I am one of the biggest bachelor and bachelorette fanatics ever and was so excited to see individuals from other countries’ versions of the bachelor and bachelorette on the new mini series Bachelor Winter Games, which aired last month.
Courtney Dober represented Australia in the Bachelor Winter Games, and he quickly became one of my favorite contestants. So let’s get started and get to know Courtney!
Tell me about your who you are
CD: “Courtney Dober, 31, I was born in Melbourne Australia but moved to Sydney when i was 8 with my family. I grew up on the Northern Beaches and was a very active child! (Hard not to be when you lived 5 minutes from the beach.) I was very good at Athletics as a kid and ended up going to a sports high school on an Athletics scholarship. I loved building things (I even built a full size working hovercraft in year 12) and I continued my love for design and construction at University studying Industrial Design.”
What did you do for a job pre-australia bachelorette days?
CD: I actually worked as a TV host on the Disney Channel in Australia. I also opened a shared creative workspace back in Melbourne.”
What’s it like growing up in Australia? Always sunny, no snow, am I right?
CD: “Growing up in Australia was the best! It’s such a beautiful, clean country. I grew up close to the beach, so I was very lucky! It’s mostly warm and definitely no snow! (At least not close to my house)”
You were on the Bachelorette Australia season 2- tell me about your time on there since a lot of people haven’t seen the Australia version.
CD: “I was on season 2 of The Bachelorette Australia. It was still a relatively new concept, and the country was still getting used to the format. I had the best time! It honestly exceeded my expectations 100 timers over of what I thought it was going to be. I made some of my best friends through my time on the show and one who I now live with in LA! (more about that later).
I ended up coming 4th on my season and was basically sent home because I couldn’t tell her that I loved her. I went into the experience with a complete open mind and was very eager to fall in love, but I soon realized that through the journey you actually didn’t spend much time with the Bachelorette. It wasn’t enough time for me to fall in love; although, I did really like her. I was never going to say anything I didn’t truly mean.”
America got to know you on the recent new series The Bachelor Winter Games. Were you nervous about going on the show? Was this your first time in the states?
CD: “I was extremely excited to go on The Winter Games! I’m always up for an adventure and this opportunity was too good to pass up. The producers actually flew me over here in January to be a part of Bachelor in Paradise, but then the scandal happened, and they decided not to put any internationals in. I’m glad they didn’t, though, because then I may not have been able to do Winter Games! I think the concept of the Winter Games was far more suitable to me, I loved the sports aspect and competitive side of it.
Having done a previous bachelor show before, I knew the chance of actually falling in love with someone was low, so I just went in with an open mind, to have a great experience and no expectations, but was completely blown away when I met someone like Lily on a show like this.”
Have you ever watched any of the US Bachelor/ette series versions? Were you aware of who your fellow contestants were going into the Winter Games?
CD: “No! We don’t get any of the US shows in Australia… I think it was a good advantage though because I had no preconceived ideas of who was who, and I think if I had known how popular and famous Ben Higgins was, I probably would have just spent all my time fan girling him and not forming a relationship with any girls…”
What event during the Winter games was your favorite?
CD: “Down hill skiing. I’d never skied before, and I was so far out of my comfort zone! The fact that I had to bomb down a mountain as fast as I could trying to get around flags with no prior experience really got the adrenaline pumping! Unfortunately, I stacked it half way because I was going too fast, but it was a lot of fun!”
We saw your relationship with Lily grow and become such a beautiful romance- you two are still together, correct? And you have both relocated to LA?
CD: “Yes we’re very much still together, and we have both moved to LA to give it a real go! We discussed moving to New Zealand or Australia but thought, if we’re going to move, let’s both try something new! We fell in love in the US, so it was an easy choice.”
You both rented an RV and went across the country to LA from Vermont with it, what were your favorite stops along the way?
CD: “Whilst we were still filming the show, I asked Lily what she was doing after the show, she had no plans and neither did I. so we thought, let’s extend and go on our own adventure! It was a crazy scenario because the show filmed over such a short period of time, and we knew we had something special. We didn’t want to go home and try a long distance relationship if we weren’t sure it was going to work, so we hired an RV from New York and drove across the country to Los Angeles. It was such an amazing adventure and really helped our relationship grow.”
What are you up to now, post Winter Games?
CD: “We literally have no idea… We’ve only been living in West Hollywood for 2 weeks, so we’re just trying to figure that out. We head off to San Francisco tomorrow in another RV, so stay tuned for that video on our YouTube page soon! Apart from that, I think we’re just going to enjoy ourselves until we run out of money.”
And finally, tell me about Clever Dux (what it is, etc). Did you invent it?
CD: “CleverDux is a company I started a few years ago with my brother. We create medical wristbands for kids to identify children’s medical conditions.
I worked in childcare for 10 years. I noticed the rise in childhood diseases – Asthma, Allergies, Anaphylaxis, Epilepsy, and Diabetes. As a teacher it was becoming extremely difficult to identify the children who had these conditions and in an emergency situation knowing the first course of treatment is vital! Some of the early symptoms are so similar and an anaphylactic reaction can easily be mistaken for an asthma attack. Obviously the treatments are so different and the wrong treatment can and has caused death. A child passed away at a centre close to ours directly due to this reason. It devastated our community, and I knew I could change it and prevent it from ever happening again. The ‘See & Save’ wristbands were born.
They are specifically coloured wristbands that immediately identify a child’s condition in any scenario. Blue for Asthma, Red for Anaphylaxis, Green for Allergy, Purple for Epilepsy, and Light Blue for Diabetes. These colours will never change and hopefully with widespread use will become a globally recognized standard.
At the moment, I’ve built a web platform where US parents can enter their details and apply for a free wristband. Yep, im giving them away for FREE!” (www.freemedicalwristbands.com)