it's time.
I can't push anymore, so if the body gives out,
the body gives out, and I don't want to hurt myself.
And I just thought if I step on that ledge and I slip,
I probably won't get out of that water.
You've got to do what's right, I think, so for yourself
and for your family.
So it's the right decision.
I'm going to miss it, but it's been--
it's been great.
Yeah.
I'm definitely happy with 53 days,
because I think I've just done the best that I could do.
It's like safety first, but the killing aspect's
a very close second, and killing's not part of me
anymore.
You know, there's this need to feed,
but it's like my heart doesn't want to,
and I've just become someone who prefers not to kill animals.
I just want to hug my girls and my husband.
I can't wait.
I put them in the depths of my realm
to try and not think about them, and then, yeah, I can't wait.
I also believe I'm showing the girls that there's not just
one path 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 had,
then I'd be happy.
Got a bow and arrow.
Literally I'm just going to go over to the fishing area
where I saw the footprints and sit and wait.
I don't really want to get my hopes up,
but it looks like a big deer on the prints.
It could have been a stag.
It's quite hard to imagine the other people doing this.
It's a tough gig, man.
It's a tough gig.
Mentally it's probably one of the toughest things I've done.
I honestly think I need to rest, but I still obviously want
to win this thing.
It's never been my way of being passive
and just do the least amount of work.
Like, I'd rather go out guns blazing, you know?
Just who I am.
That's what I do.
I'm going to continue fishing and hunting, trying to gather
food, do the best I can until I get sent home or I tap out.
Did not want to get up and out of bed today.
Headache's passed, thankfully.
The light-headedness is still there,
and, yeah, I think the vertigo is just malnutrition.
And the only way that's going to get fixed
is with some actual food.
So, yeah.
It's just that time.
[beeping]
It's ringing.
Hello?
Yeah?
This is Krzysztof and I am officially ordering a pizza.
Puff Aussie with onion, puff rosco with chili, please.
What do you mean no?
OK, worth a try.
And you thought I was going to tap.
Not happening.
Only way I'm leaving is if it's a medical emergency,
the doctor says I'm unfit, or Erin's
here and says we're going home.
I'm going to enjoy some sunshine.
We're going to catch some fish, we're going to eat some fish,
we're going to feel good.
Life will be good.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I'm not going to tap out.
I'm going to keep pushing as long as I can.
Hopefully something will come.
The fire on the beach is pretty special.
I'm grateful for a lot of things here.
I'm grateful for the firewood.
I'm grateful for the berries and the supplejack shoots
and the sedge seed flour.
I'm grateful that I feel well and strong.
I don't think my reason's changed for being here.
I came here because I thought it was exciting to give it a go,
to see how I could go with my years of experience
in the outdoors and foraging and growing food and understanding
plants and having a love for the more than human world.
I would so like to bring home the $250,000 for our family.
The person who stays the longest--
Come on.
--wins.
I feel a bit unstable today.
I'm clumsy.
If there's only one other person still out here,
I would just be handing them $250,000.
At this point in the game, that's why I'm still here.
Make no bones about it, that is why.
Every day is another day.
I surprised myself I've made it this far.
My body's giving out.
Things are shutting down in order of least importance.
It's just going to be see how long I can last.
WOMAN: I'm sure you understand based on the symptoms
that you're displaying, it is no longer safe medically
for you to continue.
[audio logo]