Shannan and Michelle rock up to the house first thing today.
Michelle has arrived with a gameplan, she wants to get them all working with each other a lot better, communicating as a team, presumably to help them with the challenge today.
She’s wearing a nice lowcut top too. Cleavage is looking spectacular!

But what happens in the challenge? Read on to find out!

Michelle takes the Reds out, singling Courtney out to follow her. She takes him off around the corner of the house… where there’s a couple of wheelbarrows. Michelle hops in one and gets Courtney to wheel her back to the rest of the team. As he heads into view of the others they all burst out laughing and someone calls out to him to be careful!
They then proceed to wheel their partners around in the wheelbarrows, not as a race, just fairly slowly, more as a trust building exercise than a competitive thing. Pati really likes the change of pace, not being inside on the ellipticals for once. She thinks they really need the variation in their routine.
Michelle knows they’re getting a bit bored at times, having been in there for 7 weeks, so she needs to keep reinvigorating them.
Team Courtalina? Wins a tug of war against Marty and Pati.

Shannan’s got his Blues and the Greys outside on the tennis courts, doing some teamwork type exercise. Kimberlie and Chris haven’t been getting on well apparently. Meanwhile Damien and Laura are doing everything they’re asked without any issues in the background!
Shannan sees that Kim and Chris are having some personal problems with each other, so he takes them aside for a chat.
They’re both coming from different angles. Chris says he’s there to lose weight and get more healthy, but he’s also very competitive. Kim butts in and says he’s there to win the big prize, nothing else.
Shannan says Chris has a big mouth and Kim is worried that Chris’ competitiveness is going to wind up getting Kim hurt.
Chris doesn’t much care for Kim’s grumbling because he says it’s one more week and they’ll be in singles anyway and it won’t matter.
Shannan’s pretty upset because it’s the first time he’s been training a team that hasn’t been behaving like one. He says that unless they start behaving like a team, they’re not going to last very long!

Challenge time! They arrive to find a pile of wood, barrels, ropes and oars. A “pile of misery”, according to Kim.
As expected, they’re going to have to build a raft.
They must carry the materials they choose through an obstacle course down to a designated build area. Then with their raft they have to paddle past 3 buoys, collecting three tags. The first duo to return will win the challenge, they also get a GPS device from LG worth $1,000. And a 1kg bonus at the weigh-in.
The losing duo will suffer a 1kg penalty at the weigh-in, unless Chris and Kim lose, in which case they won’t suffer a 1kg penalty, they will “merely” be stripped of their immunity.
Courtney wants them to come last because they haven’t earnt it. Damien hopes they come last too, because they don’t deserve to be there as much as everyone else.

Courtney and Munnalita have the Commando, of course. He spent 10 years in Special Forces, so his specialist knowledge will be invaluable!
Munnalita says he came in, took off his glasses, shook her and Courtney’s hands and had a smile on his face. She thinks maybe he might not be so mean this time!
Ajay tells them that while Steve can offer advice, Courtalina will still have to do the actual building.

Ajay then tells them that they have a choice – they can run to the raft building instructions which are in the opposite direction away from the obstacle course and the raft supplies, or they can run straight for the supplies to pick the best bits?

And they’re off!

Kim wanted to go have a look at the instructions but Chris didn’t see the point because he’s built a raft before. Tensions rising already!
Chris’ plan seems to be to try and carry enough on the first trip to build a raft immediately, rather than make multiple trips. It backfires a little when he snaps one of their two allowed paddles though!
The other 3 duos are being more conservative, carrying a smaller amount of material at a time.

By the time Courtney and Munnalita get there with all their gear, they see Chris and Kim already building their raft. They decide their best strategy was to simply listen to what the Commando says and follow his instructions as best they can. Lots of “Quick Courtney!” utterances from Munnalita over the top though…
He’s even giving them instructions on how to tie the ropes, he says it’s really important that it not fall apart or their chances of winning would go out the window.

Pati is prepared to sabotage Chris and Kim’s raft to try and ensure they came last because if they’ve been working as hard as everyone else all week then they’ll be above the yellow line anyway. Spot on!

Chris is taking the lead in the raft building and telling Kim what to do. Her frustration seems to be rising as it goes on.
He says if they win he’ll be giving a big shout out to the Scouts and so on. He’s spent many years with them and has told Kim he’s an expert with knots and such. Kim says chris has said he’s an expert at many, many, many things. This man can do everything!

Pati and Marty are first into the water, but Marty is worried about the possibility of their raft falling apart.
Courtney and Munnalita are second into the water but are flailing around a bit. Eventually Courtney starts counting out the strokes and they start going a little better then.
Damien and Laura are third into the water. Damien’s very concerned about capsizing their raft due to his massive weight. By the time they get going they’re well behind Marty and Pati and Courtney and Munnalita are a fair ways off as well. But they beat Chris and Kim into the water with a much sturdier looking raft, no less!
Chris and Kim get in last and have real trouble not rolling their raft, since their “raft” is two barrels. In a vertical line. Yes, they’ve essentially created a very long log. And they only have one paddle with which to try and get it up the river. Oh dear…

Courtney and Munnalita finally get ahead of Pati and Marty. Their raft is quite sturdy and in Courtney’s aside he’s grinning and says he thought, “Thanks, Commando!”
Pati and Marty start catching up and the Commando is yelling at them to not look behind them, just go! Just go! And they eventually end up crossing the line first! I think the help of the Commando helped a lot, and Munnalita says as much.
Marty says he’d rather see someone from Red win it if they didn’t.

Damien and Laura are still struggling along, Laura says she doesn’t mind that the others had already finished, they just wanted to be sure to beat Chris and Kim.
Chris decides to hop in the water and pull the raft along, with his “strength” and his “manlihood”, Kim says.
And eventually Chris and Kim pull in ahead of Damien and Laura.
When Damien gets in, he’s pretty clearly pissed off. He says he’s not pissed about the 1kg penalty, just pissed that it means one of the original 6 will be going home, since Chris and Kim didn’t get stripped of their immunity. He says that if they just worked hard and lost enough weight they’d be above the yellow line and they wouldn’t need it.

And in Sunday night’s weigh-in, some people have lost a lot of weight, some not very much… and someone has lost nothing at all? 0.0 difference, the screen flashes. We’ll see!