The Amazing Race Australia – Episode Twelve – Season Finale
The Leg
  
It is the final leg of the Race and the final three all board a flight to Singapore, getting them in a 10:15pm. Once in Sinagpore, teams head to the Goh Chor Tua Pek Kong Chinese Temple where they must break open a pile of durians until they find one with a red-colored center.
The three teams stay neck and neck, but it’s Tyler & Nathan that find the right durian first. The performers give them their next clue and the Detour.
In this Detour, teams head to the iconic Marina Bay Sands resort.
In Dare, teams must traverse a tightrope, 250 meters above the ground from Tower 1 to Tower 2 and back. The 2nd team member will be given their next clue before heading back.
In Stair, teams must climb the 55-level Tower 1 using only the stairs to collect a souvenir, take it back down to the lobby, then back up to Level 56 to exchange the souvenir for their next clue.
  
Tyler & Nathan choose stairs, as do Jeff & Luke who finish next, leaving Sam & Renae in last. Once at the hotel, Tyler & Nathan decide to do Dare instead. As Sam & Renae, the surfers finish and get the next clue telling teams to get a five minute palm reading at the Hong San See Taoist Temple.
Tyler & Nathan stay in the lead after a very promising palm reading and now must head to the Jurong Chinese Gardens and find a statue of Confucious who will lead them to their next clue. Sam & Renae and Jeff & Luke follow with their own readings, though not as promising with respect to the Race… hmm…
  
The surfers keep going and now teams must head to the Singapore Flyer ferris wheel and search amongst the 28 compartments, all of which containing Race envelopes, but only three containing their next clue. If they choose the wrong compartment, they’ll have to ride an entire 21 minute rotation of the Flyer before searching another one.
Sam & Renae and Jeff & Luke catch up to Tyler & Nathan at the Flyer. But after a couple of tries, Tyler & Nathan are the first to get the clue. Time for teams to head home and their final destination, Perth, Australia.
Jeff & Luke find the clue next and both teams make a 9am flight out of Singapore arriving in Perth at 2:05pm. The full flight leaves Sam & Renae on one that arrives 35 minutes later at 2:40pm.
Once in Perth, teams must drive themselves to Kings Park for their next clue. Out of the airport, both Tyler & Nathan and Jeff & Luke take wrong turns and the surfers manage to get ahead once again.
The next clue tells teams to head to Freemantle Prison where they’ll be handed a set of 12 keys which they must use to search all three levels and over 100 cells for the one that contains their next clue. For every empty cell, they must make sure to lock the door again.
  
Tyler & Nathan get to the prison and start, but right off the bat, they have problems locking their first door just as Sam & Renae arrive in the city.
Jeff & Luke meanwhile are getting frustrated when they get lost again on the way to the prison.
On their fourth door, Tyler & Nathan find the cluebox and now have to make their way to Cape Peron for their next one.
  
Jeff & Luke arrive and get started on the doors, but Sam & Renae’s hometown advantage helps them make up some time as they catch up to the father and son. When Sam & Renae find the clue first, the frustration grows for Jeff & Luke who are now in last place.
All the teams now drive to Cape Peron where they find the final Road Block of the Race. In this Road Block, teams will have to arrange the flags of the countries they’ve visited on the Race, starting and ending with Australia. Once they have the correct 12 flags in order, the geography professor will hand them their next clue.
All three teams are there, neck and neck, struggling with the flags… until everything clicks for Tyler and he finishes the Road Block.
They get the final clue, head to Heirisson Island and the Finish Line.
Sam & Renae appear to finish soon after and it appears to be a Race between the two teams back to Perth. But at the Finish Line, the teams and Grant welcome Tyler & Nathan as the official winners of the first Amazing Race Australia.
  
Darkness falls and Sam & Renae finally arrive to finish 2nd and Jeff & Luke step on the Mat 3rd.
Episode Thoughts
Well there you go! It was a full finale, equivalent to what would be a 90-minute episode in the US. Plenty of tasks, but maybe not the best leg design, especially not having the entire leg in the final destination.
It would’ve been nice to see the final leg fully contained in Australia. But in spite of that, the teams still somehow stayed close to each other.
They might have gone overboard with the luck tasks though. That was three in one leg… and the finale too!
Many of the tasks were TARA tasks again, including that infamous flag final Road Block from TARA2 (and also, the tamer one back in TAR9). But even then, TARAu somehow made the tasks more exciting than TARA did. Legs in the dark are always awesome. Even more so that the nighttime leg was in the finale. The nighttime setting also made the Detour and the task at the Singapore Flyer visually more awesome.
Very interesting as well having teams drive themselves in the final leg. TARUS has avoided having teams drive themselves for safety concerns, because if you’re on the road to a million dollars, you’ll be wanting to drive as fast as you can, running red lights, and not caring about traffic laws right?
It was also pretty obvious Nathan & Tyler won. Too many obvious clues throughout the episode, not the least of which, the palm reader of course.
But overall, a good finale and a good enough to cap off what was a successful first season of TARAu.
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