Reality TV royalty Rob Mills and journalist and Project host Georgie Tunny spent almost the entirety of The Amazing Race Australia at the front of the pack. Winning a whopping five legs of the race, they rarely landed on the pit stop mat below 4th place, which was a shock to even them, considering how often they couldn't work out which direction to go.
"We got lost so many times," Rob told 10 laughing, "the edit was very lovely to us".
"We couldn't find our way out of a paper bag," Georgie agreed. "Apparently, it's boring television to watch us go, 'Wait.... where do we go?'"
Confidently walking past signs telling them to turn towards a challenge, or simply driving in the opposite direction into dense rainforest, the duo were their own biggest obstacle in the race for $100,000 for their chosen charity.
"In Borobudur, we had completely nailed the challenge and were so far in front, and the next clue said 'Leave the temple'," Georgie continued. "We were like, 'Leave... the temple...? Do you think they mean we go out?'"
Rob added, "The producers were just shaking their heads at us like, 'We can't help you!'"
Despite their navigational issues, Rob and Georgie admitted that looking down the line of teams on the very first day, they didn't expect to see themselves in the grand finale alongside Stephen and Bernard Curry and Aesha Scott and Scott Dobson.
"I have this unwarranted sense of confidence," Georgie laughed. "There was part of me that was like we could, but I never actually believed it. There's no way!
"You look to your left and you're seeing Olympians, the Curry boys - we knew they'd be really good, they're scrappy. We have mutual friends with Aesha and Scott, so I knew she was super competitive and also had the skills to back it up, whereas we're competitive without the skills."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Rob interjected.
"I was thinking, 'Just don't get out on the first week'. And then that became, 'Don't come last, don't come last', and we never did!" Georgie said.
"After we won our first leg of the race, we just kept winning," Rob added. And the more legs the pair won, the more they began to believe they could have made it all the way to the top spot.
"I think we're both really good problem solvers," he continued, "Tunny calls herself the pretzel because she can just work out what needs to happen and how to make something work.
"I feel like we just problem-solved and worked out the best way to do something. And I think being able to communicate with each other what we needed and how to do it really helped," Rob said.
Getting to the finale, Georgie said, was a strange experience emotionally. Having formed close bonds with the other teams and lending a hand along the way, the final leg saw all three teams laser-focused on the finish line.
"We were all there wanting to win for our charities," she explained. "It was such an odd feeling being there at the end because we were devastated we had come second, but to see Bernie and Stephen, who we just adore, talking about their late dad and doing [the race] for their mum and their One In Five charity, I just remember sobbing on the mat.
"It was such an odd dichotomy of being like, 'We want to beat everyone and tear them apart, ' to then being like, 'Oh my god, you're so lovely!'"
Rob and Georgie were running the race on behalf of the Australian Children's Music Foundation (ACMF), founded by Don Spencer OAM, an organisation that provides music education and opportunities to children across Australia.
"You know the money will go to a very good cause, whoever wins, but as a musician and entertainer, I know the importance of music," Rob said, "and Tunny is a huge music lover. We know the importance of music and with it in schools across the country, we know that numeracy and literacy skills go up.
"Just thinking of Don Spener and the work he's done over the last 25 years, we definitely dug deep a few times," he continued.
Reflecting on their journey as a whole, the pair had very simple advice for any teams considering tackling the race in the future.
"Do it. Do it!" they said in unison.
"And pack snacks," Rob added.
Watch full seasons of The Amazing Race Australia on 10.
