Alone Australia Recap – Soggy Already on Episodes 1 & 2

Tim curled up on the couch with a vino to assess the first two episodes of Alone Australia – and how he could totally do it better.

Ok it’s safe to say I never thought I’d be writing a ‘recap’ of ‘reality TV’ on We Are Explorers but here we are. I want to set a few things straight. 

Firstly, Alone isn’t like anything else on television, so if you’re a hater but you haven’t watched it, maybe do that first. Secondly, you guys clearly love it. The response from the WAE readers has outshone basically any other mainstream or pop culture thing we’ve ever talked about. It’s usually adventure films, new trails, and people running across the country for us.

And third, it’s bloody good. SBS has nailed the tone with a subtle, uniquely Aussie spin, but left most things alone. God I love the accents.

I’ve watched the first few eps and here’s what I reckon so far.

Spoiler Alert

If you haven’t watched the first two episodes, jump onto SBS OnDemand and do that now. It’s a recap baby, I’m going deep and dishing the dirt, and yes, there were some surprises.

Where are we?

Ok, the show appears to be set somewhere on the West Coast of lutruwita Tasmania. It’s a drowned forest of sorts, maybe the upper reaches of a dam? It looks muddy as all get out and there’s a snowy mountain nearby. A caption explains that it rains 250 days a year here and cold weather comes through from Antarctica. Nice.

Read more:Alone Australia: Where is Alone Australia Filmed?

Some kind of drowned forest?

Beck

I’m breaking it up roughly by contestant because how else would I do it? Maybe I’d parallel key themes? Sounds tricky – again, episode recaps are a new thing for us!

Seriously though, Beck is straight tripping. I know they edit the self-recorded footage to create more of a narrative but she is clearly rattled. She loses her flint a bunch of times (remember Season 1 where hot-contender Joe quit after losing his), freaks out about falling trees, the dark, about Tassie Devils coming to bite her. By the end of Ep 1 she’s playing with her Satellite Phone.

I’m a bit confused by Beck to be honest. Her shelter looks really solid for one day and she got a fire going, yet didn’t consider storing some dry wood or tinder once it started raining? She taps out on day 2 complaining that she hasn’t drunk any water, because she couldn’t get a fire going, but it’s still raining? Catch some from the tarp?

It’s sad to see her go, not only was she pretty funny, but she gave some great LGBTQIA+, First Nations, AND female representation, and I reckon she had more to give.

Beck heading home after one night, I reckon I’d rather get eaten by a Tassie Devil

Mike

On the flipside, we’ve got Outback Mike, everyone’s favourite for the win and he’s doing… yeah pretty much exactly what we expected. Mike hasn’t made a fire yet, he doesn’t see the need. He’s drinking rainwater out of his gumboot. Oh he’s pulling mayfly nymphs out of rotting wood to fish for trout? Jesus this guy is elite. Shelter is looking sturdy too after one day.

I saw a sneak peak of Mike’s sloppy rig in the credits when he took his top off. The dude ate 10,000 calories a day to gain weight before the show (it’s good to have some fat to burn) but can you imagine going from that to outright hunger? Granted, he’s done this before.

This is Alone AUSTRALIA mate. Shoey shoey shoey!

Read more: Outback Mike is Sailing a Dugout Canoe Through The Great Barrier Reef

Last I heard Mike was building a kayak to try and get some fish without snagging his fishing line. It’s smart, but a big play for day two, I wonder how much risk he’s willing to take on?

Rob

Ep 1 saw a pretty beautiful emotional moment with Rob as he acknowledged the palawa people as a Māori who hadn’t been to their land, speaking in his grandmother’s language. 

As things go on though he’s spending a lot of time looking at the photo of his family. And crying? His firewood is all wet as he didn’t put any under his shelter, which also didn’t cope super well with the overnight rain… but at least he has a heap of fresh drinking water… oh no he’s tapped out. At like 7am on day two? Duuude. That is disappointing.

SBS would be losing its mind over this moment, it’s a pity there won’t be more of them

Rob makes some points about how First Nations people wouldn’t stay somewhere like this going into winter, they’d move to country that’s less harsh. Which is like, a fair point, but how much less harsh does Tassie get? And this is a survival competition? Oh well.

Read more: 7 Questions With a Tassie Survivalist About Alone Australia

Kate

Dr Kate Grarock bestie helloooo where are you? I think in two eps I’ve only seen her get off the boat? I had a chat with Kate for the We Are Explorers podcast (ep live in two weeks!) so I’m pretty excited to see how she goes (#teamKate if we’re honest), but so far the show hasn’t touched on her at all. Maybe she just got on with things and didn’t film much, or maybe it’s a hint that she’ll be around far longer than the two we’ve already lost?

Jimmy

Ok I love Jimmy, what a cutie. Packing up in his bedroom you can see a big wooden sign on his dresser that says ‘James’. Naww. He’s a full on country boy and his energy is great.

Jimmy’s pretty young (22) to have a cough like that though. He’s kinda stumbling around and complaining about feeling pretty off, what sus food could he have eaten already?

Day 2 has him lying in his sleeping bag during the day, not good. Turns out he’s doing a RAT test which they all have with them annnd yep, he has Covid. He’s calling the med team for a checkup.

I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t have called the med team so quickly, maybe those are the rules. But they’ve assessed him and his heart is racing so he’s off the show. Three down! Mental. I feel like we barely met him and he must be spewing. Covid is the absolute GOAT of poor timing.

Chris

Chris is another army man (the other is Mike) and he’s pretty true blue and a bit of a crackup. He loves fishing which will be an asset here and he lives in Tasmania too.

He’s a bit rogue though, drinking water directly from the creek immediately seemed unnecessarily risky my dude. He’s made a little fishing rod but everything he does feels kind of rushed, very different to Mike. I’m not sure that’s a useful approach here. I’m keen to see how he goes.

Stingin’ to chuck a line in aye! – Chris, probably

Gina

Gina’s like your hippy aunt. She lives completely off grid, does heaps of rewilding work and is hilariously kooky. She’s super different to Mike but a lot of people are also tipping her for the win due to her experience.

She’s the only one to not bring a sleeping bag, which seems insane until you see the handmade possum fur coat she’s rocking. I think she knows exactly what she’s doing. She did spend a weird amount of time running around shoeless on some moss, but she still set up a quick shelter that seemed to work and that night filmed herself talking through everything she needed to think about.

Gina put on 19kg for the show, which is immense but shows her commitment to the long haul. On day 2 she’s begun work on a tripod based shelter. Is she building a house? Will she ever leave?

Gina pissing herself about being almost too fat to stand up was so pure

Peter

Did you know Peter eats meat? And is an alpha male? And a hunter? And eats meat? He’s walking around game trails with an axe like he’s just going to viking the shit out of some pademelon.

Thinking about food immediately draws parallels to Mike, and I reckon it’s the right call, but some cracks are showing early on. Peter got half of his gear soaked with a shelter malfunction and he couldn’t find his head torch for ages (we’ve all been there though).

Not sure why Peter was walking around in the rain without a raincoat on, but he did find a pademelon track so that’s promising (not for the pademelons)

Finally a bit of info on the rules around wildlife. Apparently you can trap possums and wallabies but must release any endangered species unharmed. No shooting or bludgeoning allowed, interesting.

I spotted this in the credits: 

Special exemptions from environmental and wildlife legislation have been provided by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania and the Inland Fisheries Service Tasmania to enable activities that would otherwise be illegal in Tasmania.

There ya go, you really can’t try this at home, or in the wilds of Tasmania.

Duane & Michael

I don’t think we’ve met these dudes yet? Maybe Michael praying? Are they ok? Did they forget to click record? We’ll have to wait for Ep 3, catchya there!

I’m keen to hear your thoughts so comment here or on socials, I’ll be lurking.