Duane Byrnes, no longer Alone and more a people person after TV experience

Gina Chick outlasted Mr Byrnes and eight others to win the $250,000 prize after 67 days on Tasmania's west coast.

Thirroul local Mr Byrnes lasted 10 days and admitted loneliness got the better of him.

"I did miss my friends and family but I think the underpinning to it all was the lack of social interaction - with a human, any human," he said at the time.

"If someone was to bring me a person out there as an item, I would last out there for so much longer, but without that, for me, I just had enough - I needed to end my time out there."

Reporter Marlene Even spoke recently with Mr Byrnes after he'd had time to reflect on his 2023 experience.

How has life changed for you since the show?

Life has changed significantly for me since being on the show. Most importantly, it's connected me closer to culture and community and although only being on the show a short while, for people who have experienced being solely alone would understand what can go through your mind and one of the things for me out there, was it really made me consider my purpose in life and what can I do to create a more meaningful existence to me. So it has since made me eager to pursue a change in career, so a great takeaway from it has been that it's never too late for a career change. If you want it, go get it!

Do people recognise you while you're out and about?

Yeah, surprisingly people do recognise me out and about which is actually really nice because it has been all quite positive but I'm happy to take on constructive criticism, too. Documented experiences on national television is something you don't really see with other shows, so I'm more than happy to talk about my experience with others.

How have you changed as a person because of the show?

There's been several changes I noticed about me since the show and one is it's like the old saying, you don't realise what you've lost until it's gone. For me I realised quite early that the loss of people was so important and crucial for me to have and ultimately made me decide to tap out.

So it's made me most definitely more of a people person now. I really appreciate and enjoy moments and connection with people a lot more than ever now and it's also made me appreciative the little things in life like just how easy it is to go to the supermarket and purchase foods.

Another is my spirituality. It has created an even stronger understanding in the relationships we have built with our Mother Earth over thousands of years on this land and how through those relationships which includes humans have made our culture for what it is and what it will always be.

Would you do anything differently if you could redo your time in the Alone Australia challenge?

Ha ha, yeah there are two basic things that I wish I had done differently. Actually three now I think about it. If I had my time back out there the first is I wish I had stored away a lot of dry timber the first day I was out there. I only stored a little bit. I had fires burning but only for shorter amounts of time and couldn't sustain them because of how wet the timber was.

The second thing is when I caught my first fish and was trying to get a fire started to cook it. All I had to do was one simple thing to get the fire going, and that was to create more surface area over my Ferro rod to create a larger, hotter spark but for whatever reason my mind wasn't thinking straight at the time which in the end made me eat my fish raw which I really enjoyed so much anyway, so I'm actually thankful for that moment actually come to think of it.

The third is that I deeply underestimated the power of loneliness. You need a lot of mental strength and physiological resilience to be alone and so I wish I mentally prepared myself a little bit more than what I did.

We've seen the impressive shelter you built on Alone Australia, have you tried recreating that? Do you have an epic cubby in the backyard?

We actually really don't have a backyard, so we make the bush our backyard and go for walks regularly. We don't build cubbies as I don't really like cutting down trees, but I will say building that shelter felt like the 12-year-old coming out in me again. I remember building several with my friends when I was younger. A decent shelter was a fundamental requirement for me to build out there but boy did it burn my energy real fast. I had not eaten protein for five days and building that shelter, I had actually lost quite a bit of weight.

What's next for you?

In short, it's a simple answer - and it's live and enjoy life. Keep working towards goals, keep being a good father and husband to my wife. Keep connecting to my culture and bringing up my children with that pride and lastly keep creating good memories because that's what stays with us forever.

What are your top three reality shows?

1: Alone - of course.

2: Survivor

3: Love is Blind (don't judge me, haha)

Favourite summer activity with the family?

Late summer afternoons by the beach.

Favourite bush foods?

Oh, I was actually eating several species of bushtucker while I was out there. My fave out there was Gahnia aspera and my local fave is Leptomeria acida.

Don't eat bushtucker if you can't confidently identify though please!

What New Year's resolution do you have?

Sounds boring but study and save.