Tara Ward talks to Shay Williamson, the first New Zealander to compete on the realest reality TV show on our screens.
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A new season of Alone – the global survival TV series that takes a group of intrepid individuals and leaves them to endure the wilderness – arrived on TVNZ+ this week, and this season, there’s a New Zealand connection. Shay Williamson, a possum trapper from Whakatane, is the first contestant from Aotearoa to appear on the international TV franchise. He’s one of 10 contestants (the rest are Australians) competing to survive the longest in a cold, wet Tasmanian winter, in the hope of winning $250,000.
Surviving Alone Australia isn’t easy. It’s an unforgiving test of resilience and endurance, as each participant is dropped individually into the west Tasmanian forest and left to build their own shelter, catch their own food and survive extreme conditions for as long as possible. As a longtime fan of the show, Williamson had previously applied to compete on the US version, believing the skills he picked up during years of hunting and trapping would be perfect for a long stint in the wilderness. When Alone Australia came along, he jumped at the chance to be involved.
For Williamson, the bush feels like home, and he’s not phased by the show’s enforced isolation and solitude. “I’m a fairly awkward person socially. I go to town and feel stressed. I hate walking through crowds,” he explains in the show’s first episode.
Williamson prepared for the show by putting on an extra 25 kilograms in weight, which he hoped would sustain him if he was unable to find any food. “I’m really skinny normally, and I was super busy working leading up to it,” he told The Spinoff. “So it was just eating pies and just trying to put weight on as quickly as I could.” And while some Alone participants only last a few hours away from modern comforts, Williamson set himself the lofty target of remaining in Tasmania for an astonishing 300 days. “I figured if I had a big goal, I wouldn’t be counting down the days. I’d just be out there trying to live.”
There’s no doubt Williamson knows what he’s doing on Alone. In the first two episodes of the new season, we watch him build an ingenious pulley system to trap animals and see his impressive understanding of how animals behave in the wild. But even with his extensive expertise and knowledge, Williamson initially struggled to find food. The show’s trailer shows him whipping up a feast of fried worms – a choice of cuisine that might make some viewers’ stomachs turn, but Williamson reckons the wriggly critters are an underrated food source.
“They’re 60% protein and 14% fat, and have quite a lot of good stuff in them,” he says. “You’ve got to be willing to eat what’s available, because you just don’t know what’s going to be there. You’re not necessarily going to be able to get a nice T-bone steak.”
Williamson caught every second of worm-related drama on camera, as Alone Australia contestants are responsible for filming every moment of their day. He reveals that managing 75 kilos of camera gear was one of his biggest challenges, particularly during his ongoing search for food. “If you’re trying to sneak up on an animal, you’ve got three cameras you have to move around and you’ve got to talk to them as you’re doing it. It made everything twice as hard.”
As the days passed and the isolation kicked in, Williamson found himself talking to the camera as if it was a real person. He was also surprised by how cold the winter was in Tasmania, and hadn’t expected to miss his young family as much as he did. “I’ve spent months in the bush by myself before alone, but never since I’ve had a family. That was definitely the hardest part, being away from the kids.”
And while we don’t know yet whether Williamson achieved his goal of staying in the Tasmanian wilderness for 300 arduous days, he admits his time on the series provided plenty of opportunity to reflect on his life. It also made him “obsessed” with food, describing every meal on his eventual return to Aotearoa as “a new experience”. Alone Australia promises to be an unpredictable ride, and Williamson admits his experience changed him in a variety of unexpected ways.
“I definitely have a greater appreciation for everyday things, just being around the family – and having food to eat all the time.”
