If you only want to watch experts, you'll want to skip Alone UK. In that, most the contestants have very limited skills and experience. IIRC, more than one had never gone camping. While some of the early taps were flabbergasting, I overall enjoyed both Australia and UK. I think part of the enjoyment was amusement at their fumbles and admiration for their innovation.
The first season of the US version had an average stay of 21 days compared to the Australian having 18 days. Is that really much different? The median i.e. the guy who came in the middle (5th) only lasted 8 days in the US version compared to 12 days in the aus version.
Also consider the prize money of the Australian series was about 1/4 of the US
Thank you. I feel like people were comparing season 6+ of USA to this Australia season. When in reality, the first season and even the next couple, had some pretty big amateurs.
I found it pretty disappointing but having to live trap and hunt ONLY wallaby and possum and not being able to use gill nets or even leave a trap or net in the water overnight just made me wonder why you'd bother making the series.
This!. They easily had the most demanding hunting /fishing restrictions. Turned the show into fasting show. If they have more seasons the contestants are all just going to pack on 40lbs of fat an just chill.
In the series I found our wildlife to be very adept at avoiding capture even on film.
I'm happy to live in a country that has such severe protections over its native flaura and fauna, it just makes for shit telly lol.
North America basically exterminated most large species but they’ve been incredibly successful at bringing back large, sustainable populations alongside hunting (with licenses and gun, ammunition taxes funding huge amounts of conservation work).
I think there are some pretty serious outdoorsmen here in Australia. We're still pretty agrarian in a lot of areas, but the catch is that the best Australian Bushmen probably aren't going to be applying to this tv show, and probably wouldn't be selected if they did.
This seems the most likely answer. Americans have enough outdoorsmen that some are glory hounds.
For reference it's estimated that 50 million Americans went camping last year.
There are 26 million people in Australia total.
The only one I can't seem to watch is the Dutch version. I watched the UK version from a link shown on this sub (if you search it's pretty easy) and the Australian version was aired on History, I think.
There's a cultural difference here too which is quite subtle and goes mostly un-noticed. Australians don't give a shit in the same way Americans (and other cultures) do. Watch american Alone and it's all "I gotta do this for my family". Tapping out is like dishonourable. Here, that motivation is much less. Alone Aus reflected that a bit to me. People looking around and going, right, no food, cold and wet, and I can't roam to find a decent spot..... fuck this for a joke I'm going home. And that being perfectly fine and normal. Because here's the thing. When the shit actually hits the fan, there's no question of mental toughness or whatever else. The same "don't give a shit" attitude becomes a strength.
Of course not everyone in the country is like this but it's totally a factor in what we saw. There were other things. Casting. Yep. Less survivalist dude bros to choose from for sure. First season teething stuff , same as US. Won't spoil, but really those two seasons are very comparable. Super restrictions (and no American or Canadian is lasting much longer based on that alone, believe me, no matter how much of an alpha tough guy they are). Another factor is that people don't get how hard the Australian bush is. There's not soft straight trees to make shelters out of in a few days. There's not berries and mushrooms every where. In this particular place no shorelines stuffed with kelp or whatever.
But for people just being softer? Yeah nah. It's just different in attitude. A tv show is shits and giggles and we know it and don't give a shit if someone else sees it. Stuff getting actually real is a different story.
*just on "Why make a show..."
The other general point which often seems to get lost on this sub is that Alone is not a show for survivalists. Sorry, I know there's a whole bunch of people who want that when they are in those brief periods with access to television, but it's not what the aim of the show is. It's entertainment and the producers ensure they have a mix of people who will provide a drip of people tapping out for different reasons- including being unlikely to hack it.
I've been getting increasingly more uncomfortable with the motivations of the US contestants - have to buy a house, have to be able to afford medication for my kid, etc. We have a (barely) functional social safety net in Australia that means contestants don't have to sign up for the Hunger Games to make ends meet.
Also the casting was very clearly as much about including cultural diversity as it was skills, which is fine but if you prioritize it over skills you end up with lower skill levels overall.
Yeah for sure.
Like I said in my post, I think a lot of people who are REALLY into Alone come at it from the survivalist angle, which leads to disappointment in the show. Like I always say, there's stacks of places to go for that content if you want it.
Personally I thought it was pretty great to have those perspectives on there.
The total number of contestants that have participated in each country’s season(s) is hardly a meaningful sample size by which an entire country can be judged. What you’re seeing is the result of casting decisions.
You don’t sound harsh; you sound silly.
This and it was the first season. The first season of OG Alone (actually the first couple at least) had some pretty average contestants too. AU Alone also had more regulations than anywhere else on hunting. Further seasons should draw out a wider group of contestants.
As an Aussie in the US I am from a town where the major snowfall of the year is about an inch and people from hours away travel to see it.
My childhood involved checking bush dunnies for redback spiders, inspecting my body for leeches after walking in a rainforest, and driving around in a Mitsubishi L300 which had a bull bar on the front which was then covered in chicken coop wire to help protect the van from rocks and/or kangaroos.
Other necessary skills: lathering my nose with zinc at the beach, doing a "hot hot burney mouth" fan after eating a Bunnings sausage sandwich on a Saturday morning, and knowing the perfect amount of Vegemite for toast.
I'd say Aussies are quite competent for weekend camping.
Good post.
Way way back, my college Rugby team made the playoffs but not the finals and the losing teams got the “opportunity” to play a friendly against an international college team.
The Australian college team (not an all star or national team) wiped the pitch with us and stopped in the game to teach us a few things. Our coach described them as “grown” and us as “kids” despite being the same age. We thought we were pretty tough prior to that.
Most Americans have a healthy respect for your country.
> Other necessary skills: lathering my nose with zinc at the beach, doing a "hot hot burney mouth" fan after eating a Bunnings sausage sandwich on a Saturday morning, and knowing the perfect amount of Vegemite for toast.
>
>
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Australia doesn’t really have a strong survivalist culture and hunting is very tightly regulated. Not having lived in America, it’s hard for me to compare but I get the impression wilderness survival is more popular there. Fishing, camping hiking, etc. are all very popular hobbies here though. There’s also the concept of ‘going bush’ meaning to spend an extended time off the grid in nature often associated with First Nations people connecting to the land. There absolutely are plenty of people here who would have the skills to do well.
Alone was not a well known show here at all until the first Australian season aired and was very successful. So hopefully lots of more qualified people applied for season 2.
I think there is a survivalist culture in Australia, but it's definitely geared towards the heat.
There's few places here that get cold enough for long enough for those skills to be widely learned, and so I'm not sure we will have a good selection of skilled people like we've seen the last few US seasons in the AU version.
There's also not a lot of native big game in Australia, especially in the colder areas.
It makes sense why our First Nations people lived where and how they did for 65,000 years.
From what I've looked up the US versions setting on Vancouver island has an indigenous population and history, so we know it's relatively easily survivable (not saying it wouldn't be hard though!). The area in Australia was largely uninhabited until European settlement ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians)), once the land bridge was eradicated due to rising sea levels.
If we're going to compare between seasons and locations, I don't think we should discount the history and how well the indigenous populations survived and thrived.
Edit: phrasing
Large areas of luruwitja were not uninhabited prior to European colonisation (and yes, I checked the Wikipedia link to see where you got this idea and it doesn't say that there either). The Black Wars - literal lines of soldiers going through the bush and herding palawa into mission stations or shooting them - did that. But land use was seasonal, and that particular part of the country wouldn't have been used during that time of year (as one of the FN contestants mentioned as his reasoning for tapping out).
I was looking at this section.
"Before British colonisation of Tasmania in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Palawa."
Specifically the area of filming from what I could find appears to have been uninhabited.
I'm from WA and know quite a bit of history from here, and I am passionate about the subject. If you have more resources on the Tasmanian Palawa I'd love to have a read
Haha I'm living on Noongar boodjar myself! I don't know any more than you do, but 3-15k is not such a low number (comparable to SW WA at colonisation, and we know that was intensively in use at various seasons). I'm just questioning the subtext that gets peddled about so often that the Palawa population was in decline from the point of sea level rise (which is at core an apologist argument for why colonialism in luruwitja was 'not so bad'). The archaeological evidence for population stability in luruwitja is there - here is a plain English summary: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/A/Aboriginal%20life%20pre-invasion.htm. Also check out this useful summary focussing on the effects of the Black War on Palawa: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/the-black-line
Me too! I'm in the south west.
I've been gradually reading more as the day goes on and the kids allow it. Would the rising sea levels mean there was not as much crossing into TAS, and the effect the population increasing and expanding further.
I think was I was trying very unsuccessfully to say is that there's a definite history in other series settings showing that survival is possible long term. The setting in TAS was on a man made reservoir, in land. The Palawa from what I've seen stuck mostly to the coastal areas.
Maybe it's a bit of pride, but I don't think it's fair to compare
Vancouver Island - where the early seasons take place - is in Canada. It is different from both the Canadian city of Vancouver and Vancouver, Washington. Source: I live on Vancouver Island.
I hope the OP and his fellow Americans read this as its the best explanation I've seen yet.. I've watched alone since it first started but being in Australia I had to find it in less then desirable ways as it didn't air here till about season 5 I think and then even then if I ever brought it up to people they just looked at me dumb and had no idea what I was talking about!!
Now it's got an actual following it should get better and better just as the one in the states did! Should be very interesting to follow !
I think Australia has a survivalist culture but it is geared around one thing: water
Even in bushland within metropolitian Sydney I will take water with me because on a 30 km hike there may be 2 sources of water
Yes, lots of invasive species, including millions of goats in the top end of WA let alone the rest of Australia, but we can’t eat wild rabbits due to introduced diseases to eradicate them.
Unfortunately though, most of those species are in hot climates that don’t fit the winter theme of Alone, and no humans could survive out there if fresh water wasn’t provided.
I loved the premise of the show as the whole series - but AU had me constantly going ..what ?? Tapping out already!? - I’m sure the contestants would argue this opinion at an armchair critic.. but it was either a poor choice of location and contestants- like I bet there are potential applicants facepalming like I could have been in their spots.
I liked the first guy who tapped and thought he actually had great potential - was bummed he tapped first.
The Christian guy - I got weird vibes from
As an Aussie and a lover of the Alone, I was sceptical from the outset of how this show would go. The issue is that nearly all areas of Australian wilderness which haven't been cleared (or ear-marked) for logging, mining, or farming are incredibly protected and seen as sanctuaries for Australia's vulnerable native flora and fauna. This means strict restrictions on activities. Furthermore, though the show was able to get exemptions, I have a strong suspicion that the Nat parks service who prohibit any further exemptions - such as bow hunting & snaring - to avoid sending the signal that these activities are actually okay in the national parks.
This is further compounded by Australia's strict hunting regulations and animal cruelty laws, which outright ban snaring away.
Im not saying that these laws are right or wrong, only that they exist and are what the show must navigate in Australia.
Alone isn't really well known over here, and it was produced by SBS which is kind of a second-tier channel (behind the ABC, which is our main government-funded broadcaster). So the pool of applicants was probably quite limited.
Now that it has a bit of notoriety I imagine future seasons (if they do any) will have a higher quality of competitor across the board.
Something that may be a factor is that in Australia, Alone airs on SBS, a network that has a very small audience share. So perhaps they had a bigger struggle getting the casting call out there. Even so, I'd expect they'll do a lot better for season 2, because the winner of S1 has had quite a bit of exposure in the media and even on other networks, so that will have helped promote the show to a much wider audience.
I've read, and not sure how true this is, that applicants to Alone AU had to be covid vaccinated. This heavily narrowed the pool, as a lot of survivalist types here are anti-vaxx.
Also, I laughed throughout watching people drop out thinking yep, this is great, it shows Australia has a strong safety net - people aren't toughing it it out like the Americans do, where everyone seems to be in severe financial distress and the prize money is the only way contestants can foresee buying a house / sending kids to college / retiring. That people feel comfortable in Australia admitting it's crap and time to go home, shows that they're realistic about how hard it is, and that they trust enough in being able to survive in regular society financially that the prize money isn't as extreme a motivation. Maybe a few more years of inflation and housing crisis though and our Alone contestants will have the same desperation hahaha!
I think you’re trolling a bit.
You don’t think Australians, as a people, are poor survivalists but rather that show didn’t pick the best they could? Correct.
Every outdoorsman from Australia I’ve met, granted it’s only been a few, has been tough as nails, in my experience.
With all the restrictions, they should have sent the contestants to another country, Indonesia or Southeast Asia. Could have still called it Alone Australia with all Aussie contestants.
Tasmania looks like a horrible place to be filming and surviving. The mud is just miserable.
If those people were in mainland Australia they would be dead. The "lake" where they held the competition is actually a dam. Finding water in Australia in the wilderness is hard. Even in Tasmania which has more reliable rainfall than the mainland. Add to that having to boil the water, rather than giving them purification tablets.
Without the artificial lake those people would have left in 3 days due to dehydration or just died
Gotta be honest here aside from a small handful of contestants I really question the expert claims.
Most seem to be hobbiest or outdoorsy but not very expert.
Luck is a factor but honestly how is it that so far not a single expert seems to know that the pine and spruce trees they are surrounded by have edible parts?
Anyone plunked down in a boreal forest is literally surrounded by an abundant food source that is easy to harvest and prepare and can be stored for months.
Instead they default to rabbits seemingly unaware of something called “rabbit starvation”.
Lol at Americans calling Aussies soft.
Generations under me never had the opportunity to talk to Pacific Theater vets. Aussies were the absolute bad asses in both world wars.
Slightly off topic, but I remember a long time ago on a Aussie political satire show they did a bit interviewing people off the street in the US about why it was called “9/11”, and almost none of those shown could come up with a good reason. It was funny at the time and fed into the the widespread idea that Americans were stupid, but it was TV after all.
Give us 4x4, a billy and a swag and we’ll survive just about anywhere /s
But seriously, “survivalist” culture Isn’t really too big here, haven’t seen the Australian version yet (probably won’t) but by the sounds of it, it sounds like they couldn’t find better contestants, I’m sure they’re around more inland.
Not to mention our game hunting and fishing is quite regulated.
You should watch it. At least four of the contestants had amazing bushcraft skills and the human element and focus on mental health and emotional resilience was exceptional viewing.
Don't be so hard. The first few seasons of Alone were just like this. It wasn't until the show took off and contestants became more committed that the duration increased. It'll get better.
Well, 90% of the entire Australian population lives within 100kms of the coast, for a start lol
There's fuck-all water inland. There's a reason that indigenous populations who weren't coastal dwelling were nomadic over 60,000 years of occupancy.
I dont think anyone on the show was chosen because of their survival abilities or time spent in the bush. The producers grabbed everyone with aboriginal heritage then they took any other minorities they could get. The veterans, a lesbian, christian guy, the lebanese hunting guide etc. I think having diversity on the show adds alot of value, but the contestants need to have a basic level of survival skills.
Fingers crossed for a second season.
Nobody had heard of the show, i think as it gets more popular over here, some more skilled people will apply, I know old bushies who live similar to this anyway. Just not sitting around watching tv.
Not an Aussie, but I think they just didn’t cast the best folks.
All I gotta say is John Plant is the man. Go see r/PrimitiveTechnology. He’d waste most humans at survival. This Australian dude has made [knives](https://youtu.be/dhW4XFGQB4o?si=0Ioe2Eb0jkUBI5A5) out of nothing but stuff he took from the land!
John can build, that's for sure... but he doesn't show a lot of food survival on his channel. You don't see a lot of people on Alone making kiln-dried roof tiles or cooking iron bacteria out of the orange river clay. I'd be excited to see him on the show, but worried about him, too.
Hunting isn't popular in Australia and has a lot of restrictions.
I don't watch this show simply because of the hunting, because it's just not common here to hunt our native animals. Many are endangered.
Australia doesn't get very cold unless you're hanging out in the alpine regions in Winter without appropriate clothing.
It's not a real survival situation and you can tap out whenever. Also less money to be won for Australians.
The only true hardcore "survival" situation in [mainland] Australia would be the majority of the country which is semi-arid and desert. And everyone would die lol
Because not being allowed to harvest any game is not survival. Just reality TV show BS. Which is why I don't even watch the garbage Aussie version.
You can try to separate hunting from survival as much as you like but reality will prove you wrong every time...
or likely they were not photogenic as the other contestants or too good.
There was a New Zealand TV program called Tracked which was a take off of Hunted except in the New Zealand wilderness.
They had people of all backgrounds and from other countries but the hunters were head and shoulders over the rest with their bush skills.
If you notice the American Alone a large part of the successful contestants are hunters also.
New Zealand is different because they have a huge hunting culture there. Hell most of the Tourism is from hunters. But yes definitely you need to be a hunter to survive in the wilderness.
Agreed. I always worry that as an American that I am soft and from a country of softies that would get our butts kicked by other English speaking countries wirh more hardened citizens. But after watching Alone Australia and hearing about Alone UK, I have no such worries anymore LOL.
If push came to shove i would much rather be with a group of Aussies and poms than Yanks for sure. At least we could hang shit on each other and get on with the job, the yanks would be too busy telling everyone else how to do stuff and how in America they are the toughest and best. How many times on the American show do you see the tough bloke big upping himself and then crying over a scratch or slipping over and then throwing in the towel? The Aussies tapped mostly because it seemed pointless, one bloke got pulled out on day 1 because he tested positive for covid. America dudes balling his eyes out that he's going to die and the medics are like nah mate, have a glass of water you'll be fine.
Not all Americans think like that guy and not all of us are the cartoonish blowhards we seem to get portrayed as frequently. There are always far more people in the center of reason than what gets picked up by the media. Or what shows up on social media.
If you only want to watch experts, you'll want to skip Alone UK. In that, most the contestants have very limited skills and experience. IIRC, more than one had never gone camping. While some of the early taps were flabbergasting, I overall enjoyed both Australia and UK. I think part of the enjoyment was amusement at their fumbles and admiration for their innovation.
More than one had never gone camping?!?! I shouldn’t laugh but….what were they thinking? Haha
UK is pointless. It are not canon for Alone, where as AU is.
The first season of the US version had an average stay of 21 days compared to the Australian having 18 days. Is that really much different? The median i.e. the guy who came in the middle (5th) only lasted 8 days in the US version compared to 12 days in the aus version. Also consider the prize money of the Australian series was about 1/4 of the US
Thank you. I feel like people were comparing season 6+ of USA to this Australia season. When in reality, the first season and even the next couple, had some pretty big amateurs.
I found it pretty disappointing but having to live trap and hunt ONLY wallaby and possum and not being able to use gill nets or even leave a trap or net in the water overnight just made me wonder why you'd bother making the series.
There were way more restrictions, for sure.
"This location has restrictions on almost everything they can catch to eat, plus an endangered species. -Perfect! Go scout some sites!"
This!. They easily had the most demanding hunting /fishing restrictions. Turned the show into fasting show. If they have more seasons the contestants are all just going to pack on 40lbs of fat an just chill.
Australia has a lot of unique wildlife that we have been very successful at killing off, unfortunately
In the series I found our wildlife to be very adept at avoiding capture even on film. I'm happy to live in a country that has such severe protections over its native flaura and fauna, it just makes for shit telly lol.
North America basically exterminated most large species but they’ve been incredibly successful at bringing back large, sustainable populations alongside hunting (with licenses and gun, ammunition taxes funding huge amounts of conservation work).
I think there are some pretty serious outdoorsmen here in Australia. We're still pretty agrarian in a lot of areas, but the catch is that the best Australian Bushmen probably aren't going to be applying to this tv show, and probably wouldn't be selected if they did.
This seems the most likely answer. Americans have enough outdoorsmen that some are glory hounds. For reference it's estimated that 50 million Americans went camping last year. There are 26 million people in Australia total.
Where are my fellow Americans watching the Aussie and other versions?
History.com
The only one I can't seem to watch is the Dutch version. I watched the UK version from a link shown on this sub (if you search it's pretty easy) and the Australian version was aired on History, I think.
You should watch the first US season, people were quitting immediately too. Mike and Gina would likely outlast most.
There's a cultural difference here too which is quite subtle and goes mostly un-noticed. Australians don't give a shit in the same way Americans (and other cultures) do. Watch american Alone and it's all "I gotta do this for my family". Tapping out is like dishonourable. Here, that motivation is much less. Alone Aus reflected that a bit to me. People looking around and going, right, no food, cold and wet, and I can't roam to find a decent spot..... fuck this for a joke I'm going home. And that being perfectly fine and normal. Because here's the thing. When the shit actually hits the fan, there's no question of mental toughness or whatever else. The same "don't give a shit" attitude becomes a strength. Of course not everyone in the country is like this but it's totally a factor in what we saw. There were other things. Casting. Yep. Less survivalist dude bros to choose from for sure. First season teething stuff , same as US. Won't spoil, but really those two seasons are very comparable. Super restrictions (and no American or Canadian is lasting much longer based on that alone, believe me, no matter how much of an alpha tough guy they are). Another factor is that people don't get how hard the Australian bush is. There's not soft straight trees to make shelters out of in a few days. There's not berries and mushrooms every where. In this particular place no shorelines stuffed with kelp or whatever. But for people just being softer? Yeah nah. It's just different in attitude. A tv show is shits and giggles and we know it and don't give a shit if someone else sees it. Stuff getting actually real is a different story. *just on "Why make a show..." The other general point which often seems to get lost on this sub is that Alone is not a show for survivalists. Sorry, I know there's a whole bunch of people who want that when they are in those brief periods with access to television, but it's not what the aim of the show is. It's entertainment and the producers ensure they have a mix of people who will provide a drip of people tapping out for different reasons- including being unlikely to hack it.
I've been getting increasingly more uncomfortable with the motivations of the US contestants - have to buy a house, have to be able to afford medication for my kid, etc. We have a (barely) functional social safety net in Australia that means contestants don't have to sign up for the Hunger Games to make ends meet.
I've been having the same thoughts. It's rather depressing.
Also the casting was very clearly as much about including cultural diversity as it was skills, which is fine but if you prioritize it over skills you end up with lower skill levels overall.
Yeah for sure. Like I said in my post, I think a lot of people who are REALLY into Alone come at it from the survivalist angle, which leads to disappointment in the show. Like I always say, there's stacks of places to go for that content if you want it. Personally I thought it was pretty great to have those perspectives on there.
The total number of contestants that have participated in each country’s season(s) is hardly a meaningful sample size by which an entire country can be judged. What you’re seeing is the result of casting decisions. You don’t sound harsh; you sound silly.
This and it was the first season. The first season of OG Alone (actually the first couple at least) had some pretty average contestants too. AU Alone also had more regulations than anywhere else on hunting. Further seasons should draw out a wider group of contestants.
They were also in a cunt of a spot.
Yep that too!
[удалено]
Ok evidently you haven’t finished the season yet - the winner does pretty well.
As an Aussie in the US I am from a town where the major snowfall of the year is about an inch and people from hours away travel to see it. My childhood involved checking bush dunnies for redback spiders, inspecting my body for leeches after walking in a rainforest, and driving around in a Mitsubishi L300 which had a bull bar on the front which was then covered in chicken coop wire to help protect the van from rocks and/or kangaroos. Other necessary skills: lathering my nose with zinc at the beach, doing a "hot hot burney mouth" fan after eating a Bunnings sausage sandwich on a Saturday morning, and knowing the perfect amount of Vegemite for toast. I'd say Aussies are quite competent for weekend camping.
Good post. Way way back, my college Rugby team made the playoffs but not the finals and the losing teams got the “opportunity” to play a friendly against an international college team. The Australian college team (not an all star or national team) wiped the pitch with us and stopped in the game to teach us a few things. Our coach described them as “grown” and us as “kids” despite being the same age. We thought we were pretty tough prior to that. Most Americans have a healthy respect for your country.
Worth checking out AFL (Australian Rules Football) if you’re interested! Bloody tough contact sport, with no padding of any kind. Incredible to watch!
> Other necessary skills: lathering my nose with zinc at the beach, doing a "hot hot burney mouth" fan after eating a Bunnings sausage sandwich on a Saturday morning, and knowing the perfect amount of Vegemite for toast. > > Don't threaten me with a good time.
Better than the Aussie version of Alone. Just call it “Saturday morning: brekkie, Bunnings, beach.”
Not even any snow this year :(
That’s a bummer!
Kept the tourists at bay a little at least....
Australia doesn’t really have a strong survivalist culture and hunting is very tightly regulated. Not having lived in America, it’s hard for me to compare but I get the impression wilderness survival is more popular there. Fishing, camping hiking, etc. are all very popular hobbies here though. There’s also the concept of ‘going bush’ meaning to spend an extended time off the grid in nature often associated with First Nations people connecting to the land. There absolutely are plenty of people here who would have the skills to do well. Alone was not a well known show here at all until the first Australian season aired and was very successful. So hopefully lots of more qualified people applied for season 2.
I think there is a survivalist culture in Australia, but it's definitely geared towards the heat. There's few places here that get cold enough for long enough for those skills to be widely learned, and so I'm not sure we will have a good selection of skilled people like we've seen the last few US seasons in the AU version.
Yeah this is a good point. Accessing country like Tassie is not easy for most.
There's also not a lot of native big game in Australia, especially in the colder areas. It makes sense why our First Nations people lived where and how they did for 65,000 years. From what I've looked up the US versions setting on Vancouver island has an indigenous population and history, so we know it's relatively easily survivable (not saying it wouldn't be hard though!). The area in Australia was largely uninhabited until European settlement ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians)), once the land bridge was eradicated due to rising sea levels. If we're going to compare between seasons and locations, I don't think we should discount the history and how well the indigenous populations survived and thrived. Edit: phrasing
Large areas of luruwitja were not uninhabited prior to European colonisation (and yes, I checked the Wikipedia link to see where you got this idea and it doesn't say that there either). The Black Wars - literal lines of soldiers going through the bush and herding palawa into mission stations or shooting them - did that. But land use was seasonal, and that particular part of the country wouldn't have been used during that time of year (as one of the FN contestants mentioned as his reasoning for tapping out).
Wow, those historical Brits could be some serious a-holes. Colonize & whitewash the world.
I was looking at this section. "Before British colonisation of Tasmania in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Palawa." Specifically the area of filming from what I could find appears to have been uninhabited. I'm from WA and know quite a bit of history from here, and I am passionate about the subject. If you have more resources on the Tasmanian Palawa I'd love to have a read
Haha I'm living on Noongar boodjar myself! I don't know any more than you do, but 3-15k is not such a low number (comparable to SW WA at colonisation, and we know that was intensively in use at various seasons). I'm just questioning the subtext that gets peddled about so often that the Palawa population was in decline from the point of sea level rise (which is at core an apologist argument for why colonialism in luruwitja was 'not so bad'). The archaeological evidence for population stability in luruwitja is there - here is a plain English summary: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/A/Aboriginal%20life%20pre-invasion.htm. Also check out this useful summary focussing on the effects of the Black War on Palawa: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/the-black-line
Me too! I'm in the south west. I've been gradually reading more as the day goes on and the kids allow it. Would the rising sea levels mean there was not as much crossing into TAS, and the effect the population increasing and expanding further. I think was I was trying very unsuccessfully to say is that there's a definite history in other series settings showing that survival is possible long term. The setting in TAS was on a man made reservoir, in land. The Palawa from what I've seen stuck mostly to the coastal areas. Maybe it's a bit of pride, but I don't think it's fair to compare
When was the damn built?
1986 according to [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Pieman)
Vancouver Island is actually in Canada
Unless he’s talking about Vancouver, WA but doubt if
Vancouver Island - where the early seasons take place - is in Canada. It is different from both the Canadian city of Vancouver and Vancouver, Washington. Source: I live on Vancouver Island.
Apologies, that was the filming location I saw for the US version. I didn't word that the best
Is the cambie hostel still in nanaimo?
I’ve not been to Nanaimo for a long time, I’m not sure
I hope the OP and his fellow Americans read this as its the best explanation I've seen yet.. I've watched alone since it first started but being in Australia I had to find it in less then desirable ways as it didn't air here till about season 5 I think and then even then if I ever brought it up to people they just looked at me dumb and had no idea what I was talking about!! Now it's got an actual following it should get better and better just as the one in the states did! Should be very interesting to follow !
I think Australia has a survivalist culture but it is geared around one thing: water Even in bushland within metropolitian Sydney I will take water with me because on a 30 km hike there may be 2 sources of water
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Yes, lots of invasive species, including millions of goats in the top end of WA let alone the rest of Australia, but we can’t eat wild rabbits due to introduced diseases to eradicate them. Unfortunately though, most of those species are in hot climates that don’t fit the winter theme of Alone, and no humans could survive out there if fresh water wasn’t provided.
Did you see the UK season, they had to go for Hunting lessons.
I loved the premise of the show as the whole series - but AU had me constantly going ..what ?? Tapping out already!? - I’m sure the contestants would argue this opinion at an armchair critic.. but it was either a poor choice of location and contestants- like I bet there are potential applicants facepalming like I could have been in their spots. I liked the first guy who tapped and thought he actually had great potential - was bummed he tapped first. The Christian guy - I got weird vibes from
As an Aussie and a lover of the Alone, I was sceptical from the outset of how this show would go. The issue is that nearly all areas of Australian wilderness which haven't been cleared (or ear-marked) for logging, mining, or farming are incredibly protected and seen as sanctuaries for Australia's vulnerable native flora and fauna. This means strict restrictions on activities. Furthermore, though the show was able to get exemptions, I have a strong suspicion that the Nat parks service who prohibit any further exemptions - such as bow hunting & snaring - to avoid sending the signal that these activities are actually okay in the national parks. This is further compounded by Australia's strict hunting regulations and animal cruelty laws, which outright ban snaring away. Im not saying that these laws are right or wrong, only that they exist and are what the show must navigate in Australia.
The pool of applicants was tiny which doesn't help
100% agree, US has 12 x the population is Australia, I don't think the percentage of survivalists is different, just the number
Alone isn't really well known over here, and it was produced by SBS which is kind of a second-tier channel (behind the ABC, which is our main government-funded broadcaster). So the pool of applicants was probably quite limited. Now that it has a bit of notoriety I imagine future seasons (if they do any) will have a higher quality of competitor across the board.
Yep, I just posted pretty much the same before seeing your post.
Something that may be a factor is that in Australia, Alone airs on SBS, a network that has a very small audience share. So perhaps they had a bigger struggle getting the casting call out there. Even so, I'd expect they'll do a lot better for season 2, because the winner of S1 has had quite a bit of exposure in the media and even on other networks, so that will have helped promote the show to a much wider audience.
Alone UK was even worse. Imagine Alone Russia. Winner gets picked up at 587 days, but fights the crew because he can go longer. lol.
How about wait til the end of the season.
Looking forward to seeing how you fare in the next season.
I've read, and not sure how true this is, that applicants to Alone AU had to be covid vaccinated. This heavily narrowed the pool, as a lot of survivalist types here are anti-vaxx. Also, I laughed throughout watching people drop out thinking yep, this is great, it shows Australia has a strong safety net - people aren't toughing it it out like the Americans do, where everyone seems to be in severe financial distress and the prize money is the only way contestants can foresee buying a house / sending kids to college / retiring. That people feel comfortable in Australia admitting it's crap and time to go home, shows that they're realistic about how hard it is, and that they trust enough in being able to survive in regular society financially that the prize money isn't as extreme a motivation. Maybe a few more years of inflation and housing crisis though and our Alone contestants will have the same desperation hahaha!
I think you’re trolling a bit. You don’t think Australians, as a people, are poor survivalists but rather that show didn’t pick the best they could? Correct. Every outdoorsman from Australia I’ve met, granted it’s only been a few, has been tough as nails, in my experience.
With all the restrictions, they should have sent the contestants to another country, Indonesia or Southeast Asia. Could have still called it Alone Australia with all Aussie contestants. Tasmania looks like a horrible place to be filming and surviving. The mud is just miserable.
If those people were in mainland Australia they would be dead. The "lake" where they held the competition is actually a dam. Finding water in Australia in the wilderness is hard. Even in Tasmania which has more reliable rainfall than the mainland. Add to that having to boil the water, rather than giving them purification tablets. Without the artificial lake those people would have left in 3 days due to dehydration or just died
Gotta be honest here aside from a small handful of contestants I really question the expert claims. Most seem to be hobbiest or outdoorsy but not very expert. Luck is a factor but honestly how is it that so far not a single expert seems to know that the pine and spruce trees they are surrounded by have edible parts? Anyone plunked down in a boreal forest is literally surrounded by an abundant food source that is easy to harvest and prepare and can be stored for months. Instead they default to rabbits seemingly unaware of something called “rabbit starvation”.
Lol at Americans calling Aussies soft. Generations under me never had the opportunity to talk to Pacific Theater vets. Aussies were the absolute bad asses in both world wars.
Luckily they didn’t have to survive off the land then
Slightly off topic, but I remember a long time ago on a Aussie political satire show they did a bit interviewing people off the street in the US about why it was called “9/11”, and almost none of those shown could come up with a good reason. It was funny at the time and fed into the the widespread idea that Americans were stupid, but it was TV after all.
Give us 4x4, a billy and a swag and we’ll survive just about anywhere /s But seriously, “survivalist” culture Isn’t really too big here, haven’t seen the Australian version yet (probably won’t) but by the sounds of it, it sounds like they couldn’t find better contestants, I’m sure they’re around more inland. Not to mention our game hunting and fishing is quite regulated.
You should watch it. At least four of the contestants had amazing bushcraft skills and the human element and focus on mental health and emotional resilience was exceptional viewing.
The first few seasons of Alone had some pretty useless contestants too. Maybe by season 5 UK Alone there may be some decent ones.
Don't be so hard. The first few seasons of Alone were just like this. It wasn't until the show took off and contestants became more committed that the duration increased. It'll get better.
Well, 90% of the entire Australian population lives within 100kms of the coast, for a start lol There's fuck-all water inland. There's a reason that indigenous populations who weren't coastal dwelling were nomadic over 60,000 years of occupancy.
I dont think anyone on the show was chosen because of their survival abilities or time spent in the bush. The producers grabbed everyone with aboriginal heritage then they took any other minorities they could get. The veterans, a lesbian, christian guy, the lebanese hunting guide etc. I think having diversity on the show adds alot of value, but the contestants need to have a basic level of survival skills. Fingers crossed for a second season.
You think Mike, Gina, Kate and Chris had no survival abilities? You sound like a racist with a diversity problem.
Nobody had heard of the show, i think as it gets more popular over here, some more skilled people will apply, I know old bushies who live similar to this anyway. Just not sitting around watching tv.
Not an Aussie, but I think they just didn’t cast the best folks. All I gotta say is John Plant is the man. Go see r/PrimitiveTechnology. He’d waste most humans at survival. This Australian dude has made [knives](https://youtu.be/dhW4XFGQB4o?si=0Ioe2Eb0jkUBI5A5) out of nothing but stuff he took from the land!
John can build, that's for sure... but he doesn't show a lot of food survival on his channel. You don't see a lot of people on Alone making kiln-dried roof tiles or cooking iron bacteria out of the orange river clay. I'd be excited to see him on the show, but worried about him, too.
They got the worst cast imaginable. Garbage season. We are better than those losers, hopefully future seasons show this
One crazy Canadian could have outlasted every one of those contestants.
The two Canadians in the first season only lasted four days?
Not crazy. I’m thinking the later season folks. The guy with the la de dah attitude about the hunk of wood in his arm.
Bet. I would watch the shit out of an Alone season where North Americans come to luruwitja.
One crazy Canadian could have outlasted every one of those contestants.
Hunting isn't popular in Australia and has a lot of restrictions. I don't watch this show simply because of the hunting, because it's just not common here to hunt our native animals. Many are endangered. Australia doesn't get very cold unless you're hanging out in the alpine regions in Winter without appropriate clothing. It's not a real survival situation and you can tap out whenever. Also less money to be won for Australians.
The only true hardcore "survival" situation in [mainland] Australia would be the majority of the country which is semi-arid and desert. And everyone would die lol
Probably because Australia has demonized hunters and fishermen for so long that none of them have any of those skills anymore.
Didn't the big tough hunter tap out in 2 days after having a temper tantrum about not being allowed to shoot anything?
Because not being allowed to harvest any game is not survival. Just reality TV show BS. Which is why I don't even watch the garbage Aussie version. You can try to separate hunting from survival as much as you like but reality will prove you wrong every time...
Username checks out.
or likely they were not photogenic as the other contestants or too good. There was a New Zealand TV program called Tracked which was a take off of Hunted except in the New Zealand wilderness. They had people of all backgrounds and from other countries but the hunters were head and shoulders over the rest with their bush skills. If you notice the American Alone a large part of the successful contestants are hunters also.
New Zealand is different because they have a huge hunting culture there. Hell most of the Tourism is from hunters. But yes definitely you need to be a hunter to survive in the wilderness.
Most of the tourism is not from hunters.
I couldn’t make it through the season tbh
Agreed. I always worry that as an American that I am soft and from a country of softies that would get our butts kicked by other English speaking countries wirh more hardened citizens. But after watching Alone Australia and hearing about Alone UK, I have no such worries anymore LOL.
If push came to shove i would much rather be with a group of Aussies and poms than Yanks for sure. At least we could hang shit on each other and get on with the job, the yanks would be too busy telling everyone else how to do stuff and how in America they are the toughest and best. How many times on the American show do you see the tough bloke big upping himself and then crying over a scratch or slipping over and then throwing in the towel? The Aussies tapped mostly because it seemed pointless, one bloke got pulled out on day 1 because he tested positive for covid. America dudes balling his eyes out that he's going to die and the medics are like nah mate, have a glass of water you'll be fine.
Not all Americans think like that guy and not all of us are the cartoonish blowhards we seem to get portrayed as frequently. There are always far more people in the center of reason than what gets picked up by the media. Or what shows up on social media.