TV STAR AIDEE 'THE NIGHT I ALMOST DIED'

The actress and director opens up about her terrifying ordeal

- Hayley Barnett

"Turning despair into courage is my new motto," declares Aidee Walker. And as the actress and director readies herself for weeks of physical and mental challenges, as well as a lack of food and creature comforts, her new mantra should serve her well on Celebrity Treasure Island.

Yet the challenges the starwho found fame as feisty Draska Dosolic on Outrageous Fortune - will face in CTI should be a breeze compared to those she, her fiancé Taylor Wikohika and their five-year-old daughter Te Awaroa have faced in the past few years.

"We lost our house in the August 2021 floods and we're still not back in," sighs Aidee, 43. "We've moved eight times as a family. We've tried to take it in our stride and just get on with it, but it's taken its toll on us."

Her account of that dreadful night in West Auckland sounds like something straight out of one of her films.

"We had to evacuate in quite a dramatic fashion," she recalls. "Our daughter and my motherin-law nearly died that night. If we'd left the house eight minutes later, we all would have been swept away.

"The currents were huge and the water was over my head - it lifted me out of the house. I didn't realise how bad it was at the time because it was pitch black, but we could have been buried under debris and thousands of trees because we lived out in the bush. It was incredibly intense."