“Race to Survive: New Zealand” left audiences last week with the first elimination of the season, Heather and Emilio who finished the first leg of the race, but came in dead last, getting edged out by rock climbers from Brooklyn Steffen and Mikhail.

Before starting the next leg of the race, the teams endured five days of downtime with ongoing rain with temperatures of 38 degrees celsius. It was day seven of the 40 day race.

Teams Kennedy and Nik, and Steffen and Mikhail had both skipped food rations.  Desperate to put food into their stomachs, Steffen offered a trade of pants to Ethan, a member of an opposing team, in exchange for food.  With food as a high commodity, Ethan didn’t want to make that trade.

There’s a Bit of a Delay:

During the downtime, Ryan (paired with son-in-law Bronsen), no doubt, received a huge boost of motivation when he discovered a sweet hand-written note from his son inside of one of his pockets.  

Pictured: (l-r) Bronsen Iverson, Ryan Stewart — Photo by: Brian Finestone/USA Network

Kennedy, part of one of the teams not stopping for a food cache, was experiencing some serious hunger and attempted to subside it by licking fungus from a tree.  Her other half, Nik, went searching for goose eggs.

Nik, while carrying what appeared to be a mallet, said he was willing to get hurt to get some eggs and knew that Geese in fact attack and harm people. 

Kennedy said she and partner Nik regretted their strategy of skipping food caches and relying on their hunting skills.  Which apparently, were not too good. 

Steffen and Mikhail had their own bird encounter when finding a very young baby bird’s nest that they ultimately decided to leave alone.  They said they were not that hungry!

Harsh Guidelines!

By day nine, when the sun appeared, the teams were off to the second leg of the race.  The second portion was a 25 mile excursion in “Maungakaura,” which is a combination of the words “mountain” and “red.”    

The teams were given the guidelines to make their way to a mandatory check point, along with two optional food caches.  Then, the bad news!!  The teams were informed that if a team “tapped-out” early there would still be an elimination.

Viewers from last season may remember that when a team could no longer continue in the race due to either injury or their own choice, then no other team was eliminated that week.

Another crucial rule is that once a team arrives at the mandatory check point, then allowed to go for the food cache, in order to do so, they must have at least 30 minutes left on the race clock.  This is very important, as one team, Kennedy and Nik, fell short of that by just 10 minutes!

That’s okay, because not only did Kennedy and Nik proceed to grab the much needed food, after going nine days of starvation, they also gained a lead over two other teams.

Pictured: (l-r) Jeff Watterson, Coree Woltering — Photo by: Daniel Allen/USA Network

Fierce Competition:

Ryan and Bronsen started the second race in the lead, that was soon taken over by Oliver and Corry.  Ethan and Tyrie were in third.  Ryan showed extreme patience with son-in-law Bronsen, stating, “I need to bring him home safe, and I need to bring him home with money!”

A new, unwanted annoyance popped-up for Coree and Jeff in that they were being closely followed by Ashley and Rhandi, who admitted to being poor navigators.  They said every race they had been in was “clearly marked.”

Not wanting to give Ashley and Rhandi an advantage, Coree and Jeff let the ladies pass them, where they soon started following Creighton and Palulina.  The four of them ended-up missing their mandatory check-in, causing them to have to back-track by 20 minutes the next day.

Pictured: (l-r) Paulina Pena, Creighton Baird — Photo by: Daniel Allen/USA Network

In Dead Last:

The teams in the last two spots were Kennedy and Nik, and Steffen and Mikhail. The next morning, three teams arrived at the food caches back-to-back, reminding them it’s a fierce group of competitors – Kennedy & Nik, Paulina & Creighton, followed by Ashley & Rhandi.

After Creighton and Paulina passed Kennedy and Nik, Kennedy said they weren’t worried because they’re focused on “saving calories” and doing the “slow and study” race for the long haul.

But, more slow and more study were Steffen and Mikhail who were again in dead last.  While making their way down the hill to the mandatory checkpoint, that was when Mikhail fell and snapped something in his leg. 

Meantime, both teams in the lead – Corry and Oliver, and Ethan and Tyrie maneuvered their way to grab another food cache on the way to the second race finish line. 

Pictured: (l-r) Ethan Greenberg, Tyrie Mann Merrill — Photo by: Daniel Allen/USA Network

Self-Elimination:

After trying to push through a leg injury, it was determined by Steffen and Mikhail to bow out of the race.  They had gone for more than ten days (which a producer said was impressive) without food when they were airlifted out of the race. 

After that, the two teams who were fighting NOT to be in last place were Ashley & Rhandi, and Kennedy & Nik as they both climbed up the rocky mountain.
To be continued…

“Race to Survive: New Zealand” airs Mondays at 11 pm ET/PT on USA Network.