VR Video Search Results - New Zealand Geographic

Locations

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Aoraki/Mt Cook is the top turret of our spine of Southern Alps. Glaciers flow from the flanks into braided rivers and the mighty Mackenzie Basin.

Video Series

Auckland Islands

The Auckland Islands are anchored in the furious fifties, a latitude all the more hostile when the massive southern right whales visit in winter.

Video Series

Bay of Plenty

The Bay of Plenty and East Cape are out land of the rising sun—the first to see the light of the new day.

Video Series

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Bounty and Antipodes Islands, deep in New Zealand’s subantarctic, are heaving with albatrosses, penguins, seals—an orchestra of life.

Video Series

Fiordland

Carved by the adze of Tu-te-raki-whanoa, the giddy turrets and profound fiords of Fiordland are a shadowland of secrets.

Video Series

Harwood's Hole

Starting with a 176-metre abseil, the Harwood’s Hole is one of the most magnificent caving experiences in New Zealand.

Video Series

Hauraki Gulf

Tīkapa Moana, Te Moananui-ā-Toi was once one of the world’s most productive marine areas. After a century of unrelenting extraction, it faces new challenges.

Video Series

Marlborough Sounds

A jigsaw of islands protect the sheltered waters of the Marlborough Sounds—spectacular, rich and fragile.

Video Series

Niue

‘The Rock’ of Niue has some of the clearest water in the world, a haven for visiting humpback whales, but also sea snakes and gargantuan…

Video Series

Outer Gulf

Beyond the territorial limit of New Zealand, life exists in a big, blue realm—transient, precious and magnificent.

Video Series

Parengarenga Harbour

The shallow Far North harbour of Parengarenga is among the most healthy in the country—protected by its isolation and local community.

Video Series

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Goat Island and the Poor Knights were among the first marine reserves in the world, and exemplars of the benefits that come from protecting our…

Top Picks

Harwood’s Hole

Emerge into Starlight

Harwood’s Hole connects to Starlight Cave after a series of tortuous squeezes and rocky descents. Suddenly the caver is surrounded...

Marlborough Sounds

Shipping out

The roll-on roll-off Interislander ferries that ply Cook Strait take passengers, cars and even trains across the 100-kilometre body of...

Auckland Islands

Swim with sealions

Sealion pups play in the creek on Enderby Island. More than 300 pups are born on the island each year,...

Auckland Islands

Swim with a southern right

Whales gather in Sandy Bay, Port Ross in the Auckland Islands every winter to mate, calve and nurse newborn whales....

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Colonise with the colony

High on Proclamation Island in the Bounty Island Group, overlooking the vast Southern Ocean, Salvin’s albatrosses negotiate a fragile peace...

Fiordland

Dive The Gut

Twenty-five metres beneath the surface, in water barely 12ºC, golden zooanthids thrive amongst red coral in The Gut, a narrow...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Fly over Aoraki/Mt Cook

At 3,724 metres above sea level, Aoraki is the highest point in New Zealand and the massif of the Southern...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Get rescued by LandSAR

A LandSAR crew hitches a ‘banana boat’ under a rescue helicopter in a drill up on the Tasman Glacier. This...

Sit in on a meeting of the Taupulega

The Taupulega, or council, of each atoll holds the decision making power in Tokelau. It’s made up of the heads...

Tokelau

Take dip with the kids

After school the students of Fenua Fala hit the lagoon for some relief from the scorching tropical heat. The lagoon...

Tokelau

Go solar

Tala Tyrell cleans the solar panels on Fenua Fala, to keep the array operating at top efficiency. The solar farm—which...

Tokelau

Fly over Fakaofo

Fakaofo is the smallest and most southerly of Tokelau’s three atolls. Two islands are inhabited, the tiny islet of Fale,...

Tokelau

Dive for clams in the lagoon

Nukunonu’s lagoon is nearly 100 square kilometres in area. Some areas are deep, but here near Tokelau Island in the...

Tokelau

Drive through Atafu

Only one islet of the Atafu atoll is inhabited, and like the other atolls in Tokelau, it’s 100% powered by...

Tokelau

Unload the Mataliki

Everything in and out of Tokelau arrives on this ferry, the Mataliki, which makes the 10-day round-trip linking Fakaofo, Nukunonu...

Tokelau

Play for the home team on Atafu

Volleyball is ever-popular on Atafu atoll, especially in late afternoon when it’s cooler. On the adjacent field, a younger crew...

Tokelau

Hunt coconut crabs

In the Pisonia forest on Tokelau Island, Nukunonu, Troy William, Isaac Perez and Dominic Manuele check holes under trees for...

Tokelau

Plant a coral garden

Tokelauans rely on their ocean estate for sustenance and survival. Students from Matauala School on Atafu atoll plant corals on...

Tokelau

Dive through ancient coral

Every year the sea surface temperatures rise in Atafu, leaving behind towering coral structures that couldn’t stand the heat....

Tokelau

Pull up a pew in Nukunonu

Southeasterly trades blow through the louvred windows, lifting the smoke of Mass. The hymns are full-throated. While congregations wither in...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Dusk til dawn at Tekapo

In the rain shadow of the South Alps, and adjacent to a large body of water in Lake Tekapo, the...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Climb Aoraki/Mt Cook

Mountain climbing legend Lydia Bradey picks her way up a couloir to reach the Summit Ridge of Aoraki/Mt Cook, the...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Feed the fish

Cameron Gumbley and Henry Wilson feed meal into the pens at High Country Salmon on an arm of Lake Ruataniwha....

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Gone fishing

Chinook (or king) salmon were introduced to New Zealand from the McLeod in California between 1901 and 1907 and established...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Plan a route

Legendary Kiwi mountain climber Lydia Bradey swaps notes with fellow climber Ruari MacFarlane in the iconic Plateau Hut, something of...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Star gaze with the Gilmours

Alan and Pam Gilmour have been researching near-Earth asteroids since 1973, monitoring 20 to 30 targets in any one night...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Fly over Aoraki/Mt Cook

At 3,724 metres above sea level, Aoraki is the highest point in New Zealand and the massif of the Southern...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Feed the kakī

Head Aviculturist Liz Brown has been working with kakī/black stilts for 12 years. It’s been a bumper season for eggs—almost...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Spot a stilt

A pair of kakī/black stilts—among the rarest birds on the planet—feed in a sheltered oxbow of the Tasman River under...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Please mind the gap

Climbers return through thick snow from shoulder of Aoraki/Mt Cook. They’re roped together, so if one falls through into a...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Explore the ice cave

The Tasman Glacier is shot through with holes, crevices, caves and crevasses, the result of the slow-motion waterfall as ice...

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Get rescued by LandSAR

A LandSAR crew hitches a ‘banana boat’ under a rescue helicopter in a drill up on the Tasman Glacier. This...

Auckland Islands

Making whales

See whales up close and (very, very) personal—This may be the first footage ever recorded of southern right whales mating,...

Auckland Islands

The Victoria Tree

After the Grafton wrecked on Auckland Island, three men built and sailed a vessel to Stewart Island. Two men left...

Auckland Islands

Remember the dead

The cemetery at Enderby Island marks the location of the ill-fated settlement of Harwicke, started farm workers, shipwrights, a surgeon...

Auckland Islands

Waterfront section

The western coast of Enderby Island cops the full fury of the Southern Ocean—swells that circle Antarctica more or less...

Auckland Islands

Chillax with the shags

Auckland Islands shags roost quietly on a rocky promontory in Port Ross. With a yellow accent on the beak, a...

Auckland Islands

Swim with sealions

Sealion pups play in the creek on Enderby Island. More than 300 pups are born on the island each year,...

Auckland Islands

Cruise the kelp

Bladder kelp, or rimurimu, sustains itself on sunlight, like plants on land. But it also provides habitat for other organisms,...

Auckland Islands

Roost in the colony

Yellow-eyed penguins, or hoiho, live around the Otago coast, Stewart Island, Campbell Island and also here at the Auckland Islands....

Auckland Islands

Swim with a baby whale

Southern right whale calves are born right here at the Auckland Islands, during winter, and weigh in at a tonne...

Auckland Islands

Process the blubber

Scientists gather the day’s samples in the cosy saloon of the expedition ship Evohe. Every sample tells a story, but...

Auckland Islands

Sharp shooter

Scientist Emma Carrol is trying to understand the population dynamics of the southern right whales that over-winter at the Auckland...

Auckland Islands

Fly over Sandy Bay

Sandy Bay is a popular spot for southern right whales. Though calving and mating occur in winter, whales can be...

Bay of Plenty

First light

East Cape is one of the first places in the world to see the light of the new day....

Bay of Plenty

Harvest honey

Pat Nukunuku inspects frames and inserts new queens to maintain good production on his hives at Lottin Point....

Bay of Plenty

Ride-along with Ferk

Though still damp with autumn rain Tony Ferkins decided it was “better to be cutting than doing nothing”, so fired...

Bay of Plenty

Collect kaimoana with the vicar

Elaine Kasper doesn’t have far to go to collect a feed of kina—the rocks at Papatea Bay, outside the historic...

Bay of Plenty

Join the shearing gang

Though nearly 5pm, Harry’s shearing gang digs deep to work through the last ewes on Waikura....

Bay of Plenty

Train with the boys

The utes arrive for evening footy practice at the Hikurangi Sports Club in Ruatoria....

Bay of Plenty

First light

The 600-metre wharf at Tolaga Bay is the second-longest in New Zealand....

Bay of Plenty

Dive with the swarm

Volkner Rocks—once used by the navy for target practice—are now a marine reserve. And it shows...

Bay of Plenty

Murmuration

Like a flock of starlings, two-spot demoiselles and flashy koheru form dazzling murmurations at a sharp pinnacle called Laisons Reef...

Bay of Plenty

Colonialism

White Island hosts 3000 pairs of gannets, which gather in a colony at the southern side of the island across...

Bay of Plenty

Fly over the acid lake

A tour party gathered at the edge of the crater lake marvels at the 55ºC pistachio-green pond of acid, boiling...

Bay of Plenty

Sun down

Whakaari is New Zealand’s most active volcano, being in a state of continuous volcanic activity for some 150,000 years....

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Colonise with the colony

High on Proclamation Island in the Bounty Island Group, overlooking the vast Southern Ocean, Salvin’s albatrosses negotiate a fragile peace...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Fly over the Bounty Islands

The Bounty Islands were first sighted by William Bligh in 1788, who named them for his ship, mutinied just seven...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Count penguins by drone

Standing at the summit of Proclamation Island, scientist Thomas Mattern guides his drone up ‘the albatross layer’, taking guidance from...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Frolic with fur seals

These islands were once home to more than 50,000 fur seals, but they were slaughtered—largely to make coverings for top...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Join the penguin parade

Keep your eyes on the breaking waves where scores of penguins are ready to make landfall after long periods hunting...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Catch a penguin

Scientist Jeff White is weighing, erect-crested penguins, sampling their blood and feathers in order to understand what the birds have...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Air traffic

Salvin’s albatrosses whirl above Proclamation Island in the subantarctic. The jagged promontory of Depot Island stretches towards the crouching sliver...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Nest with the petrels

Above Hut Cove on Antipodes Island, giant petrels tend the nests of fluffy chicks—looking like they’ve been covered in underfloor...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Drop anchor in Anchorage Bay

Anchorage Bay on Antipodes Island is a veritable zoo on calm days like this. Elephant seals the size of station...

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Learning to fly

Standing a metre tall, an Antipodean albatross chick at barely eight months old is one big baby. Every hour or...

Fiordland

Dive The Gut

Twenty-five metres beneath the surface, in water barely 12ºC, golden zooanthids thrive amongst red coral in The Gut, a narrow...

Fiordland

Shower in a waterfall

Brace yourself on the bow of MV Flightless and plunge under the spell of a waterfall in Doubtful Sound. With...

Fiordland

Go wreck diving

The steamer Waikare was wrecked on January 4, 1910, in Dusky Sound when on her annual excursion to the West...

Fiordland

Visit The Bat Cave

The Fiordland crested penguin, or Tawaki, is unusual among penguins—it lives in a rainforest, sometimes deep in caves beneath trees,...

Fiordland

Ride in the crow’s nest

The radar tower affords a dramatic view as MV Flightless leaves the narrow entrance Pickersgill Harbour and makes for the...

Fiordland

Paddle the fiords

The mountainous remains of the Southern Alps tower a thousand metres over Vancouver Arm in Breaksea Sound. It’s hundreds of...

Fiordland

Fly to the hills

Māori describe how the demi-god Tu-te-raki-whanoa shaped Fiordland with an adze, carving out the steep-sided mountains and profound fiords with...

Fiordland

Bow-ride with dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins are attracted to passing vessels, hitching a ride here on MV Flightless as she steams up the inlet....

Fiordland

Consider the crayfish

These crayfish in holding pots at Sunday Cove, Breaksea Sound, awaiting the arrival of a helicopter that will whip them...

Fiordland

Counting crays

Peter Young has been crayfishing the Fiordland coast for decades, throwing those that are undersize or ‘in berry’ back, retaining...

Fiordland

Black on black

Twenty metres beneath the freshwater layer of Breaksea Sound it’s almost pitch black. Here, black coral can be found clinging...

Harwood's Hole

Harwood’s Hole

The Squeeze

Gather your wits, caver, and brace yourself for a squeeze. No other moment epitomises the caving experience than writhing headlong...

Harwood’s Hole

Terrible twins

The landscape underground rivals that above in every way. At Twin Waterfalls, two cascades tumble through a cavern and then...

Harwood’s Hole

Emerge into Starlight

Harwood’s Hole connects to Starlight Cave after a series of tortuous squeezes and rocky descents. Suddenly the caver is surrounded...

Harwood’s Hole

Climb through Shorty’s Terror

Shorty’s Terror is enough to frighten the hardiest soul. The massive cave narrows to a tube and the cave floor...

Harwood’s Hole

The quick way home

After climbing out of the Starlight Cave, there are two options for cavers—huck your gear up the rockfall and walk...

Harwood’s Hole

The Chamber

Cavers light up the interior of a massive chamber, some 60 metres across and just as high. The ground is...

Harwood’s Hole

Make camp in a cave

Some 260 metres below the surface, cavers make camp in a dry crook of the cave system known as The...

Harwood’s Hole

Rig a Tyrolean traverse

Caver use a rigging technique called a Tyrolean traverse to swing gear—or themselves—between two fixed points across a river or...

Harwood’s Hole

Approaching the chasm

A through-caver takes what they need for one, hard day of caving, passing though the system without stopping. But to...

Harwood’s Hole

At the belay

As the caver gets close to the bottom of the 176-metre abseil, the relative weight of the remaining rope gets...

Harwood’s Hole

Abseil into Harwoods Hole

Named for the original landowner, Harwood’s is a 176-metre-deep chasm, that falls like a well into the marble heart of...

Hauraki Gulf

City of sails

Secondary school sailing teams manoeuvre before the start of a team race at Snells Beach north of Auckland....

Hauraki Gulf

Waka-ama with Richard

Richard Manuka leans on his hoe and drives his waka-ama towards the city from Birkenhead Point....

Hauraki Gulf

Prepare for take-off

Godwits and wrybills roost on chenier shell banks at Miranda, and the western shore of the Firth of Thames....

Hauraki Gulf

Islands of the Gulf

There are some 70 islands in the Hauraki Gulf, cast across the great embayment in a disorderly fashion....

Hauraki Gulf

Future food

Shellfish aquaculture appears to be relatively low impact, and presents the opportunity of high-value, high-quality protein, sustainably cultivated in a...

Hauraki Gulf

Dumped

The irony is that the camera can’t see far enough to properly document the worst sites in the Hauraki Gulf—they’re...

Hauraki Gulf

The remains of the day

At Pōnui Island, under the shade of picturesque pōhutukawa, effluent from a farm drains into the Waiheke Channel adjacent to...

Hauraki Gulf

Spilling sewers

In many of Auckland’s older suburbs, stormwater and sewerage is combined. As the population has increased, infrastructure has failed to...

Hauraki Gulf

Recreational fishing

Fishermen cast a line from Orakei Wharf. For some, fishing here is recreational. For many others, it’s about sustenance....

Hauraki Gulf

Meet the locals

Commercial fishers take around 1000 tonnes of snapper per year from the gulf, and recreational fishers double that amount....

Hauraki Gulf

Off balance

An ecosystem in balance is marked by diversity and abundance. An ecosystem out of balance is a desert of monotony....

Hauraki Gulf

Sustainable fishing

A Leigh Fisheries longliner reels in a catch with practiced efficiency....

Marlborough Sounds

Visit a kiwi creche

Visit a kiwi creche—Young kiwis stay in a 12-hectare Atarau Sanctuary creche until they are about a year old—large enough...

Marlborough Sounds

Go rowing with Shack

Shacklton ‘Shack’ Scollay is the 13-year-old son of Kina Scollay, fisherman, shark diver and filmmaker. He’s a man of the...

Marlborough Sounds

Ride the Sounds

The Queen Charlotte Track is one of New Zealand’s Great Rides with 72 kilometres of continuous single track, undulating up...

Marlborough Sounds

Load the logs

New Zealand timber bound for markets in Australia and China are loaded at Port Marlborough on to bulk carriers by...

Marlborough Sounds

Harvest the mussels

Workers harvest mussels from the lines hung beneath the floats while shags pirouette about hoping to catch a free feed....

Marlborough Sounds

Whack the weeds

Rangers Natalie Johnson, Micaela Courtney and Chance Ngatai do some weed whacking along the steep cliffs at the northern end...

Marlborough Sounds

Check the tunnels

High on the top of Maud Island/Te Hoiere, DOC ranger Emmanuel Oysten checks tracking tunnels to maintain the predator free...

Marlborough Sounds

Meet a Maud Island frog

The Maud Island frog is one of the rarest frogs on the planet, and also the longest lived—a monitoring programme...

Marlborough Sounds

Fly over Maud Island

The long spur of Harter Point on Maud Island/Te Hoiere, direct the view across Pelorus Sound. Kakapō were introduced to...

Marlborough Sounds

Deliver the post

There are few roads around the rugged coast of the Marlborough Sounds, making the Pelorus Express Mail Boat a critical...

Marlborough Sounds

Shipping out

The roll-on roll-off Interislander ferries that ply Cook Strait take passengers, cars and even trains across the 100-kilometre body of...

Marlborough Sounds

Visit French Pass

The narrow channel that separates D’Urville Island from the South Island mainland has the fastest tidal current in the country,...

Niue

Swim with humpbacks

Between August and October each year, humpback whales stop to shelter and sing under the lee of Niue....

Niue

Tend the taro

Dan Makaia tends his family taro patch. For many years, taro was the chief export of the island, and Niue’s...

Niue

White Sunday

Hakupu locals gather on the first Sunday of the month—White Sunday. The church is an important focal point for the...

Niue

Healthy coral reefs

Look around. This is what a healthy and diverse coral reef looks like....

Niue

Swimming snakes

Coral crevices along Niue’s shore harbour dens of writhing sea snakes, no more so than at Snake Gully. Here, snakes...

Niue

Take a spin with spinners

Spinner dolphins—slender torpedoes of the tropics—tumble like gymnasts on the displacement wave of a charter fishing boat....

Niue

Bottom feeders

Gorgonian fans the size of golf umbrellas filter the cool water upwelling on the reef edge....

Niue

Vaka fishing

In Avatele, Hine Makaia and Bretrick Vakanofiti ply their vaka out through the passage in the reef to fish....

Niue

Fly over the forest

The Huvalu Forest Conservation Area stretches across a verdant swathe of the island’s south-east. Much of it is primary growth,...

Niue

Whale research

Researchers Jake Levenson, Olive Andrews and Rosie Dodd attempt to attach a LIMPET satellite tracking tag to a whale....

Niue

Take a dip

On the west coast, in the lee of the prevailing trade winds, the Pacific has penetrated broken coral cliffs to...

Niue

Arrivals and departures

Each month a freighter pulls up to Alofi, Niue’s capital and port, to offload food, fuel, building materials and Japanese...

Outer Gulf

Long-distance travellers

A pair of juvenile triggerfish hang beneath a hunk of driftwood encrusted with goose barnacles, some 25 kilometres out to...

Outer Gulf

Whaling with Rochelle

Point the bow at the razor horizon and leave the coast behind. As the seafloor drops away to 400 metres...

Outer Gulf

Dive with the dolphins

Oceanic bottlenose dolphins play on the bow, leaping, cavorting and blowing bubbles....

Outer Gulf

Smile for the camera

Just beyond the territorial boundary of New Zealand, marine scientist Jochen Zaeschmar takes aim at a pod of pilot whales....

Outer Gulf

Play with the pilots

In calm water far out to sea, a group of pilot whales—including some juveniles—rests on the surface between hunts. Some...

Parengarenga Harbour

Hooking up a feed

As the sun goes down on Te Hapua, a local casts a line into the still waters of Parenga Channel,...

Parengarenga Harbour

Inbound invasives

Like strange fruit, ascidians cling to a wharf pile in Te Hapua. A native of Australia, they first appeared in...

Parengarenga Harbour

Gone fishing

Commercial fishers from Te Kao clear mullet from their net in the shallows of Kokota Spit where they fish their...

Parengarenga Harbour

Farmers in training

Aquaculture is an important industry for local communities, as employment opportunities are thin on the ground....

Parengarenga Harbour

Fly over farms

Workers repair an oyster farm damaged by a storm in the shallow upper reaches of Porotu Arm....

Parengarenga Harbour

Daycare for fish

At the harbour entrance, tiny juvenile fish, like these bigeyes, hide in the shelter of a rock....

Parengarenga Harbour

The Bar

The vast Parengarenga Harbour spills into the sea through a narrow channel of dark water running over a shallow bar....

Parengarenga Harbour

Fish with Nick

The harbour is a larder for the 500 residents of Te Kao and Te Hapua, like Nick Marsh, who have...

Parengarenga Harbour

Fly over Kokota Spit

Parengarenga Harbour is sheltered from the sea by a 10-kilometre-long promontory of pure silica sand, called Kokota Spit....

Parengarenga Harbour

Forests in the sea

Deep channels lead inland from the harbour entrance. The edges are laced with mangroves and the shallows green with meadows...

Parengarenga Harbour

Glide over eagle rays

Eagle rays bask in the warm, clear shallows of Parengarenga, one of the best preserved harbour systems in New Zealand....

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Snorkel with EMR

Experiencing Marine Reserves is a national programme of experiential learning that allows anyone to borrow a mask and wetsuit, take...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Snapper city

Snapper congregate in the shallows of Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve at an abundance and maturity that may closely reflect...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Soar above the snapper

Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve (Goat Island) marked the beginning of an environmental awakening. Established in 1977, it was the...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Dive Tie Dye Arch

South of the Poor Knights stand a crop of rocky spires called The Pinnacles. Under the largest is a cathedral-like...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Talking fish

Marine scientist Lucy van Oosterom wrote her Masters thesis on fish communication. Yes, fish talk, using a range of sounds...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Scooter with a scientist

Why swim when you can scoot? Marine biologist Lucy van Oosterom, our VR Producer, hitches a ride through clouds of...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Tunnel vision

Twenty kilometres off the Tutukaka Coast, the Poor Knights Islands are the remnants of an ancient volcano, shattered and penetrated...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Snapper City

Snapper congregate in the shallows of Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve at an abundance and maturity that may closely reflect...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Stingray swarm

At the northern extent of the Poor Knights Islands is a gash in the rock, cutting through a promontory to...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Dive Tie Dye Arch

At a group of tall rock stacks south of the Poor Knights is a huge cavern at a depth of...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

The mystery of the talking fish

In the underwater labyrinth of the Poor Knights islands are fish that have learned to talk. Dive in with scientist...

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Scooter with a scientist

Why swim when you can scoot? Marine biologist Lucy van Oosterom, our VR Producer, hitches a ride through clouds of...

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Welcome to Sharkland

Below the waterline, the Kermadec Islands are close to pristine, and brimming with sharks—the ultimate indicator of a healthy ecosystem....

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Lions’ den

Two lionfish, trailing their elaborate manes with 18 venomous spines, linger in a cave with slender roughy and yellow-banded perch....

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Foreigners

A small school of boarfish linger in a crack at Parsons Rock off the heaving surfline of Denham Bay....

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

The thin green line

After the 2002 predator eradication, Public Enemy #1 on Raoul is no long rats, but weeds—Mysore thorn, black passionfruit, buttercup...

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Ride the mule

Hold on to your hat, you’re riding a mule—four-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicles that can navigate the narrow, bush-cloaked goat tracks that...

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Scooter with kingis

Director of photography Richie Robinson expertly pilots a dive scooter alongside a school of kingfish, thronging in the shallows at...

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Kiwi coral

The Kermadecs are the only place in New Zealand with water warm enough to support coral....

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

The epicentre

Raoul Island is massive volcanic cone, with a caldera at its centre and two volcanic lakes. Ironically, at present, Blue...

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

The last roost

While birdlife on Raoul Island was ravaged by rats and cats from the 1920s, neighbourly Meyer Islets remained free of...

Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs

Homeward bound

A good northerly on the quarter makes for easy running home. Point the bow south-west, and follow the Kermadec Ridge...

Parengarenga Harbour

Hooking up a feed

As the sun goes down on Te Hapua, a local casts a line into the still waters of Parenga Channel,...

Parengarenga Harbour

Inbound invasives

Like strange fruit, ascidians cling to a wharf pile in Te Hapua. A native of Australia, they first appeared in...

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Spirits’ flight

On a still, clear day, you can see the pyramid-shaped form of Te Manawatawhi from Cape Reinga, rising like a...

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Explore Catton’s Cave

Deep beneath a rock stack on the south coast of the Princes Islands is a dark cavern, invisible from the...

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Discover a kina barren

Fishing effort, day after day, century after century, has changed the shape of this place. It’s still heaving with reef...

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Fishing up a storm

In North-West Bay, between the lollipop-coloured floats marking cray pots, fishing charter boats find anchor....

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Irishman’s Garden

Colourful sponges festoon a cave in Irishman’s Garden which shelters a plethora of reef fish....

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Dive with dolphins

Oceanic bottlenose dolphins shelter and feed in the lee of the Princes Islands. They are larger and more scarred than...

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Dive Arch Pinnacle

On the north coast of Princes Islands, a huge rocky spire called Arch Pinnacle rises steeply from the seafloor....

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Swim with a stingray

Landsbergia Rock is cloaked in a diverse forest of weeds, one of which is only found on this single rock....

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Explore Crater Bay

The Three Kings is unusual. It has one of the highest rates of endemism in New Zealand, which is to...

Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings

Fly over Manawatawhi

The cliffs of Te Manawatawhi are plumb and wrinkled with age. At the waterline they wear a piupiu of bull...

Te Mounga

Cod kingdom

Project Reef juts out from the seafloor like a shipwreck. Seaweed and sponges cling to the rock, becoming habitat for...

Te Mounga

Science on the reef

Eleven kilometres off the coast of Patea, a citizen science enterprise called Project Reef Life is working to document a...

Te Mounga

Taking the bar

Mark “Frosty” Frost lines up the mouth of the Patea River and prepares to ‘take the bar’....

Te Mounga

Tending the flock

Jenny Kerrisk has been volunteering at Rotokare Sanctuary three days a week for 10 years. Among other tasks, she keeps...

Te Mounga

A bird in the hand

Ash Muralidhar and volunteer Jenny Kerrisk hand-feed meal worms to North Island robins (toutouwai) at Rotokare Sanctuary, 35 kilometres south-east...

Te Mounga

Season opening

The Waiwhakaiho runs to sea at New Plymouth—the end of a short 25-kilometre flow across Taranaki’s ring plain from the...

Te Mounga

Fishing for conservation

On an unnamed tributary, Fish & Game field officer Allen Stancliff and ecologist Bart Jansma survey Waiwhakaiho tributary with an...

Te Mounga

Network tech

There are no less than 1400 traps forming a lethal net around the mounga—traps that must be checked and re-baited...

Te Mounga

Deadwood

Tongues of dense bush reach out from the disc of forest that cloaks the perimeter of the national park—the country’s...

Te Mounga

Whitewater life

Whio were functionally extinct in Taranaki until an extensive network of stoat traps enabled the introduction of ten blue ducks...

Te Mounga

Behold the ‘goblin forest’

Moss-encrusted kamahi trees dominate the Kamahi Loop Track on the lush eastern flanks of Taranaki, where rainfall totals more than...

Te Mounga

Taranaki means ‘shining peak’, recalling the legend of a stoush between the volcanoes of the central North Island for the...

Tokelau

Sit in on a meeting of the Taupulega

The Taupulega, or council, of each atoll holds the decision making power in Tokelau. It’s made up of the heads...

Tokelau

Take dip with the kids

After school the students of Fenua Fala hit the lagoon for some relief from the scorching tropical heat. The lagoon...

Tokelau

Go solar

Tala Tyrell cleans the solar panels on Fenua Fala, to keep the array operating at top efficiency. The solar farm—which...

Tokelau

Fly over Fakaofo

Fakaofo is the smallest and most southerly of Tokelau’s three atolls. Two islands are inhabited, the tiny islet of Fale,...

Tokelau

Dive for clams in the lagoon

Nukunonu’s lagoon is nearly 100 square kilometres in area. Some areas are deep, but here near Tokelau Island in the...

Tokelau

Drive through Atafu

Only one islet of the Atafu atoll is inhabited, and like the other atolls in Tokelau, it’s 100% powered by...

Tokelau

Unload the Mataliki

Everything in and out of Tokelau arrives on this ferry, the Mataliki, which makes the 10-day round-trip linking Fakaofo, Nukunonu...

Tokelau

Play for the home team on Atafu

Volleyball is ever-popular on Atafu atoll, especially in late afternoon when it’s cooler. On the adjacent field, a younger crew...

Tokelau

Hunt coconut crabs

In the Pisonia forest on Tokelau Island, Nukunonu, Troy William, Isaac Perez and Dominic Manuele check holes under trees for...

Tokelau

Plant a coral garden

Tokelauans rely on their ocean estate for sustenance and survival. Students from Matauala School on Atafu atoll plant corals on...

Tokelau

Dive through ancient coral

Every year the sea surface temperatures rise in Atafu, leaving behind towering coral structures that couldn’t stand the heat....

Tokelau

Pull up a pew in Nukunonu

Southeasterly trades blow through the louvred windows, lifting the smoke of Mass. The hymns are full-throated. While congregations wither in...

Waikato River

Soak it up

Tourists take a load off at Kerosene Creek, a natural hotspring on the Wai-o-Tapu tributary that ultimately runs into the...

Waikato River

Hinemoa’s Needle

Hinemoa’s Needle marks the end of a massive escarpment of Te Horohoroinga o nga ringa o Kahumatamomoe—where Tutanekai washed his...

Waikato River

Ride a log truck

Allan Bryant guides his log truck up Waipa State Mill Road to the Whakarewarewa weighbridge to check through a load...

Waikato River

Dive the Waikato

The water draining from Lake Taupō is crystal clear at Reids Park Farm, the out-point for daring drift divers following...

Waikato River

Hot rocks

At Orakei-Korako, the immense Taupō Volcanic Zone brushes the surface, superheating water to form the largest geyser field in New...

Waikato River

Upper reaches

The upper reaches of the Waikato writhe like a serpent through the fertile farmland of Broadlands Forest....

Waikato River

Inside a power station

It’s Craig Caldwell’s last day in ‘the office’ before his retirement as production technician of Maraetai Power Station....

Waikato River

Fly over a power station

Atiamuri Power Station was the third of eight hydroelectric power stations to take advantage of the massive vertical potential of...

Waikato River

Ride in a jet boat

Searing up the green highway at 90 kilometres per hour, punters on the New Zealand River Jet get a whistle-stop...

Waikato River

Flying high

Ohakuri local Nik Gibson has won the national wakeboarding champs four times, and travelled to the Worlds in Korea, Doha,...

Waikato River

Go eeling

Mike Holmes pulls shortfin eels from a fyke net, under the watchful eye of his hound Jack. A decent day...

Waikato River

Leviathans

Endemic species coexist with invasives in the highly modified ecology of Lake Ohakuri on the Waikato River. Shortfin eels writhe...

Locations

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Auckland Islands

Bay of Plenty

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Fiordland

Harwood's Hole

Hauraki Gulf

Marlborough Sounds

Niue

Outer Gulf

Parengarenga Harbour

Poor Knights & Goat Islands

Top Picks

Popular

Aoraki / Mt Cook

Auckland Islands

Bay of Plenty

Bounty & Antipodes Islands

Fiordland

Harwood's Hole

Hauraki Gulf

Marlborough Sounds

Niue