By Parker McKenzie
Kalorama locals Mark Wales and Sam Gash may have won the ultimate prize after meeting on the set of Survivor, but now the married couple are returning for their second shot at $500,000.
While competing on the show in 2017 the pair hit it off, and since have welcomed a son Harry into their family and married in Monbulk in 2019.
“I think at one point Survivor had a better strike rate than the Bachelor for relationships,” Mark says.
“I never thought that I would be even open to that as a possibility when I was there,” Sam says.
“I’m quite a competitive driven person, so I wanted to play the game of Survivor the first time.”
With the pair now competing together in the already filmed Survivor: Blood v Water – which will hit TV on 31 January – they spoke to the Star Mail about their experiences on the small screen.
Mark and Sam believe they are representing the hills on the show after a hard 2021 for the community.
“We’ve been in Kalorama during the storm that hit in the middle of the year,” Mark says.
“We felt the pain of the whole suburb getting shut down for about a month with no power, we were in complete shock. The suburb was basically destroyed, about half the houses in our street had a tree through them.”
“Even our local daycare just did a shout out to us on their storyboard saying let’s cheer them on,” Sam said.
“Our local pub up in the Mount Dandenong region, The Pig and whistle, is going to do screenings. We’re quite connected to our local community, particularly after going through the storms that we had last year.”
They will compete against 22 other contestants in Charters Towers in Queensland, a change from the tropical locations of previous seasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before Survivor, Mark served in the military for 17 years and Sam was an endurance athlete, experiences they say helped them prepare for the show.
“After I left the military I’d been in the corporate sector and academics in the United States. By the time I was a survivor I had a pretty rounded career and it was the first time I had the opportunity to use all those skills at once,” Mark says.
“Life Experience can really help you in the game because it just helps how you interact and engage with other people, and I think you also have more self-awareness of how you’re likely to behave when under stress or you’re tired or exhausted.”
“What I like to recall on is the adversity that I’ve experienced in my everyday life, and the storms are one of them,” Sam says.
“I think when you remind yourself that you’ve gone through hard times of deprivation and adversity, you can remind yourself that you are tougher than you can imagine and I think that’s helpful in the game.”
The couple agrees they want to do the community in the hills proud and hope the local community continues to support them and each other.
“The Dandenong Ranges is a community environment and I look forward to chatting with people in cafes and the local parks.” Sam says.
“Watch some of your locals play the world’s greatest game and jump on and watch it on channel 10.” Mark says.
Australian Survivor premieres on Monday 31 January on 10 and 10 play on demand.
