Standing on a wooden wheel punctuated with wooden stakes, Mark Warnock was beside Caroline and Feras as the final three of Australian Survivor: Titans V Rebels.

From day one, Mark and Caroline had been a complicated duo, gunning for each other one day and allies the next. Feras, meanwhile, had played a flashy, charming game and knew if he stepped off his wheel his game would be done. So it was all down to who could endure the pain the longest.

Unfortunately for Mark, Feras won the challenge and selected Caroline to sit next to him at the final Tribal, making Mark the ninth and final member of the jury.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play Survivor and I was out there for 46 out of 47 days with one day on the jury as a final jury member, so you really can't ask much more than that," Mark told 10 Play, "I'm very happy with that."

As one of the handful of self-identifying Survivor superfans this season, the former diplomat quickly found his people in the Titans tribe. "Obviously, when I was out there, I didn't want to fly my superfan flag too high because I could see there was a mix of people out there," he explained. "But I think it definitely helped, having some good prep going into the game."

Having watched pretty much every single season of the US, and every episode of the Australian version, Mark's Survivor knowledge combined with his profession gave him the perfect launchpad for his strategy.

"I've been in a lot of experiences and situations where you're thrust into the unknown and you just have to figure it out," he said. "That's kind of the approach I took on Survivor, just to know myself, know my strengths and weaknesses and appreciate that this is a game of 23 other people.

"To be open to building relationships with everyone and anyone, and to kind of follow my instincts... I used a combination of my Survivor prep and my professional experience to be very open-minded and see where things land."

But early on in the game, having formed a solid "Middle Aged Mafia" alliance, Mark found himself also working very closely with Viola and Valeria. To lure Mark back to the fold, the Mafia -- Caroline, Kitty, and Eden -- blindsided Viola, thus also blindsiding Mark.

"It was definitely a huge turning point in the game for me to lose Viola," Mark admitted. "To have a relationship like that with another contestant and competitor in the game, where you actually trust them and feel a deep, personal bond, gives you a lot of safety and confidence.

"So losing Viola was difficult personally, but also strategically meant I had to readjust," he continued. "In Survivor sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t... I had to claw my way back tooth and nail, inch by inch, to get myself ahead, and I did. Some was by design, some was by luck and some of it was just building relationships and trying to stay present in the game as much as possible."

This also set off the chain of events that saw Mark and Caroline attempt to take shots at each other, coming together, taking shots at each other, and then coming together again. After all that, it was almost an ironic twist to see the pair sitting next to each other in the final three, but not so much of a surprise for Mark.

"I never ruled Caroline out," Mark said, "there's something about her that is so special. She's a very generous, smart person and she's a strategic player.

"I remember at one point, I think it was after the second attempt at revenge, I did say to her, 'I think we could be sitting together at the end'. She looked at me rather incredulously but I said I think this could actually work.

"Deep down, as fans of Survivor, both of us could see the beauty of us coming back together [and] in those last few days on the beach when we were tired, battered and bruised, those big, long hugs were really special moments."

While it all came down to that final immunity challenge, you could see in Mark's face just how far he pushed himself physically. "There was nothing left," he added, "the extreme levels of pain and torture... I couldn't give it anymore.

"To have your loved one there cheering you on, to try and keep going... that's something I'll take away for sure, I did surprise myself that I could push myself that hard."

But ultimately, when asked if there's anything he would change about his game if he could, Mark simply said, "Not at all."

"I did my best when I had power, I did my best when I lost power and I dealt with everything as best I could at the time, so I can't really sit here now and go back and think 'Woulda, coulda, shoulda'."

Sure, he would have loved to have known that Raymond's "Oscar-worthy" performance was all a scheme to blindside his ally, and he would have loved Viloa and Valeria to have stayed in the game longer.

"At the same time, at that moment, I was making and thinking through my decisions based on all the information I had. I back past Mark, and I got to the final three so that's not too bad."

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