‘I wasn’t ready to go’: Immunity idol call ends Australian Survivor run for Busselton’s Kez McGee

She may have spent 27 days in the Aussie outback outwitting, outplaying and outlasting her rivals, but one brain fade was all it took to send this brawny South West castaway’s dream of being crowned the sole survivor up in flames. Busselton’s Kerryn “Kez” McGee became the 12th person voted out of Australian Survivor: Brains v Brawn on Sunday night after deciding not to play her hidden immunity idol that would have saved her from a shock elimination. The 25-year-old bodybuilder, who competed in the brawn tribe, became the first member of the final 13 merge to be booted after dominating the early portion of the game socially, strategically and physically. But when the former Busselton Senior High School student — one of three from the region competing on the sixth season of the Network Ten program — chose not to play her advantage, which would have negated all votes against her at tribal council, her game was over in one swift snuff of her torch. Speaking to the South Western Times this week, McGee said she had thought about her error almost every day since, but was proud of her overall performance. “It felt horrible, I didn’t want to go, I wasn’t ready to go, I could have done so much more damage,” she said. “I should have played the idol. “It goes through my head every day, even now. I had just reached the merge where all the magic happens, really, so I felt a bit lost.” Although she spent more than three weeks living on rice and beans in the isolated Cloncurry in Queensland, McGee said she enjoyed being disconnected, and the hardest element for her was missing family. “I really missed my partner, my dog, my family, that’s the hardest thing out there,” she said. “It was such a beautiful place — the most beautiful moment was every morning the sun would be coming up over the trees and there was this little lagoon that we would go for a nude swim in. “It was that moment laying in that fresh water, nude, with the sun hitting your face, you just feel so at peace. It was just amazing to experience Australia like that.” McGee said she planned to return to personal training in a couple of months and was launching a scrunchie business with fellow Survivor contestants Felicity “Flick” Palmateer and Shannon Lawson. She said it had been heartwarming to have such a positive reaction from the Busselton community. Palmateer and Emmett Pugh, both from Margaret River, are still in the running for the title of sole survivor and the $500,000 prize with only 10 castaways remaining.