Matt Allwood wants to be the first Indigenous winner of Alone Australia Season Three

For most contestants, their first night sleeping rough in nature while filming only Australia is a discouraging experience.

But not for the WA contestant, Matt Allwood: he slept like a baby … especially because he didn’t have one in his bed!

“To be honest, the first night, it was a bit nice to sleep well without sleep without being awakened by the children,” says the 31 -year -old indigenous youth worker, who lived in Broome, Western Australia, with his partner and two young children when he discovered that he had been chosen in the third season of the successful SBS survival show.

“In general, we received midnight visits (children), so the first night I probably had one of the best sleep nights I’ve had in a long time!”

For Allwood, who the public can recognize his career playing 17 NRL games for the Raiders of Canberra and the New Zealand warriors, competing in the exhausting contest was the realization of a dream, and a kind of family tradition.

“My brother really did the second season,” he explains.

“It’s called Jason Allwood, and (after doing the program), I thought:” If he did, I can do it! “And then I requested, I checked the process (hearing), and the next minute … I’m there giving it a crack!”

The third season of the Australian series sees the contestants back in the wild “unpredictable and implacable” of the ranges of the west coast of Tasmania (Lutruwita). Ten survivors have the task of pushing the limit, to survive as long as possible “alone, fully isolated and with zero contact from the outside world” to have the opportunity to get away with $ 250,000.

There are no camera equipment and contestants must document their time in nature; You don’t have to say that it is an exhausting experience.

Allwood, who identifies himself as a Yanyuwa man, Waanyi/Garawa, grew up at a cattle station in Nueva Wales del Sur, and has spent recent years after his career as a player was traveling through the country.

Highly skilled in traditional practices such as Goanna’s hunt, stressful, fishing in shallow waters and pig hunting with a “Nulla Nulla” (a traditional Australian aboriginal wood club or a hunting stick)) has been hunting and fishing since he was a child and his Tiktok page is full of videos of his adventures with his young family.

Allwood says it has always been his dream to get away as the first indigenous winner of Alone Australia.

“It is definitely a great reason why I entered to do this experience and this challenge,” he explains.

“Because I thought how incredible it would be to be the first indigenous Australian to win and have that title.

“The work I do in the space in which I do it, I am taking care of aboriginal adolescents and helping them through secondary school and for employment, we always try to inspire them and give them the motivation to be the best versions of themselves.

“Therefore, being able to have something to really exhibit as an example of feeling comfortable to feel uncomfortable, to get out of that comfort box, it is something that I thought would be quite good.”

If Allwood won, he says he would use the prize money to buy a caravan so that he and his young family can continue his adventures throughout the country.

“We have this mentality to be as nomadic as possible and give children as richer as possible, and go to as many areas as possible,” he explains.

“We are back in Nueva Wales del Sur at this time, looking at our next way and (discovering) where we want to go.”

But if he will go so far, he will have his job cut for him. While we cannot give anything, we can tell you this: the third season is emerging as one of the most difficult so far, with an implacable climate, they filmed during a particularly brutal winter, and a difficult terrain that throws all kinds of obstacles to the contestants.

Described as a “first season”, this time sees five women participate, bringing gender parity in the game for the first time, while a participant becomes the first to obtain the title of the oldest player in the history of the series, 63 years old.

Everything joined the experience of a lifetime for Allwood.

“I don’t even have words to describe it: it was an incredible experience that I am very grateful to have had,” he says.

Only the third season of Australia premieres with a double episode on Wednesday, March 26 at 7.30 pm in SBS and SBS on Demand.