Nicola- comes home

A Harding dairy farmer became the second contestant from MNet's Survivor SA: Malaysia to be voted off the reality show. ANGELA KELLY REPORTS.
NICOLA Windt (37) was shocked when she was voted off Sur­vivor SA: Malaysia last Wednesday.
The mother of seven (four of her own) was picked from more than l2500hopefulsto battle it out to win Rl-million on the reality show
Q: What was your biggest chal­lenge on Survivor?
A: I had physically trained extremely hard, getting my fitness lev­els up, swimming lkm a day, working on my balance and even train­ing on an obstacle course - so my biggest challenge was trying to blend into the rest of the pack and not draw any attention to my fit­ness. I am also ex­tremely competitive so holding myself back was beyond painful. Having to bite my tongue when argu­ments arose took a lot of self-discipline.
Q: What did you miss most when you were on Semengat Island?
A: I come from a very close family so I knew beforehand miss­ing them would wreak emotional havoc when living under the harsh 'Survivor' conditions. When I got on the plane to leave, I mentally left them behind and fo­cused completely on psyching myself into survivor mode. How­ever, when I returned, I couldn't get back to them fast enough.
Q: How comforta­ble were you with ly­ing to stay in the game?
A: I decided to play an honest game because inevitably it is the lies that catch you out at the end. Being a mum, I have always pushed the 'honesty is the best pol­icy' routine with my chil­dren, so I had a certain standard to maintain. I'm also a terrible liar!
Q: Were you the type of person to initi­ate alliances or wait for others to approach you?
A: Alliances are probably the first thing to start happening. In my tribe, three of us
immediately gravitated towards each other, seeing very similar core characteristics in each other and having a very honest alliance without even planning it.
Q: What surprised you most about your fellow contestants?
A: I realized I have had quite a sheltered life because 99 percent of the people I know are really nice and gen­uine. We had a daunt­ing selection of char­acters on Survivor - all totaJ1y different. I thought Survivor was an awesome adventure and enjoyed every sec­ond of everything. I could not relate to the people who com­plained or were nega­tive. The blatant lies that some tribe mates told with a straight face were pretty hectic - but all part of the game.
Q: How did your diet affect your health and fitness?
A: Before I left, I did a detox diet to pre­pare my body. I had also psyched myself up
so much I was invincible. Just before I left for the island I ate a plate of prawns, honestly believing that I no longer had a shell-fish allergy. Big mistake! I was sick as a dog and the flights were hell on a ­queasy stomach which left me feeling a bit weak for a couple of days. I had a heap of Vitamin Bl2 injections before I left and my health did. not deteriorate during Survivor but my fitness as was hammered and I was physically weaker after wards.