Locations
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Whales gather in Sandy Bay, Port Ross in the Auckland Islands every winter to mate, calve and nurse newborn whales....
High on Proclamation Island in the Bounty Island Group, overlooking the vast Southern Ocean, Salvin’s albatrosses negotiate a fragile peace...
At 3,724 metres above sea level, Aoraki is the highest point in New Zealand and the massif of the Southern...
A LandSAR crew hitches a ‘banana boat’ under a rescue helicopter in a drill up on the Tasman Glacier. This...
Popular
The Taupulega, or council, of each atoll holds the decision making power in Tokelau. It’s made up of the heads...
After school the students of Fenua Fala hit the lagoon for some relief from the scorching tropical heat. The lagoon...
Fakaofo is the smallest and most southerly of Tokelau’s three atolls. Two islands are inhabited, the tiny islet of Fale,...
Nukunonu’s lagoon is nearly 100 square kilometres in area. Some areas are deep, but here near Tokelau Island in the...
Only one islet of the Atafu atoll is inhabited, and like the other atolls in Tokelau, it’s 100% powered by...
Everything in and out of Tokelau arrives on this ferry, the Mataliki, which makes the 10-day round-trip linking Fakaofo, Nukunonu...
Volleyball is ever-popular on Atafu atoll, especially in late afternoon when it’s cooler. On the adjacent field, a younger crew...
In the Pisonia forest on Tokelau Island, Nukunonu, Troy William, Isaac Perez and Dominic Manuele check holes under trees for...
Tokelauans rely on their ocean estate for sustenance and survival. Students from Matauala School on Atafu atoll plant corals on...
Every year the sea surface temperatures rise in Atafu, leaving behind towering coral structures that couldn’t stand the heat....
Southeasterly trades blow through the louvred windows, lifting the smoke of Mass. The hymns are full-throated. While congregations wither in...
Aoraki / Mt Cook
In the rain shadow of the South Alps, and adjacent to a large body of water in Lake Tekapo, the...
Mountain climbing legend Lydia Bradey picks her way up a couloir to reach the Summit Ridge of Aoraki/Mt Cook, the...
Cameron Gumbley and Henry Wilson feed meal into the pens at High Country Salmon on an arm of Lake Ruataniwha....
Chinook (or king) salmon were introduced to New Zealand from the McLeod in California between 1901 and 1907 and established...
Legendary Kiwi mountain climber Lydia Bradey swaps notes with fellow climber Ruari MacFarlane in the iconic Plateau Hut, something of...
Alan and Pam Gilmour have been researching near-Earth asteroids since 1973, monitoring 20 to 30 targets in any one night...
At 3,724 metres above sea level, Aoraki is the highest point in New Zealand and the massif of the Southern...
Head Aviculturist Liz Brown has been working with kakī/black stilts for 12 years. It’s been a bumper season for eggs—almost...
A pair of kakī/black stilts—among the rarest birds on the planet—feed in a sheltered oxbow of the Tasman River under...
Climbers return through thick snow from shoulder of Aoraki/Mt Cook. They’re roped together, so if one falls through into a...
The Tasman Glacier is shot through with holes, crevices, caves and crevasses, the result of the slow-motion waterfall as ice...
A LandSAR crew hitches a ‘banana boat’ under a rescue helicopter in a drill up on the Tasman Glacier. This...
Auckland Islands
See whales up close and (very, very) personal—This may be the first footage ever recorded of southern right whales mating,...
Auckland Islands shags roost quietly on a rocky promontory in Port Ross. With a yellow accent on the beak, a...
Southern right whale calves are born right here at the Auckland Islands, during winter, and weigh in at a tonne...
Bay of Plenty
East Cape is one of the first places in the world to see the light of the new day....
Pat Nukunuku inspects frames and inserts new queens to maintain good production on his hives at Lottin Point....
Though still damp with autumn rain Tony Ferkins decided it was “better to be cutting than doing nothing”, so fired...
Elaine Kasper doesn’t have far to go to collect a feed of kina—the rocks at Papatea Bay, outside the historic...
Though nearly 5pm, Harry’s shearing gang digs deep to work through the last ewes on Waikura....
The utes arrive for evening footy practice at the Hikurangi Sports Club in Ruatoria....
The 600-metre wharf at Tolaga Bay is the second-longest in New Zealand....
Volkner Rocks—once used by the navy for target practice—are now a marine reserve. And it shows...
Like a flock of starlings, two-spot demoiselles and flashy koheru form dazzling murmurations at a sharp pinnacle called Laisons Reef...
White Island hosts 3000 pairs of gannets, which gather in a colony at the southern side of the island across...
A tour party gathered at the edge of the crater lake marvels at the 55ºC pistachio-green pond of acid, boiling...
Whakaari is New Zealand’s most active volcano, being in a state of continuous volcanic activity for some 150,000 years....
Bounty & Antipodes Islands
High on Proclamation Island in the Bounty Island Group, overlooking the vast Southern Ocean, Salvin’s albatrosses negotiate a fragile peace...
The Bounty Islands were first sighted by William Bligh in 1788, who named them for his ship, mutinied just seven...
Standing at the summit of Proclamation Island, scientist Thomas Mattern guides his drone up ‘the albatross layer’, taking guidance from...
These islands were once home to more than 50,000 fur seals, but they were slaughtered—largely to make coverings for top...
Keep your eyes on the breaking waves where scores of penguins are ready to make landfall after long periods hunting...
Scientist Jeff White is weighing, erect-crested penguins, sampling their blood and feathers in order to understand what the birds have...
Salvin’s albatrosses whirl above Proclamation Island in the subantarctic. The jagged promontory of Depot Island stretches towards the crouching sliver...
Above Hut Cove on Antipodes Island, giant petrels tend the nests of fluffy chicks—looking like they’ve been covered in underfloor...
Anchorage Bay on Antipodes Island is a veritable zoo on calm days like this. Elephant seals the size of station...
Standing a metre tall, an Antipodean albatross chick at barely eight months old is one big baby. Every hour or...
Fiordland
The Fiordland crested penguin, or Tawaki, is unusual among penguins—it lives in a rainforest, sometimes deep in caves beneath trees,...
Harwood's Hole
Hauraki Gulf
Secondary school sailing teams manoeuvre before the start of a team race at Snells Beach north of Auckland....
Richard Manuka leans on his hoe and drives his waka-ama towards the city from Birkenhead Point....
Godwits and wrybills roost on chenier shell banks at Miranda, and the western shore of the Firth of Thames....
There are some 70 islands in the Hauraki Gulf, cast across the great embayment in a disorderly fashion....
Shellfish aquaculture appears to be relatively low impact, and presents the opportunity of high-value, high-quality protein, sustainably cultivated in a...
The irony is that the camera can’t see far enough to properly document the worst sites in the Hauraki Gulf—they’re...
At Pōnui Island, under the shade of picturesque pōhutukawa, effluent from a farm drains into the Waiheke Channel adjacent to...
In many of Auckland’s older suburbs, stormwater and sewerage is combined. As the population has increased, infrastructure has failed to...
Fishermen cast a line from Orakei Wharf. For some, fishing here is recreational. For many others, it’s about sustenance....
Commercial fishers take around 1000 tonnes of snapper per year from the gulf, and recreational fishers double that amount....
An ecosystem in balance is marked by diversity and abundance. An ecosystem out of balance is a desert of monotony....
A Leigh Fisheries longliner reels in a catch with practiced efficiency....
Marlborough Sounds
Shacklton ‘Shack’ Scollay is the 13-year-old son of Kina Scollay, fisherman, shark diver and filmmaker. He’s a man of the...
The Queen Charlotte Track is one of New Zealand’s Great Rides with 72 kilometres of continuous single track, undulating up...
New Zealand timber bound for markets in Australia and China are loaded at Port Marlborough on to bulk carriers by...
Workers harvest mussels from the lines hung beneath the floats while shags pirouette about hoping to catch a free feed....
Rangers Natalie Johnson, Micaela Courtney and Chance Ngatai do some weed whacking along the steep cliffs at the northern end...
High on the top of Maud Island/Te Hoiere, DOC ranger Emmanuel Oysten checks tracking tunnels to maintain the predator free...
The Maud Island frog is one of the rarest frogs on the planet, and also the longest lived—a monitoring programme...
The long spur of Harter Point on Maud Island/Te Hoiere, direct the view across Pelorus Sound. Kakapō were introduced to...
There are few roads around the rugged coast of the Marlborough Sounds, making the Pelorus Express Mail Boat a critical...
The narrow channel that separates D’Urville Island from the South Island mainland has the fastest tidal current in the country,...
Niue
Between August and October each year, humpback whales stop to shelter and sing under the lee of Niue....
Dan Makaia tends his family taro patch. For many years, taro was the chief export of the island, and Niue’s...
Hakupu locals gather on the first Sunday of the month—White Sunday. The church is an important focal point for the...
Coral crevices along Niue’s shore harbour dens of writhing sea snakes, no more so than at Snake Gully. Here, snakes...
Spinner dolphins—slender torpedoes of the tropics—tumble like gymnasts on the displacement wave of a charter fishing boat....
Gorgonian fans the size of golf umbrellas filter the cool water upwelling on the reef edge....
In Avatele, Hine Makaia and Bretrick Vakanofiti ply their vaka out through the passage in the reef to fish....
The Huvalu Forest Conservation Area stretches across a verdant swathe of the island’s south-east. Much of it is primary growth,...
Researchers Jake Levenson, Olive Andrews and Rosie Dodd attempt to attach a LIMPET satellite tracking tag to a whale....
On the west coast, in the lee of the prevailing trade winds, the Pacific has penetrated broken coral cliffs to...
Each month a freighter pulls up to Alofi, Niue’s capital and port, to offload food, fuel, building materials and Japanese...
Outer Gulf
A pair of juvenile triggerfish hang beneath a hunk of driftwood encrusted with goose barnacles, some 25 kilometres out to...
Point the bow at the razor horizon and leave the coast behind. As the seafloor drops away to 400 metres...
Oceanic bottlenose dolphins play on the bow, leaping, cavorting and blowing bubbles....
Just beyond the territorial boundary of New Zealand, marine scientist Jochen Zaeschmar takes aim at a pod of pilot whales....
In calm water far out to sea, a group of pilot whales—including some juveniles—rests on the surface between hunts. Some...
Parengarenga Harbour
As the sun goes down on Te Hapua, a local casts a line into the still waters of Parenga Channel,...
Like strange fruit, ascidians cling to a wharf pile in Te Hapua. A native of Australia, they first appeared in...
Commercial fishers from Te Kao clear mullet from their net in the shallows of Kokota Spit where they fish their...
Aquaculture is an important industry for local communities, as employment opportunities are thin on the ground....
Workers repair an oyster farm damaged by a storm in the shallow upper reaches of Porotu Arm....
At the harbour entrance, tiny juvenile fish, like these bigeyes, hide in the shelter of a rock....
The vast Parengarenga Harbour spills into the sea through a narrow channel of dark water running over a shallow bar....
The harbour is a larder for the 500 residents of Te Kao and Te Hapua, like Nick Marsh, who have...
Parengarenga Harbour is sheltered from the sea by a 10-kilometre-long promontory of pure silica sand, called Kokota Spit....
Deep channels lead inland from the harbour entrance. The edges are laced with mangroves and the shallows green with meadows...
Eagle rays bask in the warm, clear shallows of Parengarenga, one of the best preserved harbour systems in New Zealand....
Poor Knights & Goat Islands
Experiencing Marine Reserves is a national programme of experiential learning that allows anyone to borrow a mask and wetsuit, take...
Snapper congregate in the shallows of Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve at an abundance and maturity that may closely reflect...
Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve (Goat Island) marked the beginning of an environmental awakening. Established in 1977, it was the...
South of the Poor Knights stand a crop of rocky spires called The Pinnacles. Under the largest is a cathedral-like...
Marine scientist Lucy van Oosterom wrote her Masters thesis on fish communication. Yes, fish talk, using a range of sounds...
Why swim when you can scoot? Marine biologist Lucy van Oosterom, our VR Producer, hitches a ride through clouds of...
Twenty kilometres off the Tutukaka Coast, the Poor Knights Islands are the remnants of an ancient volcano, shattered and penetrated...
Snapper congregate in the shallows of Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve at an abundance and maturity that may closely reflect...
At the northern extent of the Poor Knights Islands is a gash in the rock, cutting through a promontory to...
At a group of tall rock stacks south of the Poor Knights is a huge cavern at a depth of...
In the underwater labyrinth of the Poor Knights islands are fish that have learned to talk. Dive in with scientist...
Why swim when you can scoot? Marine biologist Lucy van Oosterom, our VR Producer, hitches a ride through clouds of...
Rangitāhua / The Kermadecs
Below the waterline, the Kermadec Islands are close to pristine, and brimming with sharks—the ultimate indicator of a healthy ecosystem....
Two lionfish, trailing their elaborate manes with 18 venomous spines, linger in a cave with slender roughy and yellow-banded perch....
A small school of boarfish linger in a crack at Parsons Rock off the heaving surfline of Denham Bay....
After the 2002 predator eradication, Public Enemy #1 on Raoul is no long rats, but weeds—Mysore thorn, black passionfruit, buttercup...
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...
Director of photography Richie Robinson expertly pilots a dive scooter alongside a school of kingfish, thronging in the shallows at...
The Kermadecs are the only place in New Zealand with water warm enough to support coral....
Raoul Island is massive volcanic cone, with a caldera at its centre and two volcanic lakes. Ironically, at present, Blue...
While birdlife on Raoul Island was ravaged by rats and cats from the 1920s, neighbourly Meyer Islets remained free of...
A good northerly on the quarter makes for easy running home. Point the bow south-west, and follow the Kermadec Ridge...
As the sun goes down on Te Hapua, a local casts a line into the still waters of Parenga Channel,...
Like strange fruit, ascidians cling to a wharf pile in Te Hapua. A native of Australia, they first appeared in...
Te Manawatawhi / Three Kings
On a still, clear day, you can see the pyramid-shaped form of Te Manawatawhi from Cape Reinga, rising like a...
Deep beneath a rock stack on the south coast of the Princes Islands is a dark cavern, invisible from the...
Fishing effort, day after day, century after century, has changed the shape of this place. It’s still heaving with reef...
In North-West Bay, between the lollipop-coloured floats marking cray pots, fishing charter boats find anchor....
Colourful sponges festoon a cave in Irishman’s Garden which shelters a plethora of reef fish....
Oceanic bottlenose dolphins shelter and feed in the lee of the Princes Islands. They are larger and more scarred than...
On the north coast of Princes Islands, a huge rocky spire called Arch Pinnacle rises steeply from the seafloor....
Landsbergia Rock is cloaked in a diverse forest of weeds, one of which is only found on this single rock....
The Three Kings is unusual. It has one of the highest rates of endemism in New Zealand, which is to...
The cliffs of Te Manawatawhi are plumb and wrinkled with age. At the waterline they wear a piupiu of bull...
Te Mounga
Project Reef juts out from the seafloor like a shipwreck. Seaweed and sponges cling to the rock, becoming habitat for...
Eleven kilometres off the coast of Patea, a citizen science enterprise called Project Reef Life is working to document a...
Mark “Frosty” Frost lines up the mouth of the Patea River and prepares to ‘take the bar’....
Jenny Kerrisk has been volunteering at Rotokare Sanctuary three days a week for 10 years. Among other tasks, she keeps...
Ash Muralidhar and volunteer Jenny Kerrisk hand-feed meal worms to North Island robins (toutouwai) at Rotokare Sanctuary, 35 kilometres south-east...
The Waiwhakaiho runs to sea at New Plymouth—the end of a short 25-kilometre flow across Taranaki’s ring plain from the...
On an unnamed tributary, Fish & Game field officer Allen Stancliff and ecologist Bart Jansma survey Waiwhakaiho tributary with an...
There are no less than 1400 traps forming a lethal net around the mounga—traps that must be checked and re-baited...
Whio were functionally extinct in Taranaki until an extensive network of stoat traps enabled the introduction of ten blue ducks...
Moss-encrusted kamahi trees dominate the Kamahi Loop Track on the lush eastern flanks of Taranaki, where rainfall totals more than...
Tokelau
The Taupulega, or council, of each atoll holds the decision making power in Tokelau. It’s made up of the heads...
After school the students of Fenua Fala hit the lagoon for some relief from the scorching tropical heat. The lagoon...
Fakaofo is the smallest and most southerly of Tokelau’s three atolls. Two islands are inhabited, the tiny islet of Fale,...
Nukunonu’s lagoon is nearly 100 square kilometres in area. Some areas are deep, but here near Tokelau Island in the...
Only one islet of the Atafu atoll is inhabited, and like the other atolls in Tokelau, it’s 100% powered by...
Everything in and out of Tokelau arrives on this ferry, the Mataliki, which makes the 10-day round-trip linking Fakaofo, Nukunonu...
Volleyball is ever-popular on Atafu atoll, especially in late afternoon when it’s cooler. On the adjacent field, a younger crew...
In the Pisonia forest on Tokelau Island, Nukunonu, Troy William, Isaac Perez and Dominic Manuele check holes under trees for...
Tokelauans rely on their ocean estate for sustenance and survival. Students from Matauala School on Atafu atoll plant corals on...
Every year the sea surface temperatures rise in Atafu, leaving behind towering coral structures that couldn’t stand the heat....
Southeasterly trades blow through the louvred windows, lifting the smoke of Mass. The hymns are full-throated. While congregations wither in...
Waikato River
Tourists take a load off at Kerosene Creek, a natural hotspring on the Wai-o-Tapu tributary that ultimately runs into the...
Hinemoa’s Needle marks the end of a massive escarpment of Te Horohoroinga o nga ringa o Kahumatamomoe—where Tutanekai washed his...
Allan Bryant guides his log truck up Waipa State Mill Road to the Whakarewarewa weighbridge to check through a load...
The water draining from Lake Taupō is crystal clear at Reids Park Farm, the out-point for daring drift divers following...
At Orakei-Korako, the immense Taupō Volcanic Zone brushes the surface, superheating water to form the largest geyser field in New...
The upper reaches of the Waikato writhe like a serpent through the fertile farmland of Broadlands Forest....
It’s Craig Caldwell’s last day in ‘the office’ before his retirement as production technician of Maraetai Power Station....
Atiamuri Power Station was the third of eight hydroelectric power stations to take advantage of the massive vertical potential of...
Searing up the green highway at 90 kilometres per hour, punters on the New Zealand River Jet get a whistle-stop...
Ohakuri local Nik Gibson has won the national wakeboarding champs four times, and travelled to the Worlds in Korea, Doha,...
Mike Holmes pulls shortfin eels from a fyke net, under the watchful eye of his hound Jack. A decent day...
Endemic species coexist with invasives in the highly modified ecology of Lake Ohakuri on the Waikato River. Shortfin eels writhe...
West Coast
Kayakers take on the rapids on the Hokitika River, expertly guiding their inflatable pack-rafts downstream between the rocks. The art...
New Zealand fur seals splash through tidal pools at Cape Foulwind, near Westport. Female fur seals live in the same...