Cath and Kel were the first Fugitives to be caught during the Hunted Australia 2023 premiere. While their initial burst of laughter upon being caught by the Hunters looked light-hearted, the two women reveal that the entire experience felt very real.

The long-time friends were both fans of the show, and decided to audition on a whim, thinking that their likelihood of being cast was low. However, Cath and Kel made the cut and began preparing for the experience.

During an interview with Chattr post their elimination, Cath said that the days and weeks before filming began felt like a game, but once they began filming the experience felt akin to an actual fugitive evading authorities.

“It did [feel like a game] to start with when you’re building up, but that moment when you’re on the boat, and they’re about to pull into the dock and there’s a helicopter hovering It kicks off this adrenaline inside your body that you would never, I can’t remember ever feeling that before,” she said.

“There were drones popping in as well. It was very heightened and everybody felt that way, looking around the group the 10 teams all had the same feeling. When they said ‘blast’ and all just have to bolt!”

Why didn’t the mums delete the WhatsApp backup?

One of Cath and Kel’s major downfalls was the fact that they didn’t delete the backup of their WhatsApp chats. Digital Forensics were able to easily restore the chat history, and find extensive details about where the Fugitives were trying to hide.

Looking back, Cath said that she didn’t know that backups were able to be restored.

“It didn’t cross my mind. I mean, if you’re going to delete something? Isn’t it just deleted?” She said.

“George [an associate] has written everything you can think of and Cath’s deleted it. For someone who’s not very tech-savvy, that’s it. But clearly, that’s not it. We found that out the hard way,” Kel added.

Kel’s hospital trip during the first episode

Unfortunately for Kel, she didn’t get the chance to sit down with loved ones and watch her TV debut, as she had to rush her daughter to the hospital.

“I’ve got a picture with Cath with a whole bunch of people sitting around having a bit of a watch party and I’m in hospital with my daughter for hours and hours and hours because she had this really bad what we thought was tonsillitis, but it ended up being glandular fever!”

Hunted Australia 2023 airs at 7.30pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on 10 and 10Play.

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