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Hunger. Mind games. Rain at night. Dodgy shelter. And a fairly nasty burn. Yep, Conner the law student from Canberra is living the dream on Australian Survivor. The 23-year-old wasn't quite ringing us via conch shell from Samoa but through the magic of television we did manage to speak to him about life in Survivor as the show unfolds on our screens. For up to 55 days, the players must outwit, outplay and outlast each other to win half a million dollars and be named the sole Survivor. "It's been so much harder than I expected. I expected it to be insanely brutal but you can never truly prepare for how difficult it is," Conner said. "The hunger, the night times are the worst. We dread the nights, they're terrifying. They bring the cold, sometimes it rains. You can't sleep and you can't see anything, it's literally pitch back." And he has not had the best of starts. "On the first episode pretty quickly I burnt my hand," he said, after picking up a piece of wood in the fire. "It was painful at the time but my worry was it would blister and those blisters would pop and I'd get an infection. If you get an infection out there, you're done for, you're out of the game. "Unfortunately, I did get blisters on the burns which was a huge concern and that first immunity challenge, they immediately burst. And I've had to keep them dry and away from dirt has been really difficult because I'm terrified of infection." While he might seem unassuming, Conner has plenty of understanding of how the game works. "I'm a huge fan of Survivor. I've watched virtually every episode of the American version," he said. "My favourite players were Spencer [Survivor: Cagayan and Survivor:Cambodia] and Stephen Fishbach [Survivor: Tocantins and Survivor: Cambodia]. "I liked Spencer's style. He was never smug guy. He just played as hard as possible but he wasn't cruel, he just played the game, because that is what it is, a game." And he's loving every itchy, hungry, painful moment. "It's beyond my expectations," he said. "It's literally a dream came true. I still can't believe I got picked." Australian Survivor is on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday 7.30pm on WIN-TV.

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