Gina wins Alone Australia | TV Tonight

Rewilding facilitator Gina Chick has won the first season of Alone Australia, surviving 67 days in the Western Tasmania / lutruwita wilderness.

After enduring nature, hunger, and loneliness, the 52-year-old outlasted nine other participants to win $250,000.

She outlasted vet and bush regenerator Mike, at 64 days. In the final episode Gina’s best friend Lee surprised her on location, for an emotional reunion.

“Coming into this experience, I said the Gina who walked in would not be the Gina that walked out. I left more windswept, more grateful, more in love than I’ve ever been in my life,” said Gina.

“For me, it was never about winning the competition. My focus was on solving my needs every day. I’m not an expert survivalist, but what I’ve found is that I can let my instincts and the land teach me what I needed to know. I really wanted to show that there is a way of being at home in the wild. There’s a way of connecting with an ancestral way of being that isn’t about dominating nature, or about having all the bells and whistles and tricks. I want to thank the palawa for the tens of thousands of years they’ve lived in harmony with this country, leaving footprints for me to follow.”

Even a series about wilderness survival touch upon First Nations connections, dealing with PTSD and reflecting on the loss of a child.

For Gina, who always seemed at one with nature, loneliness was a major factor.

“My soft human skin needs other humans to survive,” she said.

Mike was medically extracted at Day 64 -his birthday- after constructing camp traps, a rod and net and having a run of bad luck capturing food. But low blood pressure saw him extracted by the medical team.

“I feel really disappointed. Winning was very important to me for many reasons. I wanted to bring the money home for our family,” he said. “But I could not have tried any harder.”

“I came so close on so many things,” he added.

“But that is survival. A lot of it is luck.”

Michael was third placed, tapping out on Day 30, with a lack of food and time away from his family became too much.

“I just want to go home to my family healthy, and know that emotionally, I am done. I need them,” he said.

Alone Australia has been a massive hit for SBS, with five episodes now surpassing the one million viewers in VOZ data.

Kathryn Fink SBS’s Director of Television said: “Well done to Gina on surviving months alone in such a harsh environment, while inspiring so many around the country. We laughed and cried following her incredible journey, as well as those of the other courageous participants. Alone Australia has really captured the public imagination. It’s not only SBS’s highest rating series to date in 2023, but also our most successful ever original commission, in terms of total consumption. More than half of the episodes have now had a Total TV audience of more than one million viewers, with much of that being driven by SBS On Demand. The hit series demonstrates the strong shift to the multiplatform on-demand world that television is increasingly moving to.

“This is such a unique, multi-faceted and compelling show, and in an era where the battle for capturing the attention of audiences with new formats is so fierce, SBS is incredibly proud of how Alone Australia is proving to be a standout new hit series for Australian audiences.”

ITV Studios Australia CEO and Managing Director David Mott said: “My congratulations to Gina and to all our wonderful cast. ITV Studios is thrilled to have created a series that has redefined what success looks like in this multi-platform world we live in. My thanks to our passionate production team, format owners A&E and the unwavering support of SBS.”

Alone Australia: The Reunion hosted by Amanda Keller is now available at SBS On Demand and screens tonight, Thursday 25 May at 7.30pm on SBS.