Alone Australia star Corinne Ooms spent 70 days solo in the Tasmanian wildness

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

From the moment Corinne Ooms landed in the wilderness of Tasmania's West Coast Range, the landscape blew her away.
"As soon as I landed, I could tell it was going to be tough," she tells ABC Radio National's Soul Search.
"I could see from the ecology and from the rock formation that it was going to be a windswept, harsh, wet environment.
"But it was so, so quiet. Just the waves on the rocks and the occasional sounds of birds … It was so beautiful."
The 39-year-old wasn't sightseeing. She was a contestant on the popular reality TV show, Alone Australia, and was being tested to see how long she could survive entirely by herself.
The show sees 10 people dropped off into different areas of a remote and unforgiving landscape with limited equipment and no contact with the outside world.
This season, the setting was a rugged, mountainous region of lutruwita/Tasmania.
Contestants are required to film themselves enduring the challenges of their environment (and pass health checks) for as long as possible. The last person standing wins $250,000.
Though Ooms isn't a dyed-in-the-wool survivalist — she left her job as a food safety consultant to appear on the show — she withstood 70 days in the wild before "tapping out". She finished as second runner-up and was the last woman to leave the competition.
The experience changed her forever.
"Even now, I still have trouble articulating the connection I felt with myself and with the land," she says.
"The cameras do not and will not capture it. It was a beautiful place.
"I never considered myself a spiritual person, but … I can now relate to how people interpret spirituality."
Ooms was born in Glasgow but moved to the Scottish Highlands as a child.
An independent and outdoorsy only child, she learned foraging from her dad and describes herself as "a nine-year-old with an axe", playing in the rough, mountainous countryside.
Her adventurous spirit continued into adulthood, and she backpacked around the world before settling in Tasmania 12 years ago.
She says her decision to go on Alone Australia was motivated by self-exploration.
"How much do you know about yourself if you keep going through the same routines and don't push yourself out of your comfort zone?" she says.
But Ooms was very different from the experienced survivalists the show — and its US counterpart — usually attracts.
"I had not done something like this before; this was a brand new experience," she says.
"I hadn't spent more than five days on my own and probably 10 days out in the wilderness without a phone or technology, so I really didn't know what to expect."
She never assumed she'd get particularly far in the competition, even telling her clients she'd be back soon.
"I really didn't expect to last as long as I did — I thought I'd be out within a month," she says.
At first, Ooms found the demands of the environment — and the show — overwhelming. While she had experience with foraging and setting up camp outdoors, being completely self-reliant was a challenge.
"It's frantic when you're in a brand new place you've never been to and you've got to quickly build a shelter, keep yourself dry, keep your equipment safe from animals, figure out the landscape and where the best fishing might be, and look for tracks for potential animals to catch," she explains.
"And then on top of that, you're supposed to film X amount of hours per day and talk about what you're doing and just have this constant presence of the camera there."
She describes herself during her first month of survival as an "excited, chaotic mess", regularly injuring herself on rocks and her equipment.
"I was so clumsy because I wasn't connected with what was going on," she says.
"That changed over time — slowing down, being present, not being in this mad, hectic rush."
Gradually, she attuned her senses to her new home.
"You get to know very intimately the different trees and plants and streams and the landscape and the smells," she says.
"Because you're not bombarded with stimulation, your senses become heightened.
"You start to notice things you never noticed before, like the dew drops that form on a spider web with the light reflecting off it … When storms come, you can hear the birds change their tune and you can smell [it] coming."
In her darkest moments, Ooms was surprised by what she missed the most.
"I struggled with lack of people far more than I expected to," she recalls.
"The cravings for physical contact and emotional connection were just as strong, if not stronger, than [cravings for] food.
"There were so many times I thought, 'Oh, this is so cool, I wish I could share this with someone'."
Throughout her journey on the show, Ooms faced challenges from local critters.
Audiences watched her gripe at Quentin the quoll, "an unwanted visitor that kept crossing boundaries".
While contestants were banned from hunting quolls, Ooms had plenty of run-ins with Quentin, including inside her makeshift bed.
"I had to drive him out several times, but he did kind of become a friend that I ended up talking to and looking forward to his visits," she says.
"When the storms came, all the animals left, and he obviously went and followed the wallabies. It was really lonely not having his daily visits."
Her other struggle centred around her unwillingness to kill an animal for meat, which was put to the test when she trapped a wallaby.
"As someone who eats meat, it was something I always knew I should do … It was overdue, but a huge bridge to cross," she says.
Since then, Ooms says "something has switched in my brain", and she is now able to kill and process her chickens at home.
"It's still hard … But I'm glad I've got that struggle within me … it does give me respect for what it is I'm eating," she says.
That's something she encourages others to seek in their own lives, too.
"There are so many barriers to our connection with our food, and that's the most simple connection we can have," she says.
"It brings so much pleasure to eating, to know where our food comes from and how it's made and how it's grown, and to actually go and harvest that yourself."
Ooms puts her success as a survivalist down to her mindset.
"I went in without the intention of winning," she says.
"I just thought I'd make the most of it, have fun, learn about myself, have curiosity, just play in the forest. I think that definitely helped me stay out there."
Even when she was being battered by a "hectic" storm, Ooms says she "never once felt fear".
That sense of home made coming back to normal life challenging.
"Reintegrating was actually harder than being out there," Ooms says.
"It was overstimulating, even the flavour of food … The noises of traffic and even catching up with friends was just a bit too much."
But she did adjust back to her daily routine after a few months and even brought some elements of her Alone experience back with her.
"Being without a phone, without internet and social media, and emails and all that work stress felt so healthy. Coming back, I've cut down on all that," she says.
She's now starting a family, and hopes to raise her child to appreciate the simple joys of nature.
"I want that for my child, that ability to grow strong and healthy and competent with their hands and with their mind, comfortable in their own skin and confident in themselves," she says.
"I do think a connection with nature gives you a that, and having a caring, nurturing community around you as well.
"I've realised how happy I am with less. We don't need the comforts that we think we need."