[dramatic music]
- Hello, and welcome to the "Alone: Australia"
season three reunion.
I'm Kumi Taguchi here tonight
for a different kind of Insight.
Tonight, we're gonna be bringing you an exclusive deep dive
into the experiences of the 10 remarkable individuals
of this record shattering season of "Alone."
They are all here in the studio together
for the first time since they were dropped onto the land.
Also with us here is Auslan interpreter, Leah.
Leah, welcome.
Over 76 days, 6,000 hours of footage was shot
and then condensed down to 12 episodes.
So that leaves a lot of never before seen footage
to unpack tonight.
Shall we begin? [contestants clapping]
It is actually crazy to see all you guys here tonight.
I've been following you obsessively,
so it's sort of strange to see you all in person.
Thank you so much for being here.
To me, you're all winners, but there could only be one.
Shay, that was you. Congratulations.
[contestants applauding]
You watched the final episodes with all these participants.
What was that like, seeing it unfold
with everyone else in the room with you?
- Yeah, pretty special, 'cause I..
We all understand this thing better than anyone else,
'cause we've all done it and we know
the things you don't see,
so it's pretty special to share that with everyone.
- A lot of people might not know that
before you all went onto the land,
you were at a one week intensive bootcamp.
This is where you figured out filmmaking
and how to use the cameras, but more importantly,
I reckon you were probably sizing each other up as well.
Shay, at that bootcamp,
you left a really lasting impression on one person there.
Take a look at this.
[birds chirping]
- This is the most extraordinary
experience I think I could have in my life.
This is just an incredible opportunity
and to win it would be just..
Incomprehensible.
But it's a long shot for me.
Before launch day,
the 10 contestants all get together
and we went to this room for a meeting
and then this guy walked in.
And I kid you not, I stopped breathing.
[contestants laughing]
This guy,
I've been following on the internet for over four years
and he's a [bleep]ing legend.
He's an amazing bushman.
His knowledge of flora and fauna is just unbelievable.
He's out here.
That's why I believe I've got very, very little chance
of winning it.
[contestants laughing]
If he wins it, and he probably will,
I'm so happy for him.
- Shay, what's your reaction to that?
- It's pretty humbling. Like it's such a huge compliment.
I don't think I deserve it.
Coming from Muzza too,
like obviously that was the first time
I met Muzza at bootcamp
and I was thinking a similar thing, to be honest.
Like I was thinking,
"Man, he's gonna be a bit of a problem."
And we come from similar worlds, I think.
Like he was a row shooter for years
and I've been a possum trapper for years.
So we kind of come from different countries,
but a similar background.
And so I think we understood each other quite well.
And yeah, we both knew we weren't gonna go home
unless we were pulled out and dragged away, basically.
- Muzza, emotional watching that back.
What made Shay such a winner in your eyes so early on?
- Yeah, we share a common bond,
but you know, Shay's the next level.
Yeah, no, he's one of the most amazing
and skilled bushman I've ever known of.
- Was anyone else betting on Shay?
[contestants laughing]
Show of hands, pretty much unanimous.
Wow. Why? What was it?
- Shay and I both flew into Melbourne together,
right, before going down to Tasi,
and I'd never seen the dude in my life.
I wasn't following him on YouTube or anything like that,
but I saw this bloke from 50 meters away
and there was just this aura about him.
He was a man on a mission and I said to myself,
"I bet you that bloke is going where I'm going.
And I bet you he goes far."
He just had this steely kinda look of determination
in his eye.
- 76 days, Shay, you hold the record for the longest,
breaking the previous one by nine days.
How will that prize money change your family's life?
- Oh, it'll be massive for us.
Like, yeah, just takes the pressure off, you know,
the daily grind, trying to get ahead and pay a mortgage.
It'll allow us to spend more time with the kids
and less time stressing about money.
So it's an amazing gift.
Like I feel so lucky to have just had the opportunity.
- Shay officially took the crown on day 76,
but that was only decided when the penultimate person
departed the arena.
Safe to say, our runner up this year
was an absolute warrior.
Hearts broke around the country when this happened.
- I will not tap.
- In pain down there?
You're quite sore there.
All right, stand up for me.
Is that dizziness, Muzza?
- I'm good.
- Was that a head spin just then?
- Mm-hmm.
- All right, Muzza.
I'm sorry.
It's not medically safe for you to stay.
I'm gonna have to extract you.
[Muzza crying]
[Muzza sighing]
- That was pretty hard to watch.
What was it like for you in that moment?
- Out there?
Yeah, it was tough.
You know, I..
My head was still in the game, you know,
I was aiming for 80 days for a start,
but, you know, I was a realist.
I knew my body was not keeping up with me head.
It was a hard pill to swallow.
I said that out there, but my body was done.
It hit me like a ton of bricks that came from nowhere.
- The decision to extract someone
based on physical wellbeing is not made lightly.
Especially as this is a series that pushes the human body
to its absolute breaking point.
- All right, have a quick look at
how I'm going in terms of weight loss.
Man, I've never seen that before. That's a fair hole.
- Whoa.
I've not seen my legs like this ever.
- I've definitely lost weight. I was..
I couldn't see my old fella.
[contestants laughing]
- I've lost my overhang.
- My ribs are protruding, my hips are protruding.
- That's changed quite a lot.
- Wow.
- [bleep]!
- Holy [bleep].
[contestant gasping]
[contestant groaning]
- I know for a lot of people,
the shock to the system gives them the runs.
[contestant retching]
- Stomach is tense and just not feeling good.
- My stump is frozen. It's all numb.
I'm about there now.
- Burning.
Hope it's not a UTI or an infection.
- Ceilidh.
When you were being medically extracted
and they said it's time to go,
was there any part of you that was tempted to kind of try
and argue the doctor's decision in that moment?
- Looking back, I'm grateful
that I did get extracted at the time
because I was actually worse than I thought I was.
Looking back, I could have maybe,
I was like tossing out whether to let them know
or just, you know, see if I can get better.
And I'm glad I'd let them know,
because I actually got worse really quickly.
And I'm really glad that I actually had to go
and get, you know, the treatment that I needed to get better
because I did not want any damage to my kidneys.
And yeah, I just wanted to stay healthy for, you know,
my next adventure.
Yeah, I think I would rather go out walking
than to be out on a stretcher.
- If you hadn't have become unwell,
how long do you think you would've stayed out there?
- Oh, I think mentally, I dunno physically,
but mentally, I felt very happy,
content being out there alone in the wild.
I was having a great time,
and there was so much I wanted to do.
There was no way I was gonna tap out.
- Karla, you were really sick.
How hard was it to sort of keep filming
and going on when you were feeling so awful?
- Yeah, it's concerning because
you don't know how much it's gonna affect you
and how long for.
Like, I knew it was the fiddleheads
that had made me feel sick.
It only really knocked me around for a day,
but I remember sitting there with a sat phone in my hand,
thinking, "Do I need to call someone?
Like how much have I poisoned myself right now?
Do I need some serious help right here
or do I just wait it out and hopefully it leaves my system?"
And thankfully it did and I was okay the next day.
But that was it for me.
I did not eat any more vegetation after that.
I was like, "It's protein or nothing." [laughs]
- Protein or nothing.
Tom, you looked like you were in real pain out there
and really feeling the cold.
Going in, how willing were you to put your body on the line?
Did you have some boundaries or end points?
- Oh, I mean I was willing to go
as hard as I possibly could.
I know I was talking, I said before going out there,
if I lose another one of my vestigial fingers,
I'd be okay with that because it'd be a great story.
But I also knew I had limits.
My partner and I, we decided that go as hard as you can,
but also you've gotta come home
and you've gotta take care of a family as well.
And that's really important to me.
- Ben, you pushed your body as far as you could.
How significant was the amount of weight you lost out there?
And also how did you kind of recover?
- Yeah, I lost about 25, 26 kilos while I was out there.
It was tricky, you know,
you get a lot weaker as you go along.
I mean, mentally and emotionally, I was feeling good,
but physically, I was so depleted, so weak,
but I recovered really quickly afterwards.
I was eating like I was eating for Australia
and I was putting on a kilo weight a day for over two weeks,
you know, every day, so a couple weeks later,
I'd put on 15K.
- Muzza, you stared down the challenge of gout out there.
You still wanted to push on.
Those scenes of you trying to kind of get shoes on
and the pain of that glassy feeling, just,
they were really hard to watch.
- Oh, come on.
Ow, ow, ow.
[Muzza groaning]
A big lump.
I'd rather a broken ankle than gout.
- How did you rate your chances of staying at that point?
- Look, it was scary getting gout,
because you know, I've had it that bad
where I can't even get outta bed.
When I got it and I thought, "Geez,"
you know, "How could I get it out here?"
But mentally I thought, "Yeah, well, you know,
I can crawl around in the mud for another month,
you know, if I have to."
It would've been incredibly horrible,
but yeah, I was ready for it.
- Wow.
That's incredible.
Well, thank you so much to you all
for putting your bodies on the line for us.
Being alone on the land is incredibly isolating.
And the only conversation is often just with the camera.
Unless you are Corinne.
Here are some magical moments
from our first ever "Alone" love story.
- It's a quoll.
Oh, did you go into my cabin?
We've got love/hate relationship.
Ha! Holy [bleep], there's Quentin.
He's everywhere.
Oh, [bleep] off, Quentin!
You better run. [contestants laughing]
I know that if he stops visiting me, I'll be worried.
That quoll kept me up.
Nothing sacred with him around.
So I slept well last night,
despite the midnight interruption from Quentin
coming in for a snuggle.
Like consent, Quentin, consent.
[contestants chuckling]
This experience would be a lot less
exciting, if it weren't for Quentin.
I think it's hilarious that he was
in my bed with me.
Quentin. [contestants laughing]
That's not how you get a girl.
- I love seeing Quentin pop into the back of your footage
and like there he is again.
Do you miss him? - Yes.
Yeah. Oh, he was great, yeah.
It was definitely a love hate thing.
Once my food was secured and he couldn't get at it,
he would still come and visit for scraps.
- Well, we didn't want you to be apart for too long,
so we have a very special guest here for you all tonight.
Please welcome to the studio Quentin, the quoll.
[contestants laughing]
There he is. He's sniffing about.
Do you feel emotional seeing him again?
- I don't think I realized how much I missed him
until he left.
It just made the place a little grayer.
He left around the times that the floods and the storms came
and all the animals left.
The wallabies, the birds, everything disappeared.
- Did anyone else wish they had a buddy like that?
Like someone keeping them company?
- I had a little Bayesian thrush
I saw every day, a little bird.
- Oh, how sweet.
- And I had a full relationship with it,
but I was definitely gonna eat it if I caught it.
- Oh, really?
Did you chat to it?
- I did. It'd be the first thing I'd see in the morning.
- Oh, I can relate with that.
I had one hoary-headed grebe
that was my best friend from the get go.
And yeah, I got really attached
to my little grebe out there as well.
- Corinne, you not only gave us our first
"Alone" love story, thank you so much,
you also lasted a phenomenal 70 days
and tapped out on your own terms.
You looked so content out there most of the time.
That was one of the things that struck me so much.
Like there could be all this stuff going on,
you're sitting there like meditating and chilling out
and you're so calm out there.
Was the experience as you expected?
- Yeah, it was much better than I expected.
Mentally and physically,
I felt really healthy and I looked healthier.
Like my hair was better than it has ever been in my life.
And my skin was clear and I couldn't understand it.
I guess I just went through this massive detox.
- And you also spoke a lot about not wanting
to be alone anymore
and the lifestyle that you'd been living
up until that experience
and also potentially rekindling something.
- So when I get home,
there are some unfinished conversations
that I need to have.
With those people that have offered to be sperm donors
and the person who
wants to be more than a sperm donor.
- Do you mind me asking how that went?
- Pretty good. [contestants laughing]
- You don't have to go into massive detail.
- Being out there offered a lot of clarity
and gives you a chance away from all the noise and pressures
and work stresses to just sit
and think about what's important in life
and what do you actually want?
And yeah, I came back, I was like, "Right,
this is where I'm at.
Where are you at?"
She's like, "Yeah, let's go for it."
- It's like a real love story.
You have one there and you've got one here.
That's great news. Congratulations, that's lovely.
Karla, you also had sort of similar epiphanies
when you were out there.
Can you relate to that idea of having that clarity
to make choices?
- Yeah, definitely.
It's not something I went out there
expecting to have a life changing moment.
You know, I was pretty content,
also I thought with my lifestyle,
but my job is really social
and then when I'm not at work,
I do keep to myself and I go camping and fishing
and just really have that alone time.
And it just really hit me of why do I do that so much?
Like I've had to make so many sacrifices
of not seeing family and friends
and relationships for such a long time for my career.
So it just really hit home of I don't wanna do that anymore.
And I've really stuck true to my word
and I've seen heaps more of my family
and caught up with lots of friends
and officially dating, which I haven't done for a long time.
So yeah, it's definitely brought my walls down
and my heart's open and yeah,
it certainly has changed my outlook on life.
- That's so lovely to hear.
Shay, going in, your biggest fear was your fast metabolism,
but you managed to keep yourself relatively well fed
by "Alone" standards, anyway.
You also bagged another series record
for the highest ever individual catch count.
Take a look at this.
- I'm gonna treat myself
and just dig out some little cheesy chips,
which is some sort of larvae.
I don't know what they are,
but I've been frying them up on my pot lid.
Like they would go so well with some salsa
or some guacamole.
What's on the menu today, you ask?
Wow.
Worms, pan fried.
Got some beautiful bat's wing, salted fiddleheads.
Salty, delicious, smoky trout.
We've also got all of these bracken roots.
The mountain pepper leaves.
Tree fern, fiddleheads,
lots of worms floating around in there.
I've got a bit of saw sedge
and some little grass bases in the pot there.
Check that out.
Does that look good or what? Look at that.
That will be basically everything off this thing,
except for the toenails and the claws.
The testicles. Oh, wow.
Pretty tender, actually.
The other part of the genital, plus some skin.
I'm not expecting this to taste great.
[contestants laughing]
- Okay, Shay, I am just gonna run through
the little list here.
You got 23 trout, 14 eels, two lots of white bait,
some freshwater shrimp, a whole bunch of grubs,
over a thousand earthworms,
countless cheesy fries you made.
And of course that patty melon.
No possums for the possum trapper.
How did that feel
and when did you kind of reconcile
that this mightn't happen?
- Yeah, it's not lost on me that it's kind of funny,
the possum trapper couldn't catch a possum.
And then I was kind of hoping, you know,
at least I'd be able to trap a wallaby.
But I just cocked that up repeatedly as well.
And then Corinne made me look bad as well, so..
[contestants laughing]
'Cause she made it look so easy.
- She did, and she's the one who was kind of
not really wanting to even kill a bug at the beginning, so..
You did redeem yourself massively.
You caught a pademelon,
and it actually seemed nearly too easy.
It's just a [indistinct].
It's done. - Yeah. I know.
I worked out early on that in the rain,
the wallabies and the pademelons were a lot easier
to sneak up on, because their ears got pinned down
and they weren't as alert.
But that one was pretty lucky, really.
It was stuck on the island with me.
So yeah, just grabbed it.
It was luck. Yeah, I got lucky there.
- Eva, Shay had some good luck there.
Your fishing hunting experience
was very different to Shay's.
Does it come down to skill or is some of it luck?
- I think it's absolutely both.
I think that every single location
is going to be different, as well.
But I was going out there every day fishing,
using different bait, different times of the day,
different locations on that lake.
And I didn't actually even see an eel or a fish.
- Yonke, you too?
- Yeah, I didn't catch anything.
And again, I tried, you know,
I tried leeches for a whole week.
I tried worms, I tried grubs, I tried many different places.
But it also comes down to skill
and the skill that Muzza and Shay have,
that innate hunting skill,
that observation that made them really fine tune everything
made me realize that in reality,
I don't have that kind of fishing skill.
- Ceilidh, you figured out how to do away with bait
and built this incredible trout trap.
Was that something that you'd had in mind?
- It wasn't.
I took, you know, fishing hooks and lines out, thinking,
you know, I'll do my normal, what I'm good at, go fishing
and caught nothing on the hooks.
I grew up in Bundaberg, so I kind of had a understanding
of how fish traps were made using rocks from, you know,
First Nation people.
So I thought, "Well, I'm gonna build a rock wall
and a funnel to see if these fish would swim back down
and get caught in this funnel."
And yeah, I didn't know if it would work or not,
but surprisingly it did.
- [Kumi] It was amazing to watch and to watch it work
and your excitement when you saw the fish in.
- I was really excited.
- Oh my God, this actually happened.
- Yeah.
I got a grand trout in my funnel!
Look!
[bleep] yes!
- I said to my family,
"There's no way she's gonna catch a fish with that."
And my wife made a bet with me if she does,
you're doing the dishes for a week.
And I did the dishes for a week.
[contestants laughing]
- Well, of course when you were out there,
you had to live somewhere.
When I think of building a shelter,
all I kind of want is something,
I dunno, that keeps the rain out
and I can go to sleep and,
but you guys took it to the next level.
Like seriously, you've set the bar super high.
We're talking about things like stone fireplaces,
alfresco dining, even a jetty.
Thanks, Muzzy.
You've kind of really put the bar high there.
Here are some of your constructions.
- Hello, friends.
Come with me as I take you through my
multimillion dollar mansion.
As you come in, there's your beautiful duck-feathered bed,
a beautiful wall there with plenty of sticks
poking out to hang things on.
It also comes with a built-in fireplace.
It doesn't work,
but for aesthetics, it's quite good.
[Muzza groaning]
- That is sensational, look at that.
Look, [indistinct].
This is even better than when we go camping at home.
We got a little bloody nest happening up here.
All over this camping [bleep], eh?
- But I'm thinking about basically making up a frame,
planting it in paperback, and going with that for a door.
Yeah!
- [Corinne] Yay!
Oh, wow.
That's pretty cool.
- I think I'll work inside the shelter today
and build a little tunnel to bring some air to my fireplace
and then put slate over the top.
Okay, there you go.
That's better, fire.
- All right.
Sort out this floor.
Liking this little cobblestone floor here.
Cool. It's looking good.
- I created a smoker. It's all sealed up on the inside.
This is gonna be a nice fire, nice dinner.
I think it'll be worth it.
- Let's start in the sunroom.
I can sit here and whittle.
The fireplace works when the wind's blowing
in the right direction.
Which is half the time.
So that's my shelter. And it does feel like home.
- This is my shelter.
As you can see, no door.
It's nice and cozy.
That's my bed, behind me there.
That's the start of it where you can see that blue tarp.
So that's probably the most unusual thing about my shelter
is that I have firewood above my bed.
The ultimate energy conserver.
- So here is my shelter.
And then I have a window,
and my beautiful little fireplace.
It's kept me toasty and warm.
And my stretcher that I made.
And the best of all is..
My chimney.
I really love living in my shack.
I'm so proud of what I built.
- Did anyone have shelter envy watching that?
- [Muzza] Karla wins it, hands down.
Like what an unbelievable thing.
- Thanks, Muzza.
I had no idea what I was doing. [laughs]
- Really?
- Yeah, I just knew that I wanted something solid,
that was gonna keep me warm.
I'm from tropical Australia.
I don't like the cold and that was gonna send me home
and I wanted something big enough that if it was raining
for days and days on end,
I wouldn't feel confined
and I could build things and do things inside there.
And it was my little safe space
that really felt like a home, so I loved it, yeah.
- Matt, you also had a fireplace in yours
and that was just for aesthetics.
Why?
- Well, I say aesthetics,
but it was more the fact that it worked,
but it was kind of like
you couldn't be in there when it was going.
[contestants laughing]
Just smoke yourself out.
- Shay, your coffin bed could not have been comfortable.
Why did you do that?
Like, weren't you claustrophobic?
- Oh, it was quite cozy, actually.
I was disappointed when I had to move,
'cause yeah, I had about two or three inches of reeds
underneath that, so it was actually quite well insulated.
So it did the trick.
It looked like a homeless shelter, but it did the trick.
[contestants laughing]
- Ben, we've not seen a paved floor before.
What made you come up with that idea? Why did you want that?
- Just the ground that was so wet.
Just the moisture was coming up from the ground.
So I thought, "Now if I put in my cobblestone floor,
at least hopefully the mud will stay below the cobblestones
and I will hopefully be kind of dry,"
and it largely worked, so that was good.
- Tom, did you have some sort of envy,
looking at that paved flooring?
- I was calling his Shrek's swamp.
- Oh, it was like Shrek's swamp.
I still think, though, if I had paving,
the mud would've swallowed it.
- Really? - Yeah.
- It was that bad. - Yeah.
It was up past me ankles in some spots, loved it.
[contestants laughing]
- Your shelters were all just amazing.
But we really saw them get tested to their limits
with those floods that really no one saw coming.
I remember watching it and feeling that sort of oppression
just through the screen, so I cannot imagine
what it was like living through it.
Here's what some of you went through.
[rain pouring]
- This is crazy.
- It's supposed to rain all night
and it's been raining all this morning.
The lake has come up a significant amount overnight.
Nearly 300 mil overnight.
- My sitting log is now floating.
- Look at that shelter over there, man.
That's our shelter.
And that is the water.
- [Muzza] So, I've gotta pack up and get outta here.
[gentle music]
- The lake rose by almost seven meters.
At what stage did you realize that this was actually
a pretty decent threat?
- Ah, yeah, when I could hear the waves
when I was sleeping, I knew it was a big threat.
When we first got there, the lake was so low,
and I thought I'd made a mistake camping
so far away from it,
'cause I had to walk to go fishing and everything.
And then it came in and I thought,
"Oh, I'm living in paradise now.
I've got a beach next to me and I'm catching fish."
And then it was like, "Oh, no.
Okay, it's just still coming," yeah.
- It felt quite apocalyptic.
- Did it? - Yeah.
It felt like- - Biblical.
- This is a joke. This is, we're really getting tested here.
Nature's throwing everything it can at us.
Yeah. - Muzza,
you moved your entire shelter in a day
and you replicated it exactly.
And this was at a late stage too,
in your adventure out there.
How taxing was moving that shelter
and rebuilding it exactly the same way?
- Yeah, it was a big day,
but yeah, I'd pre-planned it
and I've had a lot of people say, you know,
"Oh, why'd you build your first one below the waterline?"
Well, I had anticipated being flooded out from day one.
I just thought, "Well, I'm below waterline,
you're asking for it."
But I chose that if I got 30 to 50 days in that shelter,
I was happy to move.
But the lake went beyond 100%.
And I was at the point that I was thinking,
"Am I gonna have to do this a third time?"
- Wow. - You know, like
I could not believe I was meters
above the high watermark and it just kept coming
and I was looking, "Where am I gonna go next?"
And it was very limited to what I had left.
- Karla, you didn't know this, but days after you left,
our crew arrived at your site
to find your cabin completely flooded
and within the week it was basically underwater.
What is it like to see that?
- It's crazy like, and I very carefully looked at
where the waterline was and I was up on a little island
and it felt like it was gonna be safe there.
I definitely saw the waterline come off
a fair bit in my time, but that's wild.
That's so much water.
- Just have a go at that view.
Bloody beautiful, mate.
[upbeat music]
Come on.
The sun's out.
♪ I'm making a home on the river ♪
Sun's out, guns out.
♪ Building my shelter ♪
This is gill net 1.0. This is my first one.
I'm pretty stoked.
♪ I'm freezing ♪
Rat Trap 3000.
This is gonna be Possum Club 3000.
Come on, little fishy.
[Matt exclaiming]
White bait.
Fresh water shrimp, trap 2000.
- Now one participant who surprised us all
when he tapped out was Matt on day 16.
He stayed out there the longest
before a first tap in "Alone: Australia" history.
And he's now the second longest first tap in the world.
Matt, congratulations on that. That's incredible.
You looked like you were really thriving
on the survival front.
You're having a great time, you're catching food,
you've got this amazing shelter.
The land was connecting with you as well.
What happened for you?
- I was just trying to have as much fun with my experience
as I could and trying to keep a positive mindset,
because I knew family would come into a bit of play for me.
So I was just trying to keep myself distracted
and be as positive as I could.
Yeah, what changed was when I caught my first eel,
like knowing that I had that ability to get more food
and stay there longer,
and the thought of staying an extended time
away from the kids, it just rattled me
and then I was tossing it up
whether I should stay or go or whatever.
And yeah, when I made my decision to leave,
I was well and truly emotionally spent.
- It seemed like you were really wrestling with that.
- Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.
- Did it surprise you?
It surprises lots of people time and again
that that was the thing that really felt
that yearning inside that, "Actually, no,
I wanna be back home."
- Yeah, coming into it,
I came in with a pretty staunch opinion on myself
for not tapping out for that reason
and then for it to hit me the way it did,
it was pretty humbling to be honest.
And yeah, I'm grateful for that experience
to have shown me that that is my reason to go home.
And it's one of those things
that I don't think many people would ever understand
unless you've been in it yourself.
- Yonke, can you relate to that
sense of yearning for family?
- I can relate to it,
but I actually had the opposite experience,
which surprised me.
So I've got twin boys who are 17.
It suddenly hit me for 17 years
that I'd actually not had time to myself
because of the nature of my relationships.
And I was thoroughly enjoying myself,
to a degree that I actually felt guilty
that I wasn't thinking about my children
or missing them at all.
I need to wipe that. [laughs]
- I'm sure there's a lot of parents who might agree
with some of the things you've said, Yonke, so thank you.
These 10 participants were truly living in isolation,
completely alone.
But if you count all of the creepies and the crawlies
and all the things that go bump in the night,
it might make you wonder if they really felt alone.
- There's some sign of pademelons here.
So a spotted quoll just ran past my shelter.
- Oh, it is! It's a leech!
- There's a leech on my gum.
- What is that?
Ah, it's Tasi devil.
- [Muzza] It's a spider.
- There's a wallaby.
- There's a possum up there in that tree.
Delicious looking specimen.
- Look at that.
A crayfish.
- Oh my God.
Yellow tail black cockatoos.
- Holy [bleep]. There's a wombat.
Are wombats edible?
[Shay laughing]
- Hello. See them?
They're not termites, but they're something similar.
Protein's protein.
- Pretty sure it's a little potoroo.
So I might have a crack at making a trap and catch in that.
There you have it. My first ever wee little rat trap.
Yeah, that worked.
[Muzza laughing]
- I hadn't seen that. - Eva,
how was it sleeping at night,
knowing that there were all those other creatures out there?
- I've slept a hell of a long time in the bush
hearing animals around me, so that part was kind of cool,
but it wasn't until the bush rat
actually started interfering with my things
that it was like really unsettling
and I couldn't really sleep properly,
knowing there's a little critter hanging around,
messing with my stuff.
But it's actually really cool hearing animals out there
and not knowing really what's going on,
but just knowing that there's all this activity
in the nighttime happening around you,
it's actually a really cool experience.
- Ceilidh, you didn't wanna turn your cochlear on at times.
Was that a conscious decision to kind of block out
the noise for you?
- I think at nighttime,
I just wanted to like put my mind at peace
and not worry about the animals out there,
like the Tasi devil.
That's what I normally do at home.
I take my processor off,
and everything quiet so I'm completely deaf.
So I thought, "Well, I'll just go to sleep
and just hope that they don't come
and chew on my ear or anything like that."
- Well, you all lived with a lot of animals,
but you also caught quite a lot, too.
In fact, the catch count was so huge
we couldn't include them all in the series.
Here are some of your best and never before seen
catches of the season.
- What's in there? I don't know if you can see it.
It's a little fresh water shrimp. Check out the hat.
- I just caught me first eel, baby!
[bell dinging]
- My first fish. [bell dinging]
- I got an eel! [bell dinging]
- Oh, yes. [bell dinging]
- Oh, a little brown trout.
- I just got an eel.
- What a blessing.
- Thank you, Tasmania!
[suspenseful music] [twigs snapping]
- A bit nobody thought I was gonna catch a wallaby.
[bell dinging]
- That pole's moving.
Oh![indistinct]
The day's only just begun.
- Woo-hoo! I [bleep]ing got one!
- Trout number two for the day.
- [bleep]ing look at that.
- Another one! [bell dinging]
- [Muzza] Look at the size of that.
- We got another one.
- Check that out. - Dang.
- We have a trout. - Wow.
- How good is that?
[bell dinging] - Got it!
Here you go. Look at that eel.
- Yes!
- Another one.
[bell dinging]
Got it. - We bagged an eel.
[bell dinging] [Muzza exclaiming]
- Holy [bleep].
Look what we've got.
We've got a [bleep]ing pademelon, man.
I can't believe it.
- For context, in season one, the total catch count was 36,
season two was 14.
This season collectively,
you all caught 97 creatures.
Shay, you caught the most fish out of everyone
and you were going in there as the possum trapper.
How did you switch it up
and did you think you would catch that many fish?
- Nah, I'm pretty [bleep] at fishing, like at at home, yeah.
It's sort of a running joke that I just can't catch a trout.
So yeah, it surprised me. Yeah.
That I managed to somehow catch quite a few, yeah.
- And did you have a strategy
of how you were gonna catch them?
- Yeah, I tried lots of different things,
making flies and floats with sinkers and stuff
and found one way that worked, which was to have a long pole
with the end of the pole often touching the water
so when it was choppy,
the water would actually work the pole up and down
and make the worm move up and down.
And that seemed to be the only way
I could really catch them.
- Yonke and Eva, the two of you
worked really hard at fishing with no luck.
How hard was it to maintain patience as a faith
that something would come up at some point?
- It is really hard watching it all back.
Like I think part of me goes, "Did I not try hard enough?
Should I have stayed up longer?
Should I have observed more?"
- Yeah, I mean yes, but also we tried everything.
Like I had frog bait, I had worm bait,
I had every kind of little bug bait in different times.
And if an eel wasn't gonna eat a frog,
then I don't know like what's gonna catch an eel,
'cause they usually go for anything.
I catch eel all the time and it's easy as usually,
but not in this situation.
- Tom, you were so happy when you caught your first fish.
What does that first catch do
for your sense of gameplay
and how are you gonna do things going forwards?
- I won't forget that day.
It's pouring rain,
I was sitting out there for hours, freezing,
and I remember looking at the water
and I saw a fin go past and I thought I'm seeing stuff.
And then it was about 15 minutes waiting and I saw it again
and then I realized my line was taut.
The fish was wrapped around something,
and you pull it in and the wave of endorphins
that hit me from that was just phenomenal.
Oh, yeah. Woo!
I caught a [indistinct]!
That's why I think I could go 47 days on five fish,
'cause I just kept living for the next high.
- Corinne, your wallaby trap
was quite an unconventional one.
What was the inspiration for it?
- My wallaby nets actually started off as gill nets
and the idea was to not scoop them up or confine them,
but more just tangle them.
And I actually didn't think it would work,
but I had to do something and I guess it didn't really work,
because the wallaby just took off with the net
and yeah, had to go track it down.
- I mean, what was fascinating was going in,
you were really concerned about whether you could actually
kill an animal and take the life of an animal.
I found that just incredible to see that you could do it.
And I'm not gonna say easily,
but it's sort of like it's a matter of staying out here
or not, right?
Like do you feel like you're a hunter now?
Do you- - Oh no,
definitely not a hunter.
To be honest, it was just an adrenaline-filled blur.
- Shay, what are your thoughts on Corinne's method
of getting her wallaby?
I mean, you really were trying so hard to trap one
and you know, didn't have as many kind of kills
as you would've liked.
- Yeah. Oh, I thought it was genius.
Yeah, really cool.
It's something light you can carry around.
Where as my trap was big and stationary
and I kind of put all my eggs in that one basket.
So yeah, I thought it was an ingenious idea, yeah.
- Yeah, but your trap was such an incredible construction.
Like every time it didn't work I'm like, "No," you know.
- Yeah, I caught myself.
- [Muzza] Yeah, he caught himself.
[trap thudding]
- [bleep].
- So did Karla. [contestants laughing]
- Oh, that's closed.
Don't do that, Karla.
- I thought, how funny is this gonna be
if they have to tap out,
'cause they trapped themselves on their own trap.
[contestants laughing]
When it comes to the "Alone" experience,
the lack of food, waning energy, and physical exhaustion
is enough to break anyone.
But it's not just the physical game that can take its toll.
As the days turn into weeks and the weeks to months,
being alone on the land can also really take its toll
mentally.
- I'm having a hard day today.
[Tom groaning]
- This has been tough mentally.
Pick yourself up, Tom.
- [bleep]ing seeing this.
For God's sake.
I actually rather resent the cameras.
- I really do wanna be the last person.
- God, I miss [indistinct].
- I can't wait.
To see my family and have my little man running up to me.
I'm not crying, you are. [laughs]
- Yonke, camera frustrations
became a mental challenge for you.
What did you think the experience would be like
versus the reality of it?
- I thought I'd be able to move through the landscape
in a more free way, more intuitive way that I'm used to.
And the cameras, it really puts your head space
in a different realm.
You can't quite drop into that space.
It's just a different part of your brain you have to use.
And also, you know, dragging these cameras through,
the weaker you get,
you're still carrying quite a heavy camera.
- When you're truly out there trying to survive
and you're burning so much energy walking around,
trying to fish, building shelters,
whatever you're doing out there,
and then to have to constantly think about the cameras
and the angles and is the battery charged enough?
Or you'll be talking to the camera or doing something
and then you go, "I'll just go check the battery,"
and it's off.
You're like, "How long has it been off for?"
Like how much of that story is now missed?
And yeah, it definitely takes its toll.
- It took a while to get used to the camera.
I did resent it at first,
but once you get the hang of it,
once you kinda accept that it's now part of life,
it does become almost like company.
Something to talk to.
- For me, yeah, I don't talk a lot normally.
And so yeah,
having to talk through every little thing I did
and why I'm doing it and yeah, that's very unnatural for me.
So yeah, that took a bit of getting used to.
But after a while, it was almost like
I put myself through therapy out there,
'cause I was talking so much more than usual
and about like my feelings and why I'm feeling like this.
So that was interesting, yeah.
- It took me a while to to realize.
You know, talk, you know, express your thoughts.
And talk to the camera
And once I got, couldn't shut me up.
[contestants laughing]
- I think it's just extraordinary
what you guys have all done.
Like seriously and watching you navigate those highs
and lows is what draws us all into "Alone."
Another big reason is the bushcraft.
- I would love to do a bit of pottery out here.
Definitely not a mug.
It will be a bowl.
Ta-da, one bowl. I love it.
- Making a knife and fork.
What do you think of that?
And it's only a two-pronged fork.
- I found this most beautiful piece of wood.
I think it's gonna make a great cup,
if I can carve it out a little bit.
Look at this. How cool is that?
- I'm gonna see if I can tidy up this love heart
as a gift for Lauren.
[Ben imitating heart thumping]
Love you guys.
- You better come and have a look, see what I've made.
So that's the crow trap.
Put the bait down in the bottom here.
What happens is crow comes along and lands on here,
'cause he's seen the bait and he drops in,
because he's got to open his wings to come up,
but he won't fit out this hole.
Well, that's the theory.
Bird comes in, yanks the worm. Boom, comes down.
- Dakota fire's just a hole where your fire's gonna be
and then a smaller hole that you dig through the dirt,
leading to it so the air could come in.
Yes, come on, keep going.
Okay.
Success!
- Ah, toilet paper land.
Could be used as like a makeup sponge.
Insulation.
But this I found yesterday as blusher.
- I'm
booked in to get my facial at the bush salon.
Wow.
Oh my gosh.
That feels so,
so supple
- Now, it's not the biggest, it's not the best.
It's not the brightest gill net you've ever seen.
But this is gill net 1.0.
Hopefully, I'll bloody get something.
Look at this. It should work just fine.
[rock thudding]
- The original carbonated water.
You put charcoal
in your bottle of water,
shake it up,
and it bubbles away.
- I haven't had many projects lately.
Got me table and chairs and build a jetty.
[bleep]ing hell yeah, that'll do.
What's next? Taj Mahal.
- This is a low energy project, which gives me joy.
People who know music will appreciate how hard it is
to get tuning right on a piece of driftwood.
So I'm pretty proud of myself.
[strings strumming]
- And that guitar's in the room with us.
Corinne, it's incredible.
How long did it take to build?
- Oh, I have no idea. I dunno.
Just, I wasn't even sure what it was gonna be.
I just saw a piece of hue and pine
and thought, "I can't just leave it sitting there.
I can't burn it," so..
Yeah, it just started turning into a guitar
at some point.
- Muzza's just got this smile on his face.
I think he's just like, "What the hell?"
- It is unbelievable.
The first time I ever heard it,
I thought it was dubbed over, the sound of it
and you know.
God, what would that be worth on the market?
- That's incredible.
Did anyone else think of making a guitar?
- Not with zucchini fingers.
[contestants laughing]
- Well, you were all very busy out on the land
and I also promised you that there would be some surprises
and revelations in the last part of this show.
Corinne, during your time on the land,
you decided your one goal was to start a family of your own.
Do you still feel the same way?
- It was very healing,
and I needed that time alone,
to think about my priorities and what I wanted.
And I came out and I chatted with Mark
and I was like, "Just checking where you're at in life.
This is where I'm at."
And he said, "Yeah, let's do this."
So it's early days yet, but I'm 12 weeks along.
- You're 12 weeks pregnant.
[contestants applauding]
- She did get busy. [contestants laughing]
[contestants chattering]
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
And Mark is stoked and he's like, yeah,
we're excited about this journey together.
Ah, there he is. [laughs]
- Shay, not only did you win "Alone: Australia,"
but I believe you have some even bigger news for us as well.
- Yeah, so our team's getting a little bit bigger.
We've got another baby girl coming in July,
so only a month away.
- That's amazing. Congratulations.
The tribe is bigger.
- Somehow I managed to make a baby as soon as I got out, so.
[contestants laughing]
- Well, congratulations again, Shay,
for being the last one standing
in this incredible group of competitors.
I'm gonna miss you all very much.
Thanks so much for being part of my company
over the last 12 or so weeks.
You had an incredible 76 days on the land.
A huge congratulations to every single one of you and
thank you so much for putting it all on the line for us
and a big thanks to Australia
and the wonderful global community of fans
for being with us on this wild ride.
From day one to this very moment,
I'm Kumi Taguchi,
and we are officially tapping out.
[contestants applauding]
[gentle music]