Tarzan’s Survivor return
AUSTRALIAN Survivor’s nice guy is back and he’s ready to play hard ball.
Darling Downs farmer Mark ‘Tarzan’ Herlaar is one of 24 returning favourites competing in the reality show’s first ever All Stars season.
“For me it was very much a respect thing. When they rang, I was honoured to be asked,” he said. “Survivor is a pretty epic adventure to be involved with at least once. To be asked twice, you sit back and go well how charmed am I to do this twice in one lifetime?
“The money was an incentive, but the reality was I was excited and overwhelmed they’d asked me.”
With the blessing of his family, Mr Herlaar left his drought-affected lime farm in Geham to appear on the show, which is filmed in Savusavu, Fiji.
“We haven’t had much rain since April, so it’s looking pretty dry,” he said.
“We’ve pruned two thirds of the foliage to take a bit of stress off the trees. We’ve got a bit of underground water but we’re just hoping for rain.
“The fact they were dangling half a million dollars in front of me, I thought that would take up some slack if we had a bad season.”
Mr Herlaar was labelled the nice guy of season two after he became a father figure to many of his tribemates and sacrificed his own immunity idol to save another player.
“I went into this game with the impression that if I played the same as last time that I would lose again … finding an idol is one of those rarities. If I do (find another one), I’d be hanging on to it,” he said.
“But I still wanted to keep a certain level of decorum about myself. I wasn’t going to drop my standards too far.
“I wanted to get to the end – if I could – as who I am. I didn’t want to become some villain I’m not in real life. At the end of the day I think my fans will be pretty pleased with how I played.”
He isn’t worried about going up against past winners Shane Gould and Jericho Malabonga, or Locky Gilbert and Aaron ‘AK’ Knight – the players who orchestrated his elimination in season two.
“I didn’t need to settle a score. Locky and AK were two of my main arch rivals but when I saw them I was like ‘Yep fair enough. I get another go at it’.
“This season is like no Survivor game I’ve ever seen. There are a hell of a lot of things that happen that you’ve never seen on any Survivor show ever. It was absolutely cutthroat.”
Australian Survivor: All Stars premieres Monday at 7.30pm on Ten/WIN.