Returning: Australian Story

Australian Story returns to ABC on Monday and will unexpectedly profile Alone Australia‘s winner, Gina Chick.

Gina Chick spent 67 days alone in the Tasmanian wilderness and didn’t want to come home.

Winning a survival contest on the SBS TV series Alone Australia has given Gina, 53, the chance to tell the world about the power of connecting with nature.

“Every time we turn off our phones for five minutes and lean against a tree or go outside and hear those kookaburras we’re remembering how to be plugged in to the battery of wild nature. And the more comfortable we are with the wilderness outside, the more comfortable we can be with the wilderness inside,” she says.

Growing up in Jervis Bay south of Sydney with two younger sisters, her teacher parents always encouraged them to spend time outside.

But Gina felt like an outsider and was bullied for the sticks in her hair and sick birds she carried in her pockets.

“I’ve always had this sense of I’m too big. I felt like I’ve got three people’s personalities that got squeezed into one body”, she says. “I’ve been having to figure out how to be with that my whole life. “

She found a community in Sydney’s gay scene in the early 90s before dropping out of university and heading overseas to learn survival skills, where she met her ex-partner Lee Trew.

After surviving breast cancer in pregnancy, Gina gave birth to her daughter Blaise. Tragically Blaise died at the age of three from a neuroblastoma.

Gina says that being in nature has given her the strength to survive life’s darkest moments.

Now her message is striking a chord with the public.

For the past 10 years, Gina has run wilderness retreats for families and adults. Australian Story documents a mini ‘Alone’ , where 6 women spend days by themselves in the bush with water and bedding and nothing else but their thoughts.

“I’ve spent my whole life gathering these tools and now there’s a chance for me to share this, I’m super excited,” she says.

Producer: Olivia Rousset. Presented by Leigh Sales.

8pm Monday on ABC.