Some reality TV contestants stay in luxury island villas while filming. Gina Chick had to endure 67 days in the Tasmanian bush to be crowned the 2023 winner of Alone Australia, the local format of the show that challenges entrants to survive – solo – in the harsh wilderness.
Chick picked up a cool $250,000 in prize money for her efforts but the newfound wealth hasn’t changed her life much. Just as she did before the reality juggernaut, the survivalist enjoys a nomadic lifestyle, living out of a seven-metre Toyota bus which she drives wherever the wind blows her.
This month she’ll be driving her home-on-wheels around the country to launch her memoir, We Are the Stars. That book tells Chick’s incredible life story from growing up as a self-described “weird kid” in Jervis Bay to running wilderness retreats and rewilding programs, to the tragic death of her three-year-old daughter from cancer.
As Alone Australia viewers would know, there’s a lot that goes into surviving in the wild. But Chick cites one object in particular as essential for living off the land. Here she tells us about the blade she can’t do without and shares the stories of two other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
I don’t actually have a house – but I do have a storage unit in Jervis Bay because I’m addicted to buying books, which I don’t have room for on the bus. In the storage unit I’ve got acres of books, the clothes I buy from Vinnies, survival bushcraft gear – and my motorbike.
I’ve been riding motorbikes since I was eight years old. About nine years ago, I bought a 1984 Ducati 900 S2 motorbike. It looks like something out of Tron or Back to the Future. It is a beast. It weighs 220 kilos. It makes that beautiful prrrr sound. It is also ridiculously impractical – it is designed for someone who’s 25 and has shoulders that haven’t been dislocated and wrists that still work, so I can’t ride it for too long. But I love it.
The freedom I feel when I’m on that bike is next level. There’s something about being on a highway that’s got some twists and turns that makes me feel like I’m flying; like I’m a seabird. Riding means I can smell everything. I can smell the bush, I smell roadkill, I smell water, I smell mud, I smell rain. So I feel like I’m connected to nature. And it’s a way of experiencing this incredible country that makes me feel alive every time.
My most useful object
One of my knives. I have many blades of various shape, size, colours and degrees of lethality but the one that is probably my most useful also has a great story. I drove out through the Nevada desert to buy it off a 95-year-old man who lived in a funky little house held together with spit and willpower – we sat around talking for the whole day and he made me a knife. It’s folded steel, it’s beautiful and it’s also incredibly useful.
A good, sharp, reliable fixed-blade bushcraft knife is vital as a survivalist. You need a knife. So I use this for everything. I can use it to make shelter. I can use it to harvest food. I can use it to harvest the wood that I need to make fire kits so I can rub sticks together to make a flame. I carry it with me all the time. Except for when I go to the airport – I’ve lost another folding knife before that I had in my carry-on. The feds turned up and tried to take me away and I had to prove I was a bushcraft teacher.
It’s not big – the blade itself is about six inches. Bushcraft knives aren’t these giant killer things. It’s not a Crocodile Dundee “Now, that’s a knife!”-type situation. Knives that big are very impractical. They’re good for an ego but, unless you’re out hunting pigs or something, they’re completely useless.
This is the perfect sturdy bushcraft knife with a blade that isn’t going to break. It keeps its edge. It’s weighted perfectly and it’s made with love.
The item I most regret losing
A book of my paintings of my daughter, Blaise. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had chemo when I was pregnant. When she was born, we were both bald because of the chemo. The first inkling I had of her colour of their hair was when she was about three months old – I was out in the sun, and I saw this little glint of fire on her head, and I realised her hair was going to be red.
As a new mother, I didn’t have much time to myself. I didn’t have much time for creativity but I bought this sketchbook and I started doing these watercolours of a cartoon version of my daughter and her red hair. In a recent move, I can remember picking up this book, which has always been in this very safe place, because I wanted to look at it. I can remember thinking, I shouldn’t do this – I should just leave it here so I know where it is. But I didn’t do that. I took the book because I wanted to do some more drawings. Now I cannot, for the life of me, find it anywhere.
I am devastated, because these illustrations are so beautiful, but also they’re of a little girl who isn’t in the world any more. I took some photos of some of the drawings but I don’t have the book itself. I’m crossing my fingers, my toes, my eyes, my nose and my freckles that it will turn up somewhere and I’m going to be so happy when that happens.
Gina Chick’s memoir We Are the Stars is available now through Simon & Schuster (A$36.99). Chick is launching the book at events around the country, including at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on 8 October
