Alone Australia’s season three winner breaks show’s records to claim $250k prize

The winner of Alone Australia went to extreme measures to ensure they broke the show’s existing records for the win. WARNING: Spoilers.

WARNING: Alone Australia spoilers ahead.

The winner of Alone Australia season three set a new record for the show, lasting an incredible 76 days surviving by himself on Tasmania’s rugged West Coast Ranges to pick up the season’s $250,000 prize.

30-year-old professional trapper Shay lasted two-and-a-half months in the unforgiving landscape, subsisting on a diet of whatever animals he could catch.

To be precise: 23 trout, 13 eels, two whitebait and freshwater shrimp, over 1100 worms, plus grub and moth pupae (which he dubbed “cheese fries” in an attempt to make them more palatable).

After a very long time spent eating a lot of bugs, during Wednesday’s finale, viewers watched as Shay hit the jackpot: He captured a pademelon, a small marsupial which would provide him a proper feed and see him make it past his remaining fellow competitors.

Alone Australia winner Shay before and after his time in the bush.

As is tradition on the show, it was left to a loved one to deliver the news to Shay that he’d outlasted everyone else this season. Following what he thought was a routine medical check, Shay was surprised by his wife Abby, the pair embracing as he realised her appearance in the bush meant he’d won the whole show.

In a statement issued by SBS after the finale, Shay – who had vowed before the season to last “300 days” in the wilderness if he had to – said his lifelong passion for living on the land had held him in good stead.

After eating a LOT of worms, grubs and pupae, Shay hit the jackpot when he caught a pademelon.

“Living in the bush and off the land has been my life’s passion since I was a kid. I built my life around the bush back home and became intimately connected to the land I come from, learning how our ancestors gathered food and lived in nature. I got the opportunity out there to put all that to the test, in a completely foreign environment,” he said.

“I tasted hard times and joyful times as I clawed out the other side and figured out where I could fit in, sustainably live, even forever out there, if need be. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to help my family in this way, doing what I love for the people I love.”

Shay’s 76 days in the bush makes him the current reigning Alone Australia champ, outlasting both season one’s winner Gina Chick (67 days) and season two winner Krzysztof Wojtkowski (64 days).

The world record for the show belongs to Ronald Welker, who lasted 100 days in the wilds of Alaska for the seventh season of the US version of Alone.

Originally published as Alone Australia’s season three winner breaks show’s records to claim $250k prize