(SERENE, INSPIRING MUSIC) (BIRDS CRY) (SERENE MUSIC CONTINUES) It's a rare privilege to be given the job of circumnavigating this coastline. Returning for a third time, I'm struck not just by the raw spectacle of New Zealand's natural beauty but also by the unique web of history and of tales tall and true. There's never a dull moment. And now we're back to uncover yet more of New Zealand's coastal secrets. (SWELLING MUSIC) Returning to Coast are geologist Hamish Campbell, marine biologist Jacky Geurts and maritime archaeologist Matt Carter. They'll be joined this season by esteemed historian Michael, Maori scientist Ocean Mercier and adventurer David Murray. This new series will take us around Aotearoa, from isolated South Westland, to historic North Otago. It will include the balmy Bay of Plenty; we'll travel east, to the far-flung Chatham Islands, and north, to Kaipara and the Kauri Coast. And we begin in the world's southernmost capital city, Wellington, where Hamish Campbell will reveal how this city came from the sea. The modern-day shoreline bears no resemblance whatsoever to that which greeted the very first settlers. Jacky Geurts ponders the plight of the long-finned eel. So that's around 10 years, potentially. Oh my goodness. Mm! He's 10 years old! I know. Tiny! Yeah. David Murray embarks on a Boy's Own adventure. Wouldn't wanna time it wrong, would you? No. And Ocean Mercier seeks inspiration from a reclusive maritime artist. Frank didn't live a conventional suburban life. It's a bit of the Kiwi 'man alone' business. (DRAMATIC POUNDING MUSIC) We're in Wellington, and this is Coast New Zealand. (GRAND, RISING MUSIC) Captions by Glenna Casalme www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 (MUSIC SWELLS) (MUSIC CRESCENDOES, CONCLUDES) Our trip to the capital takes in the city's spectacular harbour, works eastward to the scenic Turakirae Head and the sleepy settlement of Ngawi, and as far as the breathtaking Castlepoint Lighthouse. (EXCITING STRING MUSIC) But it begins at Wellington Airport. And there are a couple of things to note when landing here. It's windy, really windy. There's suburban housing all around. The runway itself is unnervingly short. It's jammed between the Cook Strait at one end and Evans Bay at the other. (ENGINE ROARS) It's all operated within the minimum safe area allowed! (DRAMATIC STRING MUSIC) A battle has raged for years over the need to extend the runway to increase that safety margin and ride New Zealand's rising tide of tourism. While politicians continue to argue the why and the when, the method is undisputed ` reclamation. (TENSE, CURIOUS MUSIC) Using infill to increase land area in the capital city is not new ` not by a long shot ` as local resident Hamish Campbell investigates. Wellington's Basin Reserve. (LIVELY CLASSICAL MUSIC) The National Museum ` Te Papa. The stadium! What do those three locations have in common? They sit on land that either didn't exist or was pushed up by earthquakes. 155ha of it in the inner city alone. Meaning that the modern-day shoreline bears no resemblance whatsoever to that which greeted the very first settlers. Local historian Michael Kelly talks me through Wellington's changing face. Wellington commenced, what, 1840? 1840. Yeah, yeah. And the city was divided into two nodes, really. There was the administrative end, Thorndon, and the mercantile end, at Te Aro. And between was a narrow track, and it was immediately obvious to people living in Wellington that there just wasn't enough flatland. So they would have to do something about that. There were individuals who got involved in their own private reclamations. So George Bennett,... Ah! ...who owned land on what was known as Clay Point, which was the demarcation between Lambton Quay to the north and Willis Street to the south. And it was a technically windy and difficult place to pass, so he started cutting down his clay bank and throwing it into the water, and by doing those two things, he widened the gap and gave people an easier passage between the two ends of the city. What techniques were used in reclamation? Well, early on, it was no more than men with horses and drays. Mm. Pick and shovel, I guess. Yep. Laborious and time-consuming. Right. Later, in the 19th century, for instance, the Te Aro reclamation in the 1880s used railway wagons and a big trestle was built across the bay to help the trains bring the fill to the reclamation. Oh, I see. Then in the 20th century, obviously they were able to use trucks and bulldozers. And then, of course, dredging, using big pipes and pouring of material from the sea floor over reclamation walls to fill up large areas of land. Over the years, there have been dozens of reclamations, the final and largest chapter taking place in the 1960s and 1970s, with Wellington's container wharf pushing into deeper water to allow bigger ships to berth ` all of a scale that would've been but a dream in George Bennett's day. (LOW, OMINOUS MUSIC) But what about the quivering elephant and the shaky room? The Wellington Fault runs right through Wellington City. And given the likelihood of a major earthquake here, what will happen to these buildings ` these buildings built on land where there used to be sea? 2016's Kaikoura earthquake provided the most recent report card, according to city council engineer Derek Baxter. So as a result of the last earthquake, the Kaikoura earthquake, how many buildings here are under review? There's still quite a number that are in discussions with their insurance companies about whether they are repaired or demolished. But over all, about 20 modern buildings were affected in a significant way. Right. The big green one across the harbour there, that's one that's just been announced as about to be demolished. Next door to that, the huge white one, that one's in negotiations with its insurers on what's happening. Right. These look brand-new to me. Yeah, they're very modern buildings. The lesson from the Kaikoura earthquake was that it was the modern, large-floor plate buildings that were affected, and that's a unique factor around the way the shockwaves move through the underlying geology of the city. So what is a large-plate building? Well, big, large floor plates ` often reinforced-concrete buildings, built on soft soil. So they were the buildings that tended to be the most damaged. With new knowledge comes new engineering, and New Zealand is leading the way. So here it is. Yes, so, Hamish, here we are in the basement of Te Papa, and this is really interesting. So what we've got here ` this is the building. Right. Here's the ground. Separating these two is 152 of these big rubber bearings called base isolators. What they do is they allow the ground to move and the building to stay still and act as a big damper. Eventually the building will move, but nowhere near as much as the ground. And what are they made of? So they're a really amazing technology invented here in New Zealand. They look like they're rubber, but they're actually rubber with a mixture of lead and steel. And, in fact, if we come over here, we've got an example of how they work. This is the ground and this is the building above us, and here are our isolators. They're replicas of the isolator. And this bit here is the lead. Hamish, if you can push the button. OK. And we'll watch it go. Ah, yes. So as you can see, the ground is moving; the building's moving a little bit, but nowhere near as much. (POIGNANT MUSIC) 20 years after its grand opening, Te Papa proves that state-of-the-art engineering can help our cities withstand earthquakes. Despite its precarious position, reclamation has allowed Wellington's commercial, political and social life to flourish. We reclaim land from the sea; we build using innovative technologies. And why? Because we Wellingtonians just love living here! (GRAND, DRAMATIC MUSIC) Coming up ` how a $90 million extension cord keeps the whole country powered. Now, that is impressive. I'll let you have that. Yup. * (HISSING, OMINOUS MUSIC) They say you can't beat it on a good day. But something Wellington wins, unofficially, at least, is the title of World's Windiest City. On around 175 days of any given year, you can expect gusts in excess of gale force. (PENSIVE MUSIC) Why so windy? Wellington sits in the narrow gap between the mountains at the top of the South Island and the bottom of the North Island. The prevailing winds marinade over the churning Cook Strait the funnel through the city like a dose of salts. Since 2009, all of that blowing power's been put to good use here at Makara's West Wind farm. There are 62 turbines generating up electricity to power every home in Wellington City. Now that's a mighty wind. Wind power will only take you so far, though, and there's the rest of the country to consider. And for that, we need a little something else. (OSCILLATING ELECTRONIC MUSIC) Electricity ` we used to take it for granted. (POWER BUZZES) But words like 'climate change' and 'sustainability' are daily reminders that the power needed for our lives of plenty is no longer out of mind or out of sight. Fortunately, while the rest of the world wrestles away their fossil-fuelled economies, New Zealand has long been generating most of its power from renewable sources, and most of that ` 60% ` is from hydroelectricity. And the issue ` well, three-quarters of the population live in the North Island, but 40% of its hydroelectricity is generated in the South Island. So how to get all of that energy over there to here? Answer ` a power extension cord ` a really big one, called the Cook Strait Cable. (PENSIVE MUSIC) I'm guessing you need something a little more substantial to carry all that electricity across Cook Strait. So I'm travelling an hour west of Wellington, to this secluded bay, to find out how big is big from engineer Ricky Smith. How are you doing? Oh, Neil! Yeah. Nice to meet you. You too. You too. So where is the cable? Well, it's just beside us, here. So it's coming through the Cook Strait. Uh-huh. It comes up this beach. It goes up into the cable station, where it goes from underground cable into overhead transmission line. And from that transmission line, heads out to the Hutt Valley, to Haywards Substation. That's amazing. So all that energy is passing beneath our feet right now. Absolutely. That's fantastic. That's just a big junction box up there. Pretty much. (CHUCKLES) A guy called Paul Latta, he was the chief engineer for the state hydroelectric department, came up with the idea that was cutting edge, thinking way in advance of his time. Latta's idea was to install a high-voltage direct cable, or HVDC link, between the two islands ` a pioneering design that was, at that time, the Western world's biggest and most ambitious project of its kind. Built between 1961 and 1965, it was only the world's fourth DC link, and the third to include a submarine cable. Mitigating the rough conditions in Cook Strait meant creating a purpose-built cable with bend-restricting armour. You've got the copper conductor in the middle ` that's where all the electricity flows ` which about 1400 times the cross-section of a normal extension cord. Right! And you've got this hyper-insulated, oil-impregnated insulator, which is good for 350,000 volts, instead of 230 volts that you have at home. So just that much oily paper is enough to keep the electricity in? Absolutely. It's amazing. But the other thing is the cable is sitting in the middle of the sea. And you've got to prevent that water getting into the cable. So you've got this lead jacket. And at a depth of 270m, you wanna prevent that water getting in. And then you've got some other armouring ` layers of armouring which go in opposite directions ` that are going to make sure that it's strong enough to withstand the rigours of the Cook Strait. So all the pulling and tearing and the abrasion and all the rest? Absolutely. The cable's gotta be really heavy in order to be able to withstand that. How heavy? Oh, heavens, yes, it is! That is substantial when you hold it. And that's not a` 1m of this cable is 52kg; you're holding maybe 400mm. Wow, yes. And how long is it in total? 40 K's or something like that? 40km. Wow. Yes. Now that is impressive. I'll let you have that. Yep. How much power is actually passing through that copper? Well, we actually have three of these cables that go across the Cook Strait, that connect the South Island to the North Island. So in any given time of the day, it could be up to 30% of the power consumed in the North Island going through those three cables. So a significant amount. And yet it's all contained within something` I mean, it's not really much bigger than the diameter of, say, an old-fashioned sovereign coin. Yeah, absolutely. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) It's fascinating, though, isn't it? These two islands, these two disparate entities are, in a sense, united with that. Yeah. By three extension cords. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) The Cook Strait Cable is such a critical piece of infrastructure, with the cost of replacement put at roughly $90 million, that a 7km-wide protection zone is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year... by Captain Ken Bedford and the crew of the Seapatroller. The cables need to be protected from people anchoring or fishing. That's the biggest risk that the cables are likely to encounter. And the reason why they're in a protected area here is because they're laid on the seabed; they're not buried, as other submarine cables and pipelines are, because of the nature seabed ` it's a fault line and you get some big cliffs and escarpments ` and also the tidal stream. In this particular area of the Cook Strait, which it's famous for, makes it too hard to bury the cables. In the worst case, a ship could drag its anchor right through the cables and could, conceivably, damage all of them and break all of them, as has happened in various other parts of the world. What kind of penalties apply with people who are in here and are dropping anchor or fishing? There's a maximum of $250,000, if you wilfully or negligently damage a cable. Oh, that's sore. Including $100,000 for a commercial operator, if they've damaged it, and up to a maximum penalty of $20,000 for a recreational vessel. (OSCILLATING ELECTRONIC MUSIC) New Zealand's two main islands ` North and South ` are united spiritually as one. But this cable, 40km long, lying 140m under the sea, is something different, and it is a real, engineered, physical connection ` a pulsing artery bringing life to both sides of the Cook Strait. Next, Matt Carter gets to the bottom of a very mysterious shipwreck. They must've just had this sinking feeling. 'Sinking feeling'! Nice pun there. (BOTH LAUGH) (SERENE CLASSICAL MUSIC) Wellington's waterfront has undergone a thoroughly modern makeover in recent decades. Tales no longer remain of red-light drunken revelry in its foggy port, of misfits, miscreants and old sea dogs. But one touching story of a canine nature lingers still. Paddy the Wanderer was an Airedale Terrier, like my mate, Loki, here, who roamed the waterfront during the 1920s and 1930s, befriending dockside workers and becoming something of a local celebrity. Wellington Museum educator Shelley Gardner explains the very special place he holds in Wellingtonian hearts. So, where did Paddy come from? We believe that he belonged to a young girl, and her father worked on the ships, and she passed away of pneumonia, and then he found his way down to the wharf and found a home here. It was just past the Depression, that had been in its worst, and I think down here was a really busy, active place, with lots of scraps of food, lots of pats. He just got this reputation of wandering about, on taxis, probably up the cable car, on a bus, on a train, but mostly on the ships that went up and down across to the North Island and the South Island. He endeared himself to them all because apparently he had a bit of an ability to be much more reliably than a barometer out on the ships. Oh, that's it then ` a storm detector. Yes, he was a storm detector. And such that they would request him to be on board, and he became a bit of a 'good luck' dog. When Paddy died of old age in 1939, his funeral brought the city to a standstill. A dozen taxis formed his funeral cortege, and a traffic officer led the funeral procession along Queens Wharf. To this day, the Wellington City Council issues an annual dog registration for Paddy, which is hung on his statue. Paddy was awarded the Freedom of the City and given the title Assistant Night Watchman Responsible for Pirates, Smugglers and Rodents. There is not many of them left any more ` just a young city keeping alive the memory of an old sea dog. (POIGNANT MUSIC) (GLOWING MUSIC) While Paddy's travels across the sea were remarkable in many ways, he always made it back in one piece. But that was not the case for all. Wellington Harbour has seen its fair share of shipwrecks, and few have occurred in such unusual circumstances as those of the HMNZS South Sea. Matt Carter investigates how two wrong turns in 1942 didn't make it right. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) It's usually a boast to be surrounded by the sea on three sides, but in war time, it becomes a risk. Wellington was extremely vulnerable to attack by German or Japanese maritime raiders. One measure of defence was the use of minesweepers such as the refitted fishing trawler South Sea to patrol the harbour. However, it wasn't an enemy raider that came into conflict with the South Sea. Instead she was rammed and sunk by a local inter-island ferry. So how did two ships collide here on Wellington Harbour, on a beautiful day with excellent visibility? 8.24, Saturday morning, the 19th of December 1942, the long-serving ferry TSS Wahine, a predecessor to the vessel which sank in 1968, set sail from Fyratt Quay, bound for Lyttelton. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) Just six minutes later, Wahine master Captain Alexander Howie spotted the Navy minesweeper South Sea on patrol off Matiu/Somes Island. Helmed by Lieutenant Peter Bradley, it was heading towards the Wahine, Maritime historian Gavin McLean explains what happened next. So, what have we got here? So we've got the Wahine here, and we've got the South Sea. The Wahine is 4500 tons ` one of the fastest ships in Australasia. And this one? Here we are dealing with a far less magnificent vessel. A 1912 trawler, 322 tons, requisitioned as a patrol vessel and minesweeper for the navy. The Wahine was moving quite rapidly. She's a fast ship. So she was moving from up to about 15 knots. For some reason, this vessel, coming in at 5 knots or 6 knots, miscalculated. And to the horror of the master of the Wahine, a collision seemed inevitable. The sweeper keeps coming on, and so you've got about 4500 tons meeting 322 tons. So what we end up with is this. So once they saw it was inevitable, they must've just had this sinking feeling. 'Sinking feeling'! Nice pun there. (BOTH LAUGH) And that's indeed what happened. A second minesweeper and a tug attempted to keep the South Sea afloat and tow her to shallow water, but in vain. Less than an hour after the collision, the South Sea sank just off Point Halswell. (EERIE MUSIC) The Wahine, after inspection of its damaged bow, continued its vital ferry service and was eventually repaired a month later. The Navy was sent a bill for �6000. That's about $500,000 in today's money. (SOFT PIANO MUSIC) She lies now in the middle of a shipping lane at the bottom of Wellington Harbour. I'm heading out with expert diver Rob Edward to catch a glimpse of what remains. It was thought to be a hazard to navigation when it first sank, but navy divers went down on it, salvaged, then destroyed the top of the superstructure with a depth charge, so it was no longer a problem. They weren't messing around. They weren't. So it must be quite a special wreck to dive, being a naval ship in a nation's capital's harbour. It is. It's also special because it's one of the very few intact hulls that we have. We've got a very energetic coastline here, so usually we don't have wrecks as such; we have wreck sites that have a lot of scattered debris. Today's topside conditions are picture-perfect. But the harbour's sheltered nature means it's notoriously silty, so visibility on the wreck rarely gets above 3m. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) You can see how thin the hull plates are here. The Wahine must have cut into her like a knife. It was built as a fishing trawler, so definitely no armoured plating ` nothing like that. So when the Wahine struck her, it just would have caused catastrophic damage. (MUSIC CONTINUES) That was an incredible dive. Such a historically significant shipwreck with so much structure still intact, even after navy salvage and over 75 years on the sea floor. Thanks a lot, Rob. Amazing. Coming up ` the secret to one tiny fishing village's ongoing success. That seemed to go pretty smoothly. Getting off's not too bad. It's getting back on's the problem. Getting on's the problem, is it? Oh well. (CURIOUS MUSIC) Tucked out of the wind on the Wairarapa Coast sits this humble working man's hut, home to a hard-drinking shepherd who just happened to be one of this country's most prolific maritime artists. Ocean Mercier pays a visit to Barney's Whare. Little is known about who Frank Barnes was, where he came from, and how he came to live in a secluded shack on this Paul Thompson from Wellington Museum takes a particular interest in this unsung artistic enigma. Frank Barnes was a funny character. He was a loner, actually, because he lived out here on the south coast. I'm not sure he lived here of choice. It was his job; he was a shepherd on Orongorongo Station out on the boundary. Frank was one of those people who didn't live a conventional suburban life with a wife and family and stuff like that but was a bit of that Kiwi man-alone business. He had the advantage of while he was here on the coast, he could look out to sea and see ships going by. He tended to paint to sell on commission in the local pub, and, of course, sailors and people who were interested in the sea would order pictures. And some of the ships he painted ` yes, he saw them going by, and some he probably got from postcards or something like that. What about this one? Did he see this one? Yeah, this is the Rangatira. This was the Wellington to Lyttelton ferry. The people who are buying maritime paintings are interested in ships. They're not really interested in painting as a whole. They want the details to be right ` the right number of lifeboats, the right number of derricks, the right colour's the ship's painted in. So as long as the ship's recognisable, right, you know, it doesn't really matter if the sea is nicely painted. Frank Barnes completed over 80 paintings in a career that spanned more than 40 years. Today Royal New Zealand Navy artist Colin Wynn is making his own impression What are you painting? I'm painting the scene of Baring Head. So I'm just trying to capture the feeling of the place, looking to try and capture the mood. As we were thinking about Frank Barnes today, I thought about the subjects that he probably paints, so we've got just a suggestion of the Cook Strait ferry that's going through there. And he probably would have painted it as a ship portrait, but this is a marine landscape with a couple of tiny boats in it. What's your take on Frank Barnes? His paintings are a capsule in time. They're pretty unique, and they're part of our culture, and I think they're enjoyable. His style is very naive. His paintings, to me, they look like they've been painted by two different people ` someone's done the boat and someone's done the landscape or the water. And when I see a painting like that, I really wanna finish it. (BOTH LAUGH) So which parts of his paintings would you like to improve on? I'm probably being a bit egotistical, but I'd quite like to finish the water. I'm not being critical of his work. As I say, he's a product of his time, and I think we're really lucky to have those paintings. Frank Barnes died in 1941 at the age of 82 and was buried in an unmarked grave. However, when the Wellington Museum held an exhibition of his work in 2005, a collection was raised among attendees, and a headstone was purchased. So, buried far away from his hut and this beach along Turakirae Head ` a life lived alone but maybe for all of us, forever framed by this coast. (SENTIMENTAL MUSIC) Further east, and the living is not necessarily easy. Distances between coastal hamlets grow longer and lonelier on a cape that defines remote. It's nature in the raw. But undaunted by some of the fiercest weather in the nation, the little village of Ngawi has been fishing these wild sees since early Polynesian settlement. Dave Murray steps into the wild frontier on this ` the southern tip of the North Island. It lacks a sheltered harbour, has no jetty, and its stony beach offers no favours. Not the ideal conditions for a fishing village, you might think. but with an abundance of crayfish, cod, and paua just beyond the surf line, the hardy men and women who make their living off this coast have found a novel way to make it work ` bulldozers. The 30-odd earthmovers that line the beach are heavy-duty tools employed to launch boats into the Cook Strait and make Ngawi the place with more bulldozers per capita than anywhere else in the world. So just how do you launch a fishing boat with a bulldozer, and having done, how do you then catch it and bring it back to shore again? Donna Fenwick is captain of the Ngawi Fishing Club. She and her husband, Gavin, have lived in Ngawi on and off for more than 20 years. I'm guessing this is your machine, is it? Yeah, this is our bulldozer. So, why bulldozers? It gets very rough on the beach here at times, and tractors get stuck, so everyone went to bulldozers. You don't have the problems you used to have, yeah. So, why not build a wharf here? Oh, I think the cost and... ...conditions. The conditions of the beach change so much here, and it gets very sandy and very stony. With the swells, it would just demolish it, I think. Mounted on a huge metal-frame trailer, the boat is pushed out by seasoned local driver Eddie. Timing is everything here. (EXCITING MUSIC) You see the swell that's coming in now. You wouldn't wanna time it wrong, would you? No. This is when you need a good bulldozer driver to know when to back it in properly. As soon as the hull is deep enough, Gavin throttles up, reverses out and away to sea, while Eddie shoots back up the beach. That seemed to go pretty smoothly. Getting off's not too bad. It's getting back on's the problem. Getting on's the problem, is it? Oh well. So, where are we off to? I'm gonna head over to the point over there. I've got a line of pots over there to do. So, Gavin, I'm guessing today's not too bad a day? Oh, it's not too bad. What's the sort of worst conditions you've seen out here? I've seen some pretty horrific seas. We've come back in some big nor-westers, and we've taken a few windows out. We're coming over to our first pot now, so if you want to go back and give Brandon a hand. OK, no worries. We'll get into it. Brandon? Yeah. Show us how it's done. So, tell me, how many pots would you pull a day out here? We're only working 100 at the moment. 100 pots? 100 pots. You pull 100 pots in one day? Oh, yeah, yeah. It only takes us about four hours. It's well worth the effort; crayfish quota can return $500,000 per season. (INDISTINCT RADIO TRANSMISSION) Yeah, we're on our way in, Eddie. RT: OK. The trip back to shore is trickier, with Gavin lining up his run and on to the waiting trailer with just the right amount of power to ensure the boat makes it all the way on to the trailer without smashing through the front of it ` a precise act of coordination and experience. Well done. Oh, I had to get it right today. Yeah, exactly. (LAUGHS) At sunset, family and friends gather for a barbecue with paua and crays that don't come any fresher. The Cook Strait is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable stretches of water in the world, but for those skilled and brave enough, its bounty can offer great rewards. You have good seasons and bad seasons, but we just battle through it. That's the way it is with crayfish, you know. Obviously, it's worth it, though. You make a living, and it's the lifestyle that you get to have with it. Exactly. There are easier ways to earn a living, but here in Ngawi, there's a real sense of that Kiwi spirit ` hard work, independence, and keeping it simple. Next on Coast New Zealand ` I'm put to work on a Kiwi icon. It's like a sculpture when you see it up close. They're truly amazing, aren't they? * Palliser Bay is a vision splendid of gentle rolling surf on to fertile country, but beneath the calm surface of Lake Onoke churns the plight of New Zealand's apex freshwater predator ` tuna kuwharuwharu. The longfin eel thrived here for 80 million years, but now they're on borrowed time. Jacky Geurts is on a mission to find out why. As the crow flies, I'm about 20km east of Wellington, at the narrow neck where Lake Onoke drains into Palliser Bay. Every year between July and November a migration upstream begins here ` the epic return of juvenile eels from out there to rivers in here, swimming against the tide in more ways than one. Up until the late 19th century, Wairarapa Maori would gather every year to harvest tuna kuwharuwharu ` or longfin eel. Each summer, the gravel spit that separates Lake Onoke from the sea would silt up. Migrating longfins returning to the sea to breed would pool here, allowing iwi to catch them by the thousands for food and trade. Today Reuben Rihania Tipoki is lakeside to check his net. Have you caught anything? Yeah, we don't have a lot. But there'll be something to display for today. Reuben is collecting specimens for a community day to shed light on the fact that longfin are now classified as an at-risk species. There's two in there. Nice. So, how can you tell the difference between a longfin and a shortfin? OK, so, the shortfins... The two fins ` there's one on the top and the bottom ` and they finish at the same place on him, and then with the longfin eel here... Longfin eel ` the fin on the top comes much further along the body than the fin at the bottom. Right, OK. I can see. That's coming about an inch on this little one here. And also you can see the wrinkles. See those wrinkles on him? Oh, yeah, yup. That's the best way to tell, actually ` the wrinkles. Right. Times got really tough when settlers started to come and want, basically, to drain the land. Whereas Maori relied upon the water, and the breeding went on in Wairarapa Moana, and the Pakeha settlers, basically, they wanted the land because their economy was based on what they could sell to Britain. So there was what was called the Battle of the Lakes, and it ended with the Crown siding with the settlers and artificially opening the mouth down here, which meant all the tuna ran out to sea. The Acclimatisation Society came in in the early 1900s, and the project was to basically get rid of as many eels as humanly possible so they could successfully introduce species like trout. Kids were coming down and eeling, taking eels just to kill them, and all they had to do was show the piece of the tail... to prove how many they caught, and they'd get a shilling or whatever it was for each eel they could take ` simply to introduce the exotic species for game fishing. The long-finned eel suffered a further blow with the wave of post-World War II immigrants from Europe, who had eel as part of their traditional diet. (ALL SING UPLIFTING SONG) Today's community event is designed to draw attention to the plight of the beleaguered endemic long-finned eel. Longfins begin life in salt water but migrate to fresh water and across land, only to return to the sea to breed and die. Much mystery still surrounds this very slow-growing species, as Brett Cockeram from the Greater Wellington Regional Council tells us. So, this one's about 240 mils, 250 mils long, and they grow at about 2cm a year,... Right. ...so that's around 10 years, potentially. Oh my goodness. Mm. He's 10 years old. I know. He's tiny. Yeah. It's a long life cycle, so they can last as long as 100 years. You know, they might be 60 to 80 years old before they even go to breed. They breed once in their life cycle, right at the end, and then we're relying on the young to come back. So that in itself doesn't set them up in good stead, especially if we take out a lot of the adult population. As well as that, it's habitat loss. You know? It's taking away where they wanna be. The longfin eels wanna live in nice, clean water up in the top of catchments. They want forests to keep the water cool. So, you know, we're constantly modifying their habitat. Is it right that they get up to about 40 kilos? Yeah. Oh, it's crazy. They are the biggest freshwater eel species in the world. But the sad thing is we don't see individuals of that size any more. I know that I've seen some around that 1.5m and sort of thickness of your thigh sort of size, but it's a rare enough occasion that when we do, we really celebrate. You know? As soon as it comes up in the net, you're like, 'Wow! Cool!' It's something so different. Whereas, you know, back in the day, that would've been the bulk of the catch. (GENTLE MUSIC) After a long day on display, the eels are returned to the water, no doubt grateful to swim away ` hopefully to a better future, where they'll be able to grow again into the freshwater giants of New Zealand. (WARM ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) For the crews of many ships crossing the Pacific, it's a welcome glimpse to lift damp spirits and relieve tired, midnight eyes ` a flicker of light from the Castlepoint Lighthouse. (STIRRING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) Built 100 years ago to quell the shipwrecks along the Wairarapa coastline, it stands tall and stoic on the tip of a pretty beach. With a little community huddled below, this was a plumb posting until automation. Although the role of lighthouse keeper has disappeared, the task of cleaning the lens has not ` a labour of love for lighthouse engineer Jim Foye. Hello, Neil. How are you doing? It's great to meet you. You too. Nice to see you. The lighthouse is now operated remotely from Maritime New Zealand's offices in Wellington. Oh goodness, it's fantastic, isn't it? It's like a piece of art. It's like a sculpture when you see it up close. Yeah, they're truly amazing, aren't they? Beautiful pieces of work. What is it that's so special about a lens like this? This lens itself is a fresnel lens, so it dates back to the original designs from the 1800s. What Fresnel did with the lens is he actually made it in sections and pieces. Ah, so instead of having one massive, thick, circular lens, you've just broken it down into component parts. He's broken it down to the little component parts, and what they do is they refract the light, so it actually bends it and pushes it out in a straight beam. How bright is the light... created by all this glass? So, this light's currently listed at 26 nautical miles, so that's like a million candlepower. It's got a flash sequence of three flashes every 30 seconds. Of course, it has to be said, what do you do to keep this clean? Well, that's one of our tasks today is to clean the lens and clean the windows, so if you'd like to give us a hand, we've got the cleaning gear up here. (CHUCKLES) Sure. Gosh, so you've gotta clean each one of these individually? Individually. Wow. How long does that take in a typical visit? I take about an hour. (CHUCKLES) Oh, right. OK. (CLOTH SQUEAKS) So, what do you feel about an installation like this? I'm very passionate about these lights. I think they should be protected for all time. They're magic little pieces of engineering that we'll never actually be able to replicate ever again, so... Yeah. So it's definitely worth preserving them. I like the idea that some little scintilla of the light that'll be seen by the next ship passing by has been polished by me. (BOTH CHUCKLE) (STIRRING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) You know, while filming Coast around the world, I have visited a few lighthouses, but, I have to say, none in a more idyllic location than this one. It's a treat to lend a hand to keeping clean these watchful eyes that gaze out over the ocean. And it's the ocean that lends its magic to Wellington, encircling the wind-whipped region, encapsulating the harbour city and affording the place and its people a salt-laden vigour you won't find anywhere else. Copyright Able 2018