Everyone’s told to pack their bags first thing in the morning. “It’s really nice here, I don’t want to go home!” – Munnalita
They’re all full of speculation that perhaps this means someone will be getting sent home after the challenge they suspect is coming today.

Will someone be eliminated tonight, even though it is very clearly not elimination night? Read on!

They get in the cars and head off to who knows where. Lots of beautiful mountains and scenery and a beautiful lake, according to Munnalita.
Eventually they arrive in “the middle of nowhere” beside a river. Courtney tells us the river is actually glacier melt. It’s a very pretty blue!

Ajay is beside the river to say hullo to everyone. She tells them the place they’re in is so beautiful, it’s called “Paradise”. Whereupon we get an echo-y reminder of Ajay having earlier told the contestants that the next time they see her, they’d be in Paradise. Ha!
Kimberlie says it doesn’t look like Paradise to her – Paradise to her involves palm trees and cocktails.
Ajay tells them there’ll be times when they think that Paradise has been lost and they’ll think they’re in hell.

They’re about to compete in their single most crucial challenge so far – an adventure race with a sting in its tail. They’re going to ride, run and paddle over 10km of New Zealand’s most rugged mountain country. 6km bike ride first to the forest’s edge, then 1km sprint through the fields and forest, then a 4km paddle down the stream and through some rapids. Perhaps my math fails me, but isn’t that 11km?

Courtney’s a bit excited to do it because it’s finally something outdoor and adventure-y, instead of moving 4 tons of wood.

After they finish the boat part, they abandon the boat for a sprint to the finish. But before that, there’s a test. There’ll be 6 logs displaying 6 different food items, foods they’ve faced in their past. They’ll need to select the food with the lowest calories.
Chris is worried because he’s not good at calories, Munnalita says she has a general idea of higher or lower sometimes, but if it’s within 10 or 20 calories, she might be in trouble.

They’ve all been told to pack their bags because 5 of them will be staying and 1 will be going home. Pick the wrong food and you’ll be going home!
Chris is confident he’s going to win so he’ll have plenty of choice when he gets there, Kim will struggle, she’ll be dead last so she’ll be going home, which he thinks means his troubles will be over.
Kim wants to stay on, Munnalita wants to stay on, everyone wants to stay on, what a surprise!

Kim starts freaking out when she sees the bikes because she had a bad crash at 13 and hasn’t been back on since – lots of stitches, saw her kneecap, messy!
Chris wants to win! He wakes up in the morning and wants to win!
Courtney just wants to beat Chris, because he’s always going on about how fit and strong he is, he’s the best, etc. Lots of disdain in that voice!

As soon as Ajay says go, Kim feels physically ill but manages to get up on the bike and head off. Way after everyone else.

Damien leads off the bike leg, which impressed Courtney a lot.
Munnalita hasn’t been on a bike since year 7 or 8. She’s worried about hills.
After a while, Courtney overtakes Damien, cruising along, no sign of Chris at all!
There’s empty road behind Courtney yet Chris seems to think he’s right behind Courtney. “Hot on his heels” and so on. Riiight.

Pati’s a bit rusty on the bike. She just wants to get to the end quickly enough that she’ll still have a choice when she gets there.
Munnalita’s struggling, but trying her best.
Damien’s panting a lot and ends up walking his bike for a fair bit of the course.

Kim is freaking out, gripping the handlebars really tight. She couldn’t ride up the hill, so eventually she gives up and walks the bike instead to conserve energy for the rest of the ride, the paddling and the run.

Chris finally does catch up to Courtney and Courtney is determined to keep going. He starts going straight through rivers without getting off his bike so much.

Pati starts having a problem with her bike seat, it keeps slipping downwards, making it really hard to ride, so she’s swearing up a blue streak because she can see Courtney and Chris pulling away while she has to walk her bike along.

Chris starts whining about changing the gears every time he gets back out of the water because he wasn’t smart enough to do it beforehand. And he did it over and over, apparently. Well done!

Courtney’s in front at the bit where they start the run and he’s feeling fairly confident because Courtney’s really confident in his running. Chris is starting to panic because Courtney is going to beat him.
Seems to me that a 1 in 5 selection isn’t much worse than 1 in 6, but since when has common sense entered these people’s minds?

Courtney gets to the river first as well, grabs himself an oar and dives right into the boat… Which has a second person in it, presumably to help them if they’re in danger of doing something especially stupid? Chris confirms that’s what they’re there for, saying they wouldn’t offer any help unless it was required. They’re deadweight until then!

Pati gets to the start of the running section third and can’t see any sign of Courtney or Chris so they’re obviously a long way ahead.

Courtney has about a 50100m start on Chris, Chris tells us. It’s definitely about 100m. Chris thinks he’s got more upper body strength and he’s more crazy in the head, so he figures he’ll get Courtney somehow.
Courtney thinks he’s got a big enough lead and so long as he doesn’t stuff it up, he’s got it!

Munnalita says Damien is surprisingly fit for his size, so she was thinking he’d give her a run for his money. They get to the top of a hill and Munnalita tries to pedal as fast as she can and Damien shortly zooms past her, which she thinks is due to his much larger weight but in reality is probably him using a better gear and pedalling harder – weight is not as useful as you might think, especially not on a crap “road” like they’re on!

Damien pulls into the start of the running section not very far ahead of Munnalita, who quickly goes back past him. Damien’s trying to struggle on as best he could, he doesn’t want to stop and walk so he just keeps going.

Kim gets there last of all and dumps her bike. She’s just going to keep going and hope that everyone makes a mistake and the highest calorie thing isn’t all that’s left!

Pati starts paddling and can see Courtney and Chris way off in the distance. As she pushes off, she sees Munnalita coming out of the forest, which means Munnalita has made up a bunch of time on Pati in the run.
Munnalita’s worried about spinning the boat around and such.

Chris is trying to “reef through his whole body, his back, his torso”. It’s a wonder he hasn’t tipped the kayak yet!
Courtney heads off on a side part of the river and Chris is surprised, wondering why he did it. Chris heads off down the main part of the river and shortly goes past Courtney. He then makes a big statement about how he’d rather sink the boat than let Courtney win. I’m sure that’d help?

Courtney’s a bit annoyed because the lack of control of his kayak is responsible and as he’s swirling around some more he gets his kayak caught up on a reef and as they’re trying to dislodge the raft they tip over, dunking Courtney, which he says took his breath away because of how cold it was.
“And all I kept thinking about was, this is how the people on the Titanic died!” Yeahhhhhhhhhhh…

Munnalita’s boat is doing the spinning thing as well, so Damien is catching up a bit. Kim’s still way behind. Pati now goes sailing past Courtney who’s still floundering.
Pati’s now chasing along behind Chris. Right behind Chris onto the beach is Pati, though Chris thinks it’s actually Courtney. When they get to the food, he looks around and realises it’s Pati and he’s amazed.

The foods they have to choose from?
1. slice of salmon (?)
2. 3 eggs
3. cheesy biscuit snack
4. a sausage
5. 2 diet chocolate mousse desserts
6. a spoonful of peanut butter

Chris thinks Pati is running for the chocolate mousses, so he immediately grabs them up and heads off for the finish line because he doesn’t want to be last to finish. Idiot!
Pati is actually tossing up between the salmon and the biscuits and dip. She eventually takes the biscuits and dip.

Chris wins the race to the finish line, though it remains to be seen if he’s won the real race.
Pati looks at what Chris has and thinks that maybe she’s actually beaten him, even though he beat her in the physical aspect of the race.

Courtney arrives to four options. He’s fairly sure the salmon sashimi is the best option.

Munnalita is doing it tough, Courtney’s cheering for her from the finish line. She’s got three options left, none of them easy ones. We get treated to her whining some more about how she’s not ready to go home yet, yada yada yada.

Next week on The Biggest Loser?! Oh you have got to be kidding me!
They blur out what Munnalita has picked, ditto Damo and Kim and we see Ajay telling the contestants that whoever has the food with the highest calories will be going home immediately… with a heccylopper parked in the background, cool!