‘Bush Tok’ social media star Rick Petersen opens up about what it was like filming Alone Australia Season Two

Alone Australia is back for a second series. And this time its 10 survivalists are being dropped into unfamiliar terrain — the wilds of New Zealand’s South Island.

They’re stripped of their possessions, completely isolated from the world and each other, and tasked with self-documenting their experiences, for a chance to win $250,000 — the last man standing gets the loot.

If you saw last year’s incredibly popular series, you’d know contestants are up against all sorts of obstacles including wild weather, unpredictable terrain, starvation and even the threat of wild animals.

You’d think former SAS soldier Rick Petersen would be used to operating in similarly harsh conditions.

But as he tells Play, this new season was “a whole new ball game” for all ten contestants.

“Once I realised it was outside of Australia, my mind, to a degree went, ‘OK well, all the information that I know about bush tucker, plants, animals, tracks and things like that is almost irrelevant now,’” he admits.

“It’s an even playing field.”

Petersen, who runs survival education courses and has amassed a considerable social media following thanks to his ‘Bush Tok’ videos online (his TikTok account has over 1.3M likes and 176,000 loyal followers), trained in the SAS during the 1980s and 90s, stationed at the regiment’s Swanbourne barracks.

In that respect he was well prepared.

But as he admits, he still had to be mindful that the 58-year-old version of himself competing in the show was a far cry from the young man who relocated to Perth forty years ago to train with the elite fighting unit.

“I was asked the question by the crew as to whether I thought ‘the younger version of you’ would be better suited,” he explains, “and it was one of the most interesting questions I have ever been asked.”

Though Petersen says he’s lost none of his physical strength, over the years, he’s had to admit that his body is not as it used to be.

“Getting up (in the morning while filming), your ideal sleeping conditions are not necessarily being met, so you need to be making sure that you stretch, and you are not heading out and clambering over rocks and things with a bow and arrow (for the first time this year, contestants are allowed to use this equipment to hunt) when you haven’t warmed up,” he explains.

“Because accidents can happen out there, and the consequences can be serious when they do.”

This has been hinted at by producers, who recently admitted that in early episodes of the series, one of the contestants is forced to tap out and use the satellite phone given to each person in the event of an emergency.

“In the first few episodes, you’ll see that play out and it’s terrifying,” Keely Sonntag, ITV head of unscripted TV, recently told the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC).

While it’s not known what happens, there’s no denying this is one of television’s most rigorous contests, and threats are not inconsequential.

So was the experience what Petersen was expecting?

“When you are watching the episode, and seeing it from a couch perspective, with a certain amount of knowledge of what you would do under the circumstance, to then go through to being the one in that position, it’s quite different,” he admits.

“Is it what I expected?

“Elements of it, definitely.

“But other parts of it, I think for me, it became more about getting to know myself and my priorities, and answering my own questions.”

Alone Australia starts Wednesday March 27 at 7.30pm on SBS