Filming took place at Goshen cattle station, on the bank of the Herbert River in northern Queensland from October 23 through December 3, 2000.

Tina Wesson was named the Sole Survivor, defeating Colby Donaldson by a jury vote of 4–3 and winning a prize of US$1,000,000.

Midway through the season, the remaining ten players merged into a single "Barramundi" tribe, named after the river fish.

[2] Tina Wesson, Colby Donaldson, Jerri Manthey, Alicia Calaway, and Amber Brkich returned to compete in Survivor: All-Stars.

[13] The sixteen contestants were divided into two tribes, Kucha and Ogakor, named after Aboriginal words for Kangaroo and Crocodile, respectively.

Although Ogakor fared significantly worse in challenges, the tribes remained even after Kucha member Michael suffered third-degree burns from a campfire and had to be medically evacuated.

Ogakor's majority alliance of Colby, Keith, and Tina alternated between eliminating former Kucha members and betraying former tribe-mates Jerri and Amber.

Tina's strategic plan was valued over Colby's prowess in challenges, and she was awarded the title of Sole Survivor by a jury vote of 4–3.

Tina and Keith were concerned about their position in the tribe following the previous night's Tribal Council, where Jerri said she was friends with everyone except them.

Ogakor took a 3–2 lead in a trivia immunity challenge, but Kucha pulled even and then won thanks to Alicia answering the final question correctly.

Ogakor led at the beginning, but Amber veered off track and Alicia and Jeff from Kucha narrowly beat her to the end.

The contestants' loved ones – Tina's husband and children, Elisabeth's family, Rodger's wife, daughter, and son-in-law, Keith's girlfriend, and Colby's mother – remotely participated in the reward challenge, answering trivia questions via instant messaging.

At tree mail on day 40, the final three were given wood, paint, and feathers to create idols, which would be given back to the land.

At the end of the walk, they found a quiet spot to reflect on their time in the Outback, then threw their idols into the river.

Keith said he realized that it was not about the money and that you should walk away with something much more valuable; Tina said she had learned how much her family means to her; Colby said making the idol made him appreciate and remember why he was there.

In 2013, both Andrea Reiher of Zap2it and Joe Reid of The Wire ranked The Australian Outback as the third greatest season of the series.

[19] In the official issue of CBS Watch commemorating the 15th anniversary of Survivor in 2015, The Australian Outback was voted by viewers as the fourth greatest season in the series.

[20] In another poll for the same magazine, Michael Skupin's injury in the fire was voted as the ninth most memorable moment in the series.

[27] Host Jeff Probst ranked it as the 8th-best season, citing such memorable contestants as "Colby, the prototype for a Survivor 'hero'; Jerri, the original 'black widow'; and Elisabeth 'The View' Filarski," as well as Michael Skupin's injury.

[28] In 2021, Kristen Kranz of Collider also ranked The Australian Outback as the 8th best season of the series and praised it for having "no shortage of great players" as well as its introduction to, "some truly interesting characters to the Survivor world.

[30] During a reward trip, contestant Colby Donaldson broke an Australian law by breaking off coral from the Great Barrier Reef which could have resulted in a fine of A$110,000.

The helicopter pilot involved in the reward trip also broke an Australian law as he flew over sea bird rookeries.