‘I was eating eel gills': How a Kiwi trapper conquered Alone Australia

The Age

2 days ago

Shay Williamson is the winner of the third season of Alone Australia. He stayed 76 days in the bush in south-western Tasmania, a new record for the Australian version of the show, and the sixth-longest across all versions (the record stands at 101 days in season seven of the American series).
The 30-year-old New Zealander, who spent his teens trapping possums in the wild for their fur and now works as a cattle farmer when not making bush survival videos for his Keeping It Wild channel on YouTube, beat Corinne Ooms, who tapped out after 70 days, and Murray 'Muzza' James, who lasted 73 days and at 63 was the oldest contestant on the Australian series yet. Williamson spoke with Karl Quinn the day after filming the reunion special for SBS.
First of all, Shay, let me just say congratulations.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, I feel pretty excited about it.
Well, you say that, but when your partner came out to greet you at the end you didn't give much away or say a lot. What was going on for you at that moment?
I was just a bit lost for words. I'm not a big talker anyway. I just wanted to give her a hug, really. It was a huge feeling of relief more than anything in that moment, that it all worked out and I got to go home. I wasn't desperate to go, though. I was going to stay until I couldn't any more, and I was working my way through 10-day blocks. At that point, I had food until day 80, and I was focusing on getting food until day 90, and then it would have been food until day 100. But I was missing the family more and more every day, so the sooner the better, in my mind.
When you first went in, you talked about 300 days as a target. I know towards the end you said that was only ever a motivational thing, but did you ever think you could actually stay out there that long?
I think if the food had stayed the way it was in those last couple of weeks I could have done it. I'd reached a point of being sustainable out there, which I didn't actually think I'd do. But things are changing all the time in nature, and there's no guarantee the food situation would have stayed as good as it was. So there's no way of knowing whether that would have happened or not.
What was the hardest thing – the physical conditions, the lack of food, or was it just missing the family?
It's hard to differentiate the physical and the mental because it's all kind of linked up. The physical conditions were really tough – like, they were pretty extreme, the worst weather I've ever encountered, and the toll that takes on your body as well. And the mental strain of living paycheck to paycheck food-wise for that long definitely knocks you around. It's hard to put my finger on what was harder, but missing the family and not knowing when I'd get to go home was probably the trickiest thing mentally to deal with because it was just an unknown, and I had to accept that it was out of my hands, basically.
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Has this experience changed the way you think about the bush, the environment, in any way?
Yeah, it's changed the way I think about humans and our connection. Before I had quite a practical view of our place in nature. Now, I've got a bit more of a spiritual one, almost. I think about the instinctual side of things a bit more now; I got more in tune with my instincts out there a couple of times.
I can't really explain why I knew certain things were going to happen, but they did, things like the lake water. I was worried about it rising a second time, and then one day I woke up and I just wasn't worried at all, and then the next day it went down a metre, and I knew that was going to happen. It was really weird.
Catching the all-important pademelon, that seems to have been a moment that was driven by instinct.
Yeah, and that was really strange, too, because that day I was eating eel gills, and normally they don't taste good, they're kind of bloody, but I was really liking them. And I said to the camera, 'It's almost like I'm craving iron'. And then that night I got this huge injection of red meat, almost like divine intervention. It was weird.
Are you a religious or spiritual guy, generally?
No, not at all. Not at all.
What does winning the $250,00 mean for you?
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It will just take the pressure off. It means we can get our family where we want it quicker, and prioritise what we value more, spending time with the family and not being stressed about money all the time. We've just bought a house with a mortgage in the Bay of Plenty [in New Zealand's North Island], so this will cut a huge part of the mortgage off. It's a massive gift to have that weight lifted.
What about the bush – have you seen enough of it for a while or are you keen to get back out there?
I'm chomping at the bit to get back out and take the family with me, ideally. I've probably got more motivation now to share the bush with the family. The kids are two and four and they already know quite a few edible plants, they know a couple of poisonous ones. It's pretty cool.
You've just filmed the reunion special with the other nine contestants. Doing this show is such an isolated experience, but you all had a version of that same experience; it must be special to be able to finally share it.
Yeah, it's been awesome to unpack it with the others, to talk about our experiences because we're the only ones that really understand it on the same wavelength because it's such a unique experience. It's been awesome to share with them and I think we'll all be keeping in touch and be friends for life.