While Australian Survivor fans are watching Kaelan in his shorts on the beaches of Samoa, Kaelan is off in Norway. He’s aiming to ski the length of the country to raise money for children’s charity Cottage By The Sea.
“Hauling a sled all day and then sleeping in sub -20 degrees Celsius, there is not a moment of comfort,” Kaelan tells TV WEEK from Norway. “Survivor was just as tough, though!”
The 28-year-old, who grew up on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, says he didn’t plan to be overseas when his season of Survivor was airing, but he thinks it’s for the best.
“It’d be too easy to overanalyse everything I did and get pulled into the drama.”
Currently working on his PhD, where he’s using AI and drones to map vegetation in Antarctica, Kaelan says he didn’t get to prepare for Survivor as much as he would have liked.
“I used generative AI to assess different patterns in previous seasons, and sped watched as many as I could,” he explains. “I would have loved to have been more prepared but, as with my current ski adventure, I love to jump in the deep end and adapt.”
A rugby player and professional stand up paddleboarder, Kaelan went into Survivor wanting the other players to see him as a “golden retriever”, rather than a serious threat.
“I was stunned how well that worked,” he admits. “Going in, I planned to hide my physical ability by taking it easy in challenges, but I never suspected I could be seen as someone who was just there to be on the beach and not someone who desperately wanted to win!”
As the game went on, Kaelan kept thinking it was time to take control – but then he realised he didn’t need to.
“By working through others, sharing both information and misinformation at the right time, I was able to have the game go a way I was happy with without unnecessarily making myself a target.”
Since the merge, Kaelan has shown he’s one of the ones to beat when it comes to winning individual immunity. But he insists every player was “amazing” at different aspects of challenges.
“I think my secret weapon came from long-term meditation and my ability to overcome pain when necessary,” he reveals.
This week on Survivor, Kaelan is determined to get rid of Karin, seeing her as “the biggest threat”.
“She was great at mustering together different alliances,” he tells TV WEEK.
But will the other players start to see Kaelan as an even bigger threat, and decide that it’s time for him to go?
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