Most memorable moments from Survivor: The Australian Outback

4. Flooding of Barramundi’s camp

Remember when I said the Australian Outback was arguably the toughest place for the castaways to live? Well, when it got down to the Final Six, that came to a head.

While the castaways were away competing in their reward challenge, a monsoon of a storm hit the Outback and flooding began. Even with the team building their shelter in a dry river bed, they had opted to put it closer to the beach than higher up in the camp where it would have likely remained dry.

The flooding took over the shelter, washing away a lot of the tribe’s necessities, including their new container of rice (we’ll get to why it was so crushing in a future entry). It was crushing to see the five contestants (Colby was off on his reward) arrive back to their camp, already drained and defeated from the conditions, and see that their only source of food had been washed away.

Fortunately, Barramundi had Tina and Keith on their tribe, who were both determined to find ANYTHING of use in the flooding. The two saw their rice container was stuck under a branch on the other side of the creek bed and in a scary moment, both were able to get the container and safely return to shore.

Part of what made this such a memorable moment was that it proved Survivor is for real. These season 2 castaways had to go through hell, and when all of their necessities got washed away, you could see the defeat on their faces.

This might not happen in a current season because the show is less about survival now, but in 2001, this was all too real for the six remaining contestants.