Previously on The Biggest Loser… Awwww, Andrew got voted out? Awww.

Tonight, they’re going to New Zealand, yay!
Complete with the now-obligatory hike up a mountain with heavy backpacks on.

Coming out of the elimination room everyone is a little down, having sent home Andrew.
But everything is looking up for the alliance!

Sean says his angel is looking out for him as he says this is the third bullet he’s dodged. You’d think the angel might stop the guy shooting at him…

Next morning the girls are coming downstairs for breakfast – which includes coffee, apparently?
But it’s okay, there’s a letter on the lounge room table to read first.
Meaghan has to run off and get the boys then Tiffany can read out the letter.

The letter says that their journey has been confronting, but always an adventure. Now it’s time for an adventure of a very different kind.
You’re about to come face to face with their greatest fears and take a giant leap into their new lives.

Everyone thinks the letter is finished and then Tiffany says, “It’s not finished…. Pack your bags, you’re going to New Zealand!”
Everyone is looking forward to it a lot more now. They’ve obviously not seen the movie. There be dragons in New Zealand!

Meaghan and Sammy head off to pack up their stuff. Sammy wasn’t expecting to make it that far.
Meaghan says she watches the show religiously, every year. And the face their fears bit is always really scary!
Meaghan tells Sammy that she hates bungee jumping. Sammy is just lost for words.

Sean’s chatting to Cam. He’s also hoping not bungee jumping!
Julie hates heights as well. Crikey!

Apparently New Zealand plays a big part in Sean’s life. His Mum’s buried there. Apparently his folks split up when he was 7 and he grew up with his Dad. His Mum died when Sean was 14 – 24 years ago!
It’s been a long time but now Sean feels like it was meant to be.
“The new Sean is going to see his mother.” He wants his Mum to see what he looks like now.
She may do that, just before zombie-Mum eats his BRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS.

After they’re all packed they’re all a lot perkier about the idea of going to New Zealand. Most of them haven’t been before.

Passports out. They all look pretty bad, as they were all taken pre-weightloss. Tiffany looks hideous in her passport. She actually looks like her whole face is swollen with an infection or something.

Michelle says this week is important for their mental journey. It’s their opportunity to step up and come face to face with their inner demons.
Michelle and Shannan are waiting on the shores of a bigass lake. Lots of hugs and hellos and so on.

… but the contestants are all a bit nervous about what is to come.

But this won’t be a holiday, Michelle tells us and the contestants. Shannan says it’s time to face the things that have held them back in the past.
“If you think you know what you’re in for, think again.” They’ve raised the bar to a whole new level and they’ll be doing things they’d’ve never thought possible!

But before anything else, they have a surprise for the contestants already. Cue horror! As Tiffany says, when the trainers have a surprise for them it’s always something not so good.

But no, The White House is back!
Kinda. It’s a nice white house on the shore of the lake.

Then they can hear some chanting coming around the house. Two lines, one of men and one of women. The woman at the front has crazy-eyes that put Michelle’s to shame!
They’re doing some kind of challenge thing to the contestants, to prepare them for facing what they’ll be doing this week.
The chief of their people puts down a leaf as a peace offering. What kind of crappy culture offers you a leaf? Give us gold, bitches!

Anyway, Sean knows the drill, don’t lose eye contact, walk slowly forwards and pick up the leaf.
Then they get a bit of a song and dance. Lots of tongue work involved. Everyone looks very impressed.
Then they have to do a… hongi? Eskimo nose kisses!

After that they head inside to a nice sitting room with lots of books and a fireplace and… a mishmash of furniture that doesn’t match anything!
Overall the house looks pretty nice though.

Tomorrow’s going to blow them away, Michelle and Shannan tell them.

After another ad break the fatties are wandering up to the lip of a volcano. Not an active one so it doesn’t really count!
Then they can hear Shannan giving them an “OI!” from a nearby rise.

Michelle says kia ora to them and tells them they’re on Mount Tarawera. But she pronounces it all Maori-y. She also says it’s a sacred place to a local tribe that I’m not even going to try spelling!
Shannan says they’re about to confront their past, to remember the people they once were, the people who started the journey a bit over 2 months ago.
Lots of old black and white footage of them all being fat and such.

They’re going for a hike. A hike back to the future! Presumably not at 88mph.

This is about remembering the ups, the downs and the achievements on the way to where they are right now.
They’re taking their entire journey so far and breaking it down, week by week.
There’s a series of gates up the mountain, each gate representing a week at Fat Camp. At each gate there’s a sandbag with their weightloss for the week to put in their backpack.
Cam’s going to be hurting pretty early on since his best losses have mostly been recent!

They’re all a bit scared and nervous about “going back” to how they were before.
Except Sean, who’s looking forward to it. Probably because he’s just a big ball of muscle at this point!

Michelle tells us the weight of the sandbags represents more than just the weight they lost. It’s also representing the emotional baggage and everything else they’d been carrying around with them.

But even Cam’s very happy about setting off, despite having the largest weight for his first bag. Very different attitude for Cam now.

Michelle’s talking about the mountain towering before them… and someone asks, “Can we go back?”

The first bit of the walk looks pretty tough. Very steep grade, loose gravel under their feet, but they all soldier on quite well.
Cam says the first week he got Biggest Loser was the best week he’d ever had. He tells Shannan and Michelle that they pushed him to it, they both had a hand in him losing that weight and he’s very thankful.
Michelle says Cam went from an I Can’t Man to an I Can Man that week. Cam says it all just clicked that week.
Afterwards Shannan goes for a handshake as Michelle goes for a kiss and Cam tries to do both at once, getting Michelle mostly (who wouldn’t!) and Shannan’s hand kind of half-heartedly. After kissing Michelle he fakes going in for a kiss on Shannan and when Shannan starts to come forward Cam jokingly pushes him back.
Ahem.
Anyway. They have a healthy-man-love hug and get on with the trek!

Week 7 was very memorable for Julie as it was when she went under the 100kg mark. She’d not been under it for 20 years. She’d not been able to for so long but that week she really, really wanted it.
That week she didn’t just want it, she was going to do it!

Week 7 was also very emotional for Sammy. That was the week Alison came to visit and Sammy had trouble looking in the mirror. She was freaked out by her inability to look at herself.
Looking back at it now, Sammy says she feels silly. She’s not surprised she was overweight now, she’d been holding herself back and not seeing the nice stuff in life!

Week 6 is the week Sean started believing in himself more, he says. Shannan says from that point on he’s not looked left or right he’s just gone for it.
Week 6 was the week Sean got under 100kg. He didn’t want to do it just for himself but for his wife and kids and to make his (dead) parents proud.

Shannan points out the peak of the trail. And says they’re halfway there, but the good news is… it’s all uphill from here!

Cam can feel the weight on his back and says he was walking stooped forward in the past and is only noticing it now that he’s back to being heavier.
Week 5 is one Cam doesn’t want to remember. He had a huge fight with Michelle that week. He’d felt like he was going nowhere. Michelle reminds him of how prattish he was and giggles and hugs him.

Tiffany’s bio age shocked her in Week 5. She realised she’d been pushing her husband away and punishing him in a way. Testing him, even.
“If he ever made any comment about needing to lose weight I’d go, you think I’m fat now? I’m off to buy a block of chocolate and show you how fat I can actually get.” She says she was testing him to see if he’d leave because she was expecting him to leave every day.
But she says she’s lucky he stuck around because not many men would. She pushed and pushed and pushed, but he well and truly proved himself. She’s realised now that she was just cutting her life short.
Tiffany says she never wants to go back to the way she was, she hated that about herself and she recognises it now and knows it has to change.

Week 4 for Meaghan was 4.5kg. Ouch!
Meaghan says something Michelle said resonated with her – “If you just live plateau you never feel the highs and you never feel the lows.” She says that sums up her life in one sentence.
Michelle implores Meaghan to keep opening herself up. She’s beautiful, she’s not a tough cookie, not really, it’s not who she is.
Michelle says Meaghan’s defensive mechanism was that she was tough and strong and she didn’t need anyone. She saw showing her emotions as a sign of weakness, where Michelle feels it’s a sign of strength.
“I can’t thank you enough for this journey, hey?” “That’s alright, it’s all part of the process.”

Everyone’s starting to feel the weight now, they’ve all got so much weight on their backs.

Cam says Week 3 opened his eyes. He’d gotten himself into a hole so deep that he missed his daughter’s wedding.
Sammy says she went through hell that week because she wanted to be at her sister’s wedding so much. She couldn’t look at the DVD of the wedding because she was crying so much! She says it’s worth it but it sort of annoys her that she was so overweight she had to miss the wedding.
Sammy vows to never ever let her weight stop her from doing anything.

They make it to “Echo Point” where Michelle decides it’s a good time to stop and let them feel the weight. Mean!

Julie says it’s really hurting, mentally and physically. Mental, more than physical. The Julie who came into the competition was a sad, old woman. She actually feels sorry for her old self for letting herself go so much.

Sean’s up to more than 33kg in his backpack now. Shannan wants him to remember who he’s doing it for.
Sean’s going to shout out some words and they’ll come back to him and if there’s any doubt or lies or hidden agenda in them, he’ll hear it for himself.
Shannan tells him to say he’s proud. To his wife, his kids and his Dad. Sean breaks into tears at that point because he loves his wife and kids and his Dad so much.

Sean takes some time to gather himself. Then he lets out a big shout, telling his wife he’s proud, his kids (all named seperately!) he’s proud and his Dad he’s proud.
Sean says it’s been a long time since he’s been proud of himself. More than 15 or 20 years.

The steepest part of the climb is on the way to week 1. Week 1 is the biggest bag for them all as that’s when everyone always does a really good number.

Julie is sitting down to receive her next sandbag. She struggles to even stand afterwards. Shannan has to hold her hands to steady her.
Julie says it’s disgusting and shocking feeling that weight back on her.

Sammy says to Michelle that she’d given up on herself because she didn’t think she could do any better and didn’t think she could fix it.

Sean says that 9 weeks ago he wouldn’t’ve been able to do it. Shannan says that the even scarier part is that Sean wouldn’t’ve even tried 9 weeks ago. He’d’ve used his weight as an excuse to stay at the bottom having a beer while the kids hiked up.

Everyone’s back to their starting weights now. Time to make for the summit!

The summit is over 1100m above sea level. Not bad!
They’re all struggling now, but making steady progress. Although Shannan has a hand on the back of Cam’s backpack at one point to steady him.
Cam says he’s learnt that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. “I’m not gunna try and get up that mountain, I’m going to get up that mountain.” Do or do not, there is no try!

Most of them have grins on their faces when they get to the top. Except Sean who’s sobbing. Bit weird, everyone else started out scared and ended happy, he started out happy and ended in tears!

But before they can take off the backpacks, Shannan wants to have a bit of a chinwag. Bad man!

He says they’ll be saying goodbye to their old selves when the backpacks come off. He wants them to make a promise to themselves to never go back to that weight again.

Tiffany’s first to get her backpack off. She takes a last moment to feel it and remember it.
“I feel free! I feel light!”

Meaghan says she felt like the new her. “I’m young and I’m free!”

Sammy says the new Sammy is strong, beautiful and deserving of what she wants.

Julie just about falls over on her face when the weight comes off.

Cam staggers a bit too but then does a silly little dance. He tells us he never wants to go back to there again.

Sean says he felt invincible after feeling how far he’d come.

Michelle says they can now see a future they never thought possible.

Tomorrow night, the “Face Your Fears” bits begin. Cam’s looking at a cliff face, Sammy’s looking at some whitewater rapids and Sean’s going for a heccylopper ride over the water. In a wetsuit and flippers. I wonder if he’s going for a swim? FIND OUT TOMORROW!