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http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/Features/20040406084102/Article/indexb_html
AT dawn, the picturesque town of Rockingham, 50km south of Perth in Australia, isn’t exactly buzzing. The only people out and about at 6.30am are joggers, surfers, cyclists and a few pampered pooches. Although the weather forecast promises a scorcher of a day ahead — at the moment, it is a cool, crispy 18篊. In less than a quarter of an hour, the sun is strong enough to burn anyone who’d forgotten to slap on SPF+25, while the Indian Ocean looks calm and inviting. It is the start of a perfect, glorious summer morning. Sand and surf beckons.
But the calm is soon shattered by the presence of six pumped-up competitors plus a crew of 33 waiting to start the last leg of TV3’s Explorace, which bills itself as "Malaysia’s most challenging reality show".
Twelve teams, with two teams competing at each location in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak early this year, have been whittled down to six in round two and now, the final three teams are in Perth for the first of a two-part finale before heading home to Putrajaya for what the producer insists will be a "spectacular" ending.
Over the next three days, cousins Sanjeev, 27, and Ravin, 29; husband and wife Fariz, 26, and Rina, 26; and Jerry, 33, and Maria, 37, will run, kayak, wade, swim, climb, skip, bungee jump, abseil, stuff their faces with food, and hop their way to the RM100,000 carrot dangling in front of them.
Each episode of Explorace follows a standard format. The contestants start with instructions on how to get to a particular spot and find the clues needed to complete a series of tasks, which lead to the next spot, clues, tasks, and so forth. Twists lie in the degree of difficulty, time limit and penalty imposed for failure to complete a challenge.
Perth is the equaliser. There’s no home-ground advantage and the pace is gruelling. Against the spectacular backdrop of the ocean, Sanjeev, Ravin, Fariz, Rina, Jerry and Maria run to try to reach the pier first and grab a canoe. They have to kayak across the bay towards Penguin Island, a wildlife heritage-listed park, and when they get there, forage for clues. Rina and Fariz are off to a good start; they’re co-ordinated and there’s rhythm in their strokes as they power ahead in the canoe. Back at the pier, Jerry and Maria are struggling — they can’t find the oars, and both lose their cool.
The pristine waters here are part of the Shoalwater Bay Marine Park. On a lucky day, visitors may get a glimpse of dolphins frolicking, failing which they may enjoy the local flora and fauna, particularly, the colony of penguins that lend its name to the island. But the contestants are too busy running the length and breadth of the island in search of banners, bottles and whatnots to notice, though someone manages to holler, "We’ll come back for a holiday!"
An hour passes, and the teams have one member each snorkelling in search of the item that will be the passport out. At this stage, Rina and Fariz, Sanjeev and Ravin have a slender lead. Back on the mainland, they’re scrambling for taxis to get to the next destination — the city of Mandurah, about one hour away from Rockingham.
It is still early in the game. The contestants converge on Mandurah for a taste of the famous ice-cream at Simmos, where they pick up more clues, which lead to a spot of crabbing in the estuary. The challenge is to catch two legal-sized crabs (i.e. 127mm across the widest part of the shell and no egg-carrying crabs) each. Wading in the crisp, cool water, Maria gets cramps and it emerges, two hours later, that no one is successful in the crabbing challenge. As a penalty, they have to run (soaking wet) along the main street to buy crabs from a seafood supplier.
The failure throws the game wide open. With the crabs, the six run to EggOmania, a local caf |
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Post time 6-4-2004 04:46 PM
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