Race to Survive: New Zealand episode 5 — Recap and more details explored

Every new episode of Race to Survive: New Zealand is more awaited than the previous one because the race gets tougher, and the competition gets even more intense as the pool of contestants gets smaller.

Episode 5 of Race to Survive: New Zealand was released on Monday, June 17, and one out of the seven remaining teams went home. The episode was titled Deep, Dark, Holes, and as the name suggests, the contestants were seen navigating through a dark cave.

The team to go home was The Ultramarathoners, Coree and Jeff. They weren't eliminated but succumbed to fatigue and quit Race to Survive: New Zealand halfway. The River Guides took the lead as always and will be seen finishing the last leg of their race in the upcoming episode.

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What happened on Race to Survive: New Zealand episode 5?

Unlike the first two races, the teams had to make a food cache decision at the start of the third race. The food they would go for at the start of the race was the only food they would get for their 2-day race, so almost everyone went for the food cache. However, the Hunters, Ryan and Bronson, went straight to start the new race because frontrunning was more important to them than the food.

The third race on Race to Survive: New Zealand was a grueling 22-mile-long course. The contestants had to navigate through what they called a "green maze," which was a forest, only to walk on a rocky river bed. Then, they had to kayak down a river up until the finish line.

The River Guides once again proved their prowess by reaching the food cache before everybody else. The rest of the teams made it there at the same time. When they all returned to the start of the cave, where the race began, they arrived again at the same time, so they had to queue up to descend into the cave's narrow mouth.

After they all descended the cave, they were faced with the "green maze," which had criss-crossing roads in the middle of a jungle. The River Guides showed that they were physically and mentally ahead of the others. Instead of diving into the maze, they decided to use the perimeter around it, which was marked by pink flags, to stop the players from falling off the cliff.

Using the line of pink flags on the side, The River Guides quickly made it to the next part of the race. However, they had to decide to end day 1 of race 3 right there because the rules said that they needed three hours on their race clock to finish their walk on the river bed, which they didn't have.

The Smokejumpers and The Hunters arrived at the finish point of the "green maze" shortly after and had to make the same decision because they, too, didn't have the three hours needed for the rocky river bed on their race clock.

Throughout the race on day 1, Coree complained about his head hurting. Their course through the cave and their walk through the maze worsened the case for Coree, and they decided to quit the race. A helicopter rescued him and his teammate Jeff, taking the team count down to six.

At the start of day 2, the first three teams started their rocky riverbed course, trying to catch a lead. They all made it to the kayaking point, the third part of their race, which will be covered in the upcoming episode.

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New episodes of Race to Survive: New Zealand drop on Mondays, at 11 pm ET, on USA Network.