First Kiwi to take out Alone — 76 days, 1100 worms, 25% less body weight
On a pouring night, days since his last meal, Shay Williamson stepped out of his tarpaulin teepee somewhere in the Tasmanian wilds, and caught a pademelon – a small, wallaby-like marsupial – with his bare hands.
It would have been unbelievable if he didn't capture the entire thing on camera, as part of his winning turn on the third season of hit reality survival show Alone Australia.
The Bay of Plenty possum-trapper and outdoor YouTuber, 30, toughed out the Tasmanian winter for 76 days to become the first Kiwi to win any season in the Alone franchise.
In Alone, 10 contestants are dropped in remote wilderness, dozens of kilometres away from each other, with a handful of essential items.
There are no film crews; instead, competitors also have 70kg of camera gear with them to self-document their experience.
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Unlike most reality shows, the only challenge is to survive as long as possible, and the only way contestants are eliminated is if they choose to 'tap out', or are deemed unfit to carry on during periodic medical checks.
The last person remaining wins a cash prize of AU$250,000 (about NZ$270,000) – and a boat ride back to civilisation.
Williamson went in thinking his trapping skills would be one of his strengths.
But contestants have to live-trap their prey to avoid killing protected species, and none of the elaborate traps Williamson constructed in the early weeks worked (except for a notable moment when he managed to catch himself).
In the end, he caught the pademelon using a method that had worked for him since he was a kid.
'They're a lot easier to sneak up on when it's raining… because their ears are pinned down and they're a lot less alert. I used to catch rabbits like that back home when I was a kid on rainy nights,' he said.
Shay caught a pademelon in the final days of Alone Australia season 3. (Source: SBS News)
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'And so that's what I did – I just went outside and it was out there and it pretty much just walked right up to me and I reached out and grabbed it.'
In other seasons of Alone, catching large prey would have been a game-changer.
But by the time he caught the pademelon, Williamson had already survived for 67 days, equalling the previous record set on the Australian franchise by season one winner Gina Chick.
He tried to trap and fish from day one, but for the first three weeks his diet consisted of something much less appetising: worms.
'You're pretty desperate for food right from the get go – well, I was,' he said.
'I was just going to eat whatever I could find and I knew it wouldn't necessarily be what you want to be eating – but if it's food, it's food, and you kind of have to have that approach out there.
'You're not necessarily gonna find the romantic sort of survival food that everyone thinks about – worms might be the only option. So that's what I had at the time, so I ate as many as I could find.'
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The West Coast Ranges of Tasmania experienced near-record rainfall while the season was underway last winter, forcing Williamson and several other remaining contestants to relocate their shelters six weeks into filming as the lake they were bordering rose and rose.
The rain and lake levels were depicted as a constant threat, but for Williamson it proved to be an advantage.
'I was fishing from the first day, but I just didn't have any luck for those first three weeks,' he said.
'Once the lake started to rise, it brought a heap of fish to my area.
'The rainy nights were actually the best fishing for me, just because the lake would be rising and there'd be more worms on the edge of the lake so there'd be fish feeding on them at night.
'The more terrible the weather, I'd be out in it.'
Williamson ended up catching 23 fish, 14 eels and over 1000 worms during his 11 weeks in isolation.
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Apart from the constant challenge of feeding himself - he lost about 25 percent of his body weight – the hardest part of Alone was missing his young family back in New Zealand.
Williamson and his partner Abby have two daughters, 4 and 2, 'and another one on the way'.
'I thought about just normal tasks back home like taking the kids somewhere for the day, or having fish and chips on the beach. When I was out there sitting in my little teepee that sounded like paradise.'
He often addressed the camera as 'we' or 'team' – something that 'just sort of happened naturally'.
Bay of Plenty possum-trapper and outdoor YouTuber Shay Williamson. (Source: SBS Australia)
'I was trying to use the family as motivation when I was out there and that was my reason for staying, I guess, when things weren't going too well,' he said.
'So I was just basically pretending like I was talking to the family when I was talking to the camera. I don't know if it was a real conscious decision.'
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On the show, Williamson also talked about the bedtime story he would tell his oldest daughter when he returned, in her favourite structure: a member of the family being in some kind of trouble, before another family member arrived to save the day.
It was partner Abby who 'saved' him: sneaking up to tap him on the shoulder to let him know he was the last person remaining.
Now the show has aired, his daughter has been able to watch what her dad got up to.
'She seems to think that's pretty cool. She talks a lot about living in the bush now and her little tree house in the bush and stuff like that.'
As for the prize money, that will go towards paying off the mortgage, 'which is a massive weight off the shoulders'.
'I won't be splashing out on a brand-new ute or anything.'
In the meantime, life has largely returned to normal: the days are a mix of family life, trapping and filming for his YouTube channel, Keeping it Wild.
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While the prize money was a big motivator, Williamson said his main reason for wanting to go on Alone was to put a lifetime of bushcraft and outdoor skills to the test.
'I've been obsessed with that since I was a kid, so I guess it was validation,' he said.
'It was an opportunity, I guess, to see if all that time in the bush mucking around, doing weird stuff, actually paid off in the end.'
Alone Australia is streaming on TVNZ+
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