(INSPIRING MUSIC) South Westland is a narrow tract of land extending from glacier to ocean. It's where the rainforest meets the sea, as dunes spreading out of wooded swamps encroach on isolated beaches. (INSPIRING MUSIC CONTINUES) Remote and secluded, it's home to just over 8000 human inhabitants, bounded by glacial moraines and pounding seas. Those people are by turns and by necessity hardy and humble. They're a product of their extreme surroundings. As we wend our way through South Westland, Jacky Geurts goes in search of an extraordinary egg. So, I can just see a little kiwi bum right down the back of the burrow, there. Hamish Campbell joins the hunt for gold. Wow, look at that! We'll go halves, shall we? (LAUGHS) Moment of truth, Don. I'd say so. Good luck. 'And I indulge my own artist tendencies.' Look at that! Perfect. That's a thing of beauty. (STIRRING MUSIC) We're in South Westland, and this is Coast New Zealand. (INSPIRING THEME MUSIC) Captions by James Brown www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 Our South Westland sojourn takes in the boom town of Hokitika, skirts Franz Josef Glacier, moves southwards to Bruce Bay, and starts at the very bottom. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) (ENGINE HUMS) Ironically for a country whose national icon is one of several endemic bird species that are disinclined to fly, New Zealand has a proud aviation history. From the earliest days of recorded flight, aviators here have been propelled to conquer the country's epic geography in order to access remote settlements. Coast's resident pilot, Dave Murray, is visiting one of the most far-flung to see where it all began. I've been flying, now, for about 18 years, and not afraid of the odd adventure. A couple of years ago I flew a 1959 Piper Pacer from Perth, in Western Australia, to Lake Tekapo. It was about 16 hours over the Tasman Sea, landing at Lord Howe and Norfolk Island. Today's landing is a different kind of a challenge. Big Bay is a massive square-shaped chunk ripped out of the side of South Westland. Today it's my landing strip. OK, I've done this a few times before, but never on this beach. It's all about setting up your approach nice and early, keeping your speeds under control, landing into wind on a nice, firm piece of sand. The trick here is, firstly, making sure that the tides are out. Then you want to make sure that there's no obstacles on the beach, like driftwood or a beached whale. And then you want to pick a point between the high-water line and the low-water line, where the sands tend to be fairly compacted. And that's where you want to land. (EXCITING MUSIC) That was a textbook landing, if I do say so myself. Now that I'm here, the sense of isolation is palpable. The road ends 55km north, at Jackson Bay. If you want to get in here, to surf the massive waves, to catch whitebait and crayfish, your options are pretty much limited. That's always been the case here at Big Bay. Enter the Fox Moth. (ENGINE HUMS) (STIRRING MUSIC) It was in this plane, more than 80 years ago, that Captain Bert Mercer, the first New Zealander to achieve 10,000 flying hours, flew the country's first ever paying customers. Today Adam Butcher is part of a committed group of pilots who are keeping a decades-old aviation legacy alive. So, Adam, this actual aeroplane is the first commercially operated aeroplane in New Zealand. Yeah, this very one. So this is not a replica, it's not a like type. This is the exact aeroplane that Bert Mercer sat in back in 1934, December the 18th, when he started the first air service ever in New Zealand. So this is what started the airline industry in this country. Yeah, this is the very beginning. Wow! This aircraft, in time, became associated with National Airways Corporation, which then became Air New Zealand. So maybe it's a bit of a long shot, but you could say that, essentially, this has been the beginning of Air New Zealand. So, where did this plane actually operate from? The very first service was from Hokitika to Haast, and that was before the road was put into place. So this was the critical air link between the two townships. And of course, in those days, we didn't have helicopters, so this was the only way to transport people, cargo, goods, gold, all sorts of things from that area that were needing to be moved between locations. So for a lot of people on the West Coast, they'd probably seen an aeroplane before they'd even seen a car. You're exactly right. No road, no cars. But aeroplanes were the life link to keep the community connected with the outside. The De Havilland DH.83 Fox Moth was designed in Britain in 1932. It seats two in the front, three at a squeeze, with the pilot in a separate cabin behind. So, they were built out of Sitka spruce. They're covered with fabric that originally was linen, which was good for about four years before it deteriorated, especially in the harsh-UV New Zealand sunlight. Nowadays it's covered with a polyester-type fabric. Yep. But timber for the wings, a little metal in the structure for the structural components. But that's it. They were designed to be light, they were designed to be economical, easy to repair in the field. I've got 26-inch bush tyres on my 180, and you've got these little things here. I mean, how do they handle on the sand? Yeah, very mindful of getting into soft sand ` mindful of the water seeping in underneath. But, to be fair, she worked off the beach for a long time before we've ever had a go, and` It's a beautiful landing. She's not being overly hard work today. And what other beaches did it land at? They were operating off a whole lot of different beaches. They were in Jackson Bay; they were in Bruce Bay; Big Bay, where we are today. We kind of forget that a lot of the airfields that we enjoy now weren't in existence back then, so that had to make do with what they had, and the tide receding gave them that perfect surface to operate from. They really were the pioneers of aviation today. Yes. No weather reports. No webcams to have a look at. Back then, it just worked on an experience that was built through trial and error. So fascinating times. Yeah. When Air Travel Ltd launched in 1934, it was a life-changer for the Far Downers. But more than that, the service contributed to the country's proud aviation history, one that continues to this day. What does it mean to you to fly this particular aeroplane? It's a pretty interesting concept, isn't it, to fly the very first ever commercially used aircraft in New Zealand, and today to be able to land on the beach? It sort of chokes me up a little bit now, just even chatting to you about it. Probably gives you an idea of how important it is to me. Yeah. I feel incredibly lucky to be given that opportunity. This is a lifelong dream for me, and I wouldn't swap it for anything. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) Next ` we're going on an egg hunt. We're going to find a big one. Can I touch it? Yeah, go for it. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) * (GENTLE MUSIC) South of Hokitika, the coastline veers to the wild side. Remote shingle beaches soak up the booming Tasman Sea. Wetlands and dense lowland forests offer a raw wilderness, to the delight of nature lovers and, particularly, bird watchers. Amongst the fantail, tui and warblers is the rowi, the smallest of the kiwi in size and number, whose much-improved future is thanks to a successful intervention which Jacky Geurts is on a mission to uncover. I'm joining Operation Nest Egg, a very special search-and-rescue mission here at Westland National Park, for the elusive rowi. (GENTLE MUSIC) By the late 1990s the Okarito brown kiwi, the rowi, was in trouble. Its population was down to around 150 birds. Today its fortunes have dramatically improved, thanks to a trio of kiwi rangers. Hi, Tracey. Hello. Nice to meet you. Hi, Iain. How you doing? Who's this guy? This is Rain. Hi, Rain. (CHUCKLES) So, what's Operation Nest Egg? Oh, Operation Nest Egg is a conservation tool that we use for managing kiwi. So, how does it all work? We're gonna head into the bush here. We've got some tracking devices with us, and we'll track in on a pair called Monica and Roger and hopefully find their egg. (BOTH LAUGH) I feel like a episode of Friends. Shall we do it? Yeah, let's go. Cool. Cool. (GENTLE MUSIC) Of the 80 rowi eggs laid each season, without intervention only two birds would survive to adulthood. 40% would fail to even hatch, with the remainder falling prey to predators and other natural causes. So, what's our next step? Next step, we'll take out the tracking unit here and have a bit of a listen for the pair that we're in search of. Hopefully we get a signal for them that shows that they're incubating. And we can tell that by listening to the pulse rate on the transmitter. (STATIC HISSES) (SCANNER BEEPS) So... we can tell that they're in over here, so you can hear that beeping sound. And that's at 48 pulses per minute, so that tells us that they're still sitting on an egg. (SCANNER BEEPS) As the signal grows stronger, Rain picks up the scent. She's able to detect rowi from 40m. (WHISTLES) Good girl. Is that the kiwi? Good girl. What's Rain doing? She stopped moving somewhere up here, so that's... I'm fairly confident that she's found something, and that we're pretty close. So when I call her back, she comes back and wiggles her tail and looks pretty proud of herself, and that's her 'I've found a kiwi' dance, if you call it that. So, yeah, we'll get her to take us to the burrow now, and she'll take us in nice and slow. Cool. Let's go. Rain is a 7-year-old Vizsla whose training commenced at 8 months and will continue until she retires. She never makes contact with the kiwi. The closest she would get is 50cm away. So we'll just have a little look inside the hole. Yeah, we'll have a wee... wee look in there. So, I can just see a little kiwi bum right down the back of the burrow, there. CHUCKLES: Oh, yeah. Oh my goodness. My arms aren't quite that long, so we might have to find another entrance to try and get that egg out. WHISPERS: In there. How's he looking, Tracey? birds in there, so the male and the female are both in there. So they both incubate the egg? They do. The male does the majority of it, so it's most likely that he's on the egg at the moment. And how long do they sit on the egg for? Average incubation time is about 78 days, so it's quite long. And how old would this egg be? This one's around 45 days. OK. And why would you get it when it's around 45? We don't want to get it if it's too early. The membranes in them when they're young are not that well formed. And so it's a bit of a bumpy ride getting them out of here, so they can get a bit of transport damage. Kiwi eggs are disproportionately large. They can account for as much as 25% of a female's body weight and are only slightly smaller than the eggs of much larger birds like ostriches and emus. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so that's a kiwi egg. That's my first kiwi egg. Oh, awesome. Can I touch it? Yeah, go for it. Still nice and warm, so Dad's been sitting on it. Awesome. So, what did you have to have a look at? So, we're just gonna have a quick look at the fertility of the egg. Yep. So we can shine a bright light on there, and that's the air cell. Very faintly around the edge, you can the veins. Oh, yeah. There's some development in there, so that means the egg's fertile. Yeah. Happy days. Yeah, that's awesome. So we're gonna put this inside the chilly bin. There's... First of all, we pop it inside a merino beanie, just to absorb any moisture. There we go. It's marked on the top, so we can easily see which way's upright. And then that goes... into the foam in the chilly bin. Down the bottom there is a hot-water bottle. What happens to Mum and Dad? So, hopefully these guys will just go back to their normal feeding behaviour. And with any luck, within another 50 to 60 days, these guys will lay another egg. We better get that little guy back. Yeah, we've got a wee way to go. Yeah. (GENTLE MUSIC) (HELICOPTER WHIRRS) It's a short flight with our precious cargo to the West Coast Wildlife Centre in Franz Josef. Kiwi husbandry manager Nicki van Zyl has possibly the best job in the whole entire world. So, what is this? This is a still-air incubator, able to heat up the egg to about 35 degrees. And we'll come in here four times a day, turn it 45 degrees, to get the heat dispersed nicely in the egg. And there's an egg about to hatch, so we can show you what it looks like. OK. So I'll go and grab him out for you. And this one's ready to hatch? He's close. So, you see all those shell pieces there? Yeah. Yep, he's not far off putting his bill through. He's giving it a good nudge. He is. Once their bill's through and they're making quite a good progress, it will take about 40 minutes to a couple of hours. You can hear him. (GASPS) I can hear him! (CHICK SQUEAKS) Do you hear that? (CHICK SQUEAKS) That's so cute. I'll just pop him back into the incubator, so he can keep going for us. Do you wanna see a chick? Uh, would I ever! So, he hatched 10 o'clock last night. I'll grab him out for you. So he's newborn newborn. He is newborn newborn. Oh my God. Oh... look. (GASPS) He's instantly just stolen my heart. (CHUCKLES) He's shaking. What does that mean? It's a bit cold. So we'll put him back in the incubator. And will he walk around? He will. He'll mostly sleep. He's quite like a newborn human child. So tired from getting out of that shell that for the first two days he'll want to sleep all the time. What happens to them now? So, after they've hatched, they'll stay with us for about three weeks. Then we move them to Willowbank, in Christchurch. It's got a bigger space than we do. They go outside there for a couple of months. After they've got to a really good weight ` about 900g ` they're shipped off to the Marlborough Sounds for a year. We've got no contact with them whatsoever, so they learn to be real kiwis up there. Get to a good weight of about 1.5kg. And from there, we'll bring them back to Okarito and release them back into the wild, and the process starts all over again. Under Operation Nest Egg, the number of birds making it to adulthood has risen from two to approximately 50 per season. The population of rowi is growing so well that they have been down-listed from nationally critical to nationally vulnerable. That is a success story. Coming up ` Maui's first landing. In actually subduing the taniwha, he opened the way for future generations to be able to migrate and come to live here. (BRIGHT, ENERGETIC MUSIC) SONG: # I can make your hands clap... # VOICEOVER: Centrum provides multiple health benefits in just one tablet. * (GENTLE MUSIC) (WHIMSICAL VIOLIN MUSIC) When the Queen and Prince Phillip toured New Zealand in 1954, they flew to Hokitika with a view to driving north to Greymouth. With that in mind, the road north, Kumara Junction Highway, was paved so that it would be nice and smooth for the royal party. Now, to keep costs down, they only actually bothered to pave the half that they royals would travel on. The rest of the road wasn't upgraded for several years, during which time the finished side became known to the locals as 'Lizzie's side'. Back home they talk about Her Majesty thinking the world smells of fresh paint, cos everywhere she goes, there's a guy 10ft in front of her, painting, to make it all look nice. In the cast of the West Coast of the South Island, you might say she thinks the place smells of newly laid tar. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) The royal couple didn't venture further south on the West Coast than Hokitika. But if they had, they would have been privy to riches as beautiful and bountiful as the Crown Jewels themselves. 40km south of Fox Glacier, you'll find Antarctic penguins, Hector's dolphins and the occasional pod of whales. But that's not all. Bruce Bay is the ancestral homeland of Te Runanga o Makaahio, a small subtribe of the South Island iwi Ngai Tahu. It's also where, according to Maori legend, the first human contact was made with Aotearoa over a thousand years ago. (WOMAN SINGS KARANGA) Fabled Maori explorer Maui ended his journey from Hawaiki on this stormy stretch of coastline. And the local marae pays tribute to his heroism, as kaitiaki, or caretaker, Susan Wallace explains. # Haere mai ra. # As he was coming in and he discovered that there was actually land here, he came upon two guardians of the bay ` two taniwha. So, as our story goes, Maui used a magical toki, which is a magical adze, known as Tihei Mauri Ora, to subdue the two taniwha that were guarding the bay. In subduing them, he tied them up to this very headland out here. And to this day, that headland's known as Heretaniwha, and 'Heretaniwha' is to literally 'tie the taniwha'. He took provision here, didn't stay here, but in actually subduing the taniwha, he opened the way for future generations to be able to migrate and come to live here, which sees us here today. The marae is called Te Tauraka Waka a Maui, so that we would all forever remember that this was the first point of contact. So, in terms of the story, what am I looking at here on the structure of the building? So, what you'll see is a representation of that journey that he took. We've got Maui atop our whare. Right, so that's him at the top. And you'll see that he's standing and coming through the face of Kaipo. Either side of him, standing above, I guess holding him up, are the two taniwha that he subdued. What you'll find then in the rest of our whare are the different whakapapa links and ties that we have to this place, to Te Waipounamu and to the other subtribes that form part of what is now, today, known as Ngai Tahu. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) In 1985 carbon dating of middens exposed by sea erosion revealed that Maori did in fact live here at Bruce Bay, or Mahitahi, more than 600 years ago. What does it mean to you, personally, I suppose, to have this place again in this location? It gives me an opportunity to reconnect, time and time again, with this place that I know that my ancestors lived and survived and... learnt. We refer to places like that as our turangawaewae ` you know, the place where we can stand our feet. And that's what this place is for us. It's a beacon. It's a receptacle that holds a lot of our whakapapa, our genealogical ties and a lot of our history. And it provides that pictorial focus for a newer generation. Coming up ` from rags to riches, the tall tale of a Far Down boom town. The discovery of gold here triggered a rush that would change the face of the Westland region forever. * Hello, chocolate lovers. James Henry Whittaker came to New Zealand because he was restless to find a better way. You look really familiar. JH set up his own chocolate company with his sons for the same restless reason. And it's something that Whittaker's have stuck to. They found better ways to make chocolate, like their still-timeless Toffee Milk. (HORN HONKS, BELL DINGS) And they didn't stop there. Morris invented the Peanut Slab. Still believing best is better, Whittaker's built a new chocolate factory... (CAMERA SHUTTER SNAPS) to make even smoother, better chocolate. And now Andrew and Brian have made a luscious new caramel filling. It's creamier, more buttery and velvety. Mmm. Better in every way, just as JH would expect. Exactly. Well said. I knew I recognised you. You're in our ads. (LIGHT MUSIC) * (GENTLE MUSIC) It's mankind's most revered metal, prized throughout history and worshipped by ancient civilisations. It doesn't rust, corrode or oxidise, and it can't be reproduced in a lab. If every scrap found so far were amassed, it's commonly believed it would fit into three Olympic-sized swimming pools. Geologist Hamish Campbell joins the gold rush. Although we tend to think of gold being mined from the bowels of the earth, to space! Gold is found on Earth thanks to cataclysmic stellar explosions called supernovae. These explosions leave behind dead stars, the collapsed cores of which are known as neutron stars. When they collide, they produce heavy elements such as platinum, uranium and gold. The vast majority of the gold on Earth sits today at such great depths and such high temperatures that extracting it will never be possible. So how do we get at it? Thanks to much later meteorite strikes, gold was delivered to the Earth's crust and ultimately massaged into veins in the rock. Water flowing over these rock-bound gold sources releases a secondary substance found in our waterways known as 'alluvial gold'. This is what brought hordes of miners to the West Coast of New Zealand. The discovery of gold here triggered a rush that would change the face of the Westland region forever. Historian Julia Bradshaw explains how the discovery impacted the area, in particular the town of Hokitika. Before gold was discovered here, this was an empty riverbed with bush, trees right down to the water's edge, swamp. And the discovery of gold in December 1864 transformed it. And when was this photograph taken? It was the late 1860s. Maybe 1867. At this time, it was the busiest port in New Zealand. And it exported half a million ounces of gold. Half a million ounces? So that's about $750 million in today's money. That's amazing. Yep, it was important to central government, the gold rush, because the gold duty paid for a lot of public works in New Zealand. Look at this ` a bustling hive of activity. And yet look at it today. All you've got is a bridge. The bridge is really important, cos there was no bridge, so getting across the river was really complicated as well, and you can see all the small dinghies here. They would have been used to ferry people across the river or up the river to the diggings at Kaniere. And these are coastal steamers, so they would go to the larger vessels that were coming into the roadstead, that were out at sea. And they would ferry people in from those really big ships that had trouble getting in here, into the port. Right. It wasn't an easy place to get to, Hokitika. No. Initially, prospectors could make up to �50 a week, more than 15 times the average weekly wage. By 1870, however, it was slim pickings. Though the boom has long since passed, its impact is felt to this day. And the pursuit for gold continues. Each new tide here on Hunt's Beach brings with it the potential to strike gold. Gidday, Nathan. Nathan Wilson carefully combs it every day. What are you doing? Oh, testing for a bit of gold. You don't look like a gold miner. (CHUCKLES) Where's the beard and the pipe? (LAUGHS) Yeah, yeah. And how long has your family been working here? Oh, jeez, it'd be about three generations now. And I presume it is actually worth it. Oh, yeah, it's definitely worth it. At one point there was 3500 people living out at Hunt's here, doing the gold on the beach. And today it's just you and your family here. Yep. So, how's it looking? Yeah, it's looking not too bad. It's definitely worth taking. Oh, good. Yeah. Can you show me, and can I have a go? Yeah, definitely. Always got a shovel filled up for a stranger. Right. Don't need the stones. No, unless it's a big stone of gold. (LAUGHS) Have you ever found nuggets here? No, we never find nuggets. So it's always very fine. Yeah. Consistency of flour. (STIRRING MUSIC) Having established the presence of gold, Nathan transports the black sand to his riffle table. A riffle table replicates the action of water over a riverbed, trapping the fine gold in crevices whilst washing unwanted materials within the black sand away. Wow, look at that! That's fantastic. I can't believe that after all that toil, we've got something that's worth money. Yeah, it's a pretty weird job. It's brilliant. Look at that! The price of gold fluctuates daily, dictated by international market forces, but on any given day will hover around NZ$1800 per ounce. Definitely worth getting out of bed for. We'll go halves, shall we? (LAUGHS) You can have the water. (BOTH LAUGH) It comes from the heavens and resides in black sand. The endless pursuit of it has driven good men and women to the brink. But, as the playwright Moliere said, 'Gold gives the ugliest thing a certain charming air 'that without it were else a miserable affair.' (PEACEFUL MUSIC) In 1868, less than five years after the initial gold strike, Westland took on self-government and, with it, responsibility for its own infirm and insane patients. This led to the construction of Seaview Hospital, which survived in various iterations for the next 140-plus years. Ocean Mercier wonders what it was that drove the townspeople of Hokitika to distraction. Seaview featured not just the asylum but also a hospital, a prison and a cemetery. No wonder, then, that it became known as 'Misery Hill'. (POIGNANT MUSIC) But what a setting ` just on the edge of town, with that fresh air that Victorian England believed cured all ailments. Surely this was just what the doctor ordered. I'm asking historian Professor Angela McCarthy. So, Angela, take us back to the 1860s. What was life like back then? It was a very challenging environment that people found themselves in. But if we think of the miners back at the time, in the 1860s, they were living in canvas tents coping with rats, mosquitos, flies. And it was also an environment that was very much male-dominated. A situation arose where a very masculine culture was centred around drinking. And in Hokitika, within one mile of the town, there were 200 public houses. Migrants were coming into this volatile environment. That had all sorts of repercussions for them, having to cope with the stresses, the loneliness of a new life. But various other factors also led to an admission to an asylum. It could include grief, anxiety, religious excitement. Who was brought here? Lunacy was very much a law-and-order factor in society at the time. So medical doctors had to provide certificates for patients to be admitted to asylums. And the key thing was that they had to believe that the patient was a danger either to themselves or to other people in society. Key issues that doctors were concerned with in the day was hereditary insanity ` that you were either biologically predisposed to it because of your family heritage, or it was a learned response to what you had seen growing up in the family. Another key factor ` did that whole migration experience lead to symptoms of insanity? So, for instance, did a miner become reliant on alcohol because of being far removed from their family? Or, for instance, did they succumb to alcoholism because of disappointment in not achieving the wealth that they expected and hoped to find as a miner on the Coast? We're talking about people who had come a long way, huh? Absolutely. Half the world from home. In 1955 numbers at Seaview peaked, with 549 patients, dwindling to just 22 when it closed. Every soul who entered had a story to tell, some more tragic than others. Hannah, an Englishwoman from Lancashire, who came to New Zealand with her husband, they were said to have fought like cats and dogs, ending up on the floor and pulling each other's hair. And we see these accounts in the press at the time. And eventually Hannah was jailed and transferred from there to the asylum. She stayed in there for a relatively short period of time, and was discharged. And the end of her life is found, again, in the media, where she died of accidental drowning in a tub of water where she had been doing her washing. It's tragic. Mm. Very sad stories for some of the patients in the asylum. Now largely derelict, there is some lingering activity at Seaview. The New Zealand military use its empty buildings for urban-warfare training. And there's a corner occupied by backpackers. (POIGNANT MUSIC CONTINUES) And in a cemetery 20 minutes north in Greymouth, here she lies ` Hannah Kilner, a memory of the mad, sad days of Hokitika. (STIRRING MUSIC) Up next ` artistic endeavours that spring from the sea. Sometimes I've got no idea what I'm gonna do until I find a bit of driftwood. * (STIRRING MUSIC) The Southern Alps are the tallest mountain range in Australasia and include New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki Mt Cook. Breathtaking as the views from the summit are, a trip to the coast is definitely a journey worth taking. It might not house the most famous or expensive artworks in the world, but this rugged stretch of coastline at Hokitika is surely one of the finest natural art galleries you could ever wish for. And for a few days every year, it's transformed by the annual Driftwood and Sand sculpture competition. The contest is a celebration of the creative opportunities generated by the beach. Sculptures can only be made of materials found on the shoreline. Beyond that, contestants are limited only by their imaginations. The event was founded by local artist Donald Buglass in 2003 and since then has gone from strength to strength. Why do you think it has caught on in quite the way it obviously has? People, I think, are naturally drawn to making things, being creative. But sometimes it takes a bit to get it out of them. They come down here with no intention to make anything, but they just get the vibe. 'Oh, gee, that looks like a dinosaur!' And it doesn't hurt, does it, that there's so much raw material just literally lying about. Yeah. Traditionally we've just rung it up for firewood. But I thought, 'Wouldn't it be good to do something better with it?' Don Neale is a veteran of this one-of-a-kind outdoor artistic venture, having entered every year since the festival's inception. Is it the driftwood that inspires your art, or do you come with an idea and go looking for driftwood that fits? It probably varies with people, but mine's definitely I just wander along the beach for days on end looking for the right bit of driftwood sometimes, and just to get a bit of inspiration about what it's gonna be. Yeah, sometimes I've just got no idea what I'm gonna do until I find a bit of driftwood. There's always something about bleached bone that I get from driftwood. It's like a lot of skeletal figures. Yeah, yeah, there is, too. And a lot of things look like animals, too. Every bit of driftwood, you can see a face in it. It's pretty cool. And these sort of turtles here, they're` That's perfect, that one. Oh, it's awesome, eh? It's really good. What's that down on the beach there, with the afro hairstyle? Yeah, yeah, that one's a take-off of Tom Hanks' Cast Away, so he's got Wilson under his arm. Oh, Wilson the basketball. Yeah, yeah. And he's just smoking a pipe, looking out to sea. Now, that's stunning. It is. Yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it? No mistaking what that is. (LAUGHS) No. And it's all made from gorse. And gorse, really, when it's been washed around in the waves a lot, it just has that really speckled sort of look. He's emphasised it with burn marks and things like that. Brilliant. I love it. Right, Don, if you can do inspiration, I can offer you perspiration. Ah, yeah, righty-oh. We'll just sort of start looking at a few of the bits of wood around the place and get some inspiration for it, really. Yeah, yeah, go for that one, I reckon. It's just got some nice real balance, eh? And the ones that are curved like that, it has a weight down this side, this side and it just can balance on one point, so that's kinda where I'd start. So we just need to find another bit that we can balance it on. We need kind of a fulcrum thing, don't we? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That'll be all right. It's pretty sturdy, eh? It's gonna be massive. Yeah. (CHUCKLES) What do you reckon? I'll just test that. I reckon that'll hold all right. Great. That should hold pretty good, I reckon. Nice. Perfect. So, what's your inspiration here ` the heavy weight and the light weight? Is that your comment on my artistic ability compared to yours? (LAUGHS) There's a little bit of that. Moment of truth, Don. I'd say so. Good luck. Hey-hey. Nice. Look at that! Perfect. That's a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Nice work. Yeah, loving that. Yeah. So, what are you gonna call it? Feather Weight. (CHUCKLES) Yeah, nice. (CHEERFUL MUSIC) With enthusiastic amateurs like myself competing against accomplished artists, the judging is broken down into multiple categories, catering for every age and ability. How do you go about sorting out the wheat from the chaff? That's a very good questions. We've got a whole lot of different stuff going on down here. What I notice is that there's a lot of humour in play. Yes. Like this one, obviously ` to me, rather than being serious art, this is someone taking advantage of something to make a funny. We do actually have a humorous category. Ah, right. That would be a contender, then. It's definitely a contender for that. It is. OK, we're almost there. The moment you've all be waiting for ` the overall public choice winner was Changing His Spots, the fantastic leopard by Jason Thompson. (APPLAUSE) (INSPIRING MUSIC) There's something so poetic about these creations, crafted, as they are in the main, from remnants of ancient trees smoothed and shaped by the ocean, and then reimagined into all manner of fantastical shapes that evoke every emotion. I'd call that the very best kind of recycling. (STIRRING MUSIC) From here in Hokitika, if you were to travel in a southerly direction for about 320km, you would come, quite literally, to the end of the road. On the right, you'd have the turbulent Tasman Sea; on the left, across a narrow strip of land, the crest of the Southern Alps. But your journey would have met a physical punctuation point. You literally couldn't go any further. But along the way, South Westland offers, to anyone who dwells here or comes here, infinite possibilities. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) Captions by James Brown www.able.co.nz