Alone Australia · Alone Australia — Season 2
Fiordland (Te Waipounamu)
Sheer-walled fjords and temperate rainforest — waterfalls out of every cloud, deep water at your feet.
South Island, New Zealand
Where on earth
Satellite imagery flying in from a world view to Fiordland (Te Waipounamu), South Island, New Zealand.
- Biome
- Temperate rainforest / fjord
- Rainfall
- 6,000–7,000 mm / year (some of Earth's wettest)
- Winter lows
- 0 to 8 °C
- Key food
- Eel, freshwater fish, deer (introduced)
- Big predators
- None (introduced deer/stoats only)
The country
Fiordland is roadless, essentially trackless, and staggeringly wet — sheer glacier-cut walls plunging into deep fjords, temperate rainforest running down to the tide line. There are no apex predators; the environment itself is the antagonist.
Why the show came here
Season 2 of Alone Australia moved off-continent to Aotearoa specifically to raise the wet-cold and terrain difficulty. Deep water at the shore removes many camp-siting options and pushes food strategy toward river/eel systems.
Planner-relevant notes
Camp siting is limited to the narrow band of flat ground near the shore or a river mouth. Fire and dry-gear management dominate every day. Introduced red deer are the largest game, but access is hard.
Field notes
- Sandflies here rival any bug on Earth — head net + long sleeves at all times.
- Eel long-lines set in a river mouth are the highest-EROI protein.
- Rain-shed shelter geometry (steep pitch, big drip line) matters more than warmth.