This documentary charts the geological history of these islands and looks at how our changing the landscape has shaped may of the natural features, animals and plants we take for granted today.

So far from anywhere, New Zealand sits alone near the Antarctic in the world’s greatest ocean. Legend has it that a god fished these islands from the sea when the world was young. New Zealand, so remote, so strange – the legend could just be true.

The wildlife is so different. Strange insects, frogs who carry their young, birds that cannot fly, the kiwi, the national symbol of New Zealand because it is so unique. 

We explore this world, the flightless birds, its only mammal – a tiny bat, as we explain the extraordinary link between an isolated land and unusual plant and animal life.