Amazing New Zealand (1963)

[Music] way back in the 1500s mellin sailed into the great Silence of an unknown sea he discovered an ocean the largest expense of water on the globe so calm hey so calm that's better he called it the Pacific and he put it on the maps and colored it blue all the big Islands inclosing this ocean have also been discovered now over here America oh in the 50th state Hawaii and over on this side China and Japan away down at the bottom Australia uh thank you but people are still discovering the Blue Pacific for here are scattered the aisles beneath the wind the most beautiful spots on Earth the Romantic south sea Islands this particular one is amazing New Zealand or these to New Zealand really has two main islands these are the aisles of astonishment full of surprises where nothing's as you'd expect it to be for instance you'd expect to find this kind of thing in the S seeds and sure enough you might too on special occasions Mari new zealanders get dressed up and give demonstrations but your first impression of New Zealand's much more likely to be something like this odd but everything's odd down here it's an extraordinary country to start with the first European to find New Zealand was a duck sea captain who was looking for something quite different so he sailed past and never set foot on it and they named this land uplifted high after Zealand in Holland which is as flat as a pancake then the capital Wellington was named after a famous British general the Duke of Wellington whose only connection with the place seems to have been his reluctance to have anything to do with it today still with a certain bronze indifference he looks out from his Hilltop onto the city below infolding the Deep Blue Harbor Wellington's a city of Hills the buildings sit in the sun on the steep slopes like spectators at a ball [Music] game when they wanted flat land for Commerce they filched it from the sea and city streets follow the curve of the old beaches and Bays [Music] packed into these long slim islands is everything you'd see on a world tour take Lakes for instance there are hundreds of them they have them Serene and [Music] cold and smoking hot and very weird some are deep and friendly others still quiet and blue as the sky one is even upside down is this a lake or the sea the Ducks and seagulls don't seem to be able to make up their minds but it's an upside down country Winter's in June it's summer in January in summer you see the Sheep being mustered up in the Southern High Country here it takes six acres to support one sheep in the north on the other hand they pasture six sheep to one acre counting sheep supposed to send you to sleep but it seems to have the opposite effect on the sheep you'd be impressed by all the flowers the icy purity of the sub alpines contrasts with the hot Reds and yellows of the [Music] tropics a sweet sharp perfume tugs your glance upward to what they call a cabbage tree but it isn't a cabbage at all actually it's the world's lobby but these are trees the biggest man-made forests in the world exotic Pines grow in only 25 years and they Farm them and harvest them like any other crop New Zealand trees don't shed their leaves they stay green all the year round and the folks get quite excited when they see the colors of the English ones begin to burn with the fires of autumn [Music] many of these trees were planted in the early days when men searching for gold moved into the mountain valleys all the gold that's left will soon be falling but the mountains are still steadfastly there a great chain of glittering Peaks 17 of them over 10,000 ft covering an area larger than the whole of swi Switzerland but here even the mountains have to be different there's one with a boiling Lake CT in its icy [Music] fingers mountain climbing is hard work you'll work up an appetite in New Zealand did it be a good idea to take along a few eggs with you just in case and where else would you find golf and Geyers or mud jumping like frogs or looking like beautiful pale petal flowers of course you'll need a guide in some of these areas and you see some odd signs as you get [Music] around now glass is you'll find a fascinating things at Close Quarters [Music] great rivers of ice tumble down the Steep mountain valleys but they're frozen into slow motion they move barely 2 ft a day groaning and creaking and longing to be free some of the glaciers in these islands are marvelous for they come right down into the forests of trees and Ferns and melt away to the song of [Music] birds only 10 miles away from the glasses is the coast where the ocean weaves an endless tapestry of [Music] sand about 6,000 miles of indented coastliners strung with wonderful beaches all kinds of [Music] them HS and ferns shelter warm Bays of silver [Music] sand sea for two and a beach of gold and little Coes where the ocean swell slides quietly in towards the trees the rich green soup made from this shellfish was a national delicacy now most of it sent overseas to the world's gourm but here you can try your like at catching the sporting Toro you dig and so does the too and if you dig quicker than he does you get your soup oh and talking of food further down the coast are the pancake rocks millions of them cut and molded by the Sea and piled up like stacks of Flapjacks to bake in the hot sun it's remarkable what you can do with Limestone if you have the patience limestones responsible for this display too where the world's largest freshwater spring is trapped and then released at the rate of 475 million gallons a day not much point to it though nobody really seems to want so much water all at once generally speaking people haven't much time for eels either and yet are little food infinite patience and you can grow to love them and have them eating out of your hand [Music] a great big ugly things trout though they're different while you're feeding them you can be wishing they were providing a meal for [Music] you what about some lunch honey I just couldn't face it it'll be that Everlasting hash [Music] again the angers catch 970,000 chart every year not here of course it' be no fun if it was as easy as this these try to tame and rather bored but the big game fish are wild and angry and you could be feeding them in quite a different way if you weren't M fishermen from all over the world bring their catch back into this Bay a beautiful Harbor of islands the main cities are on the sea too orland's built on 62 volcanic cones scattered over a narrow neck of land between two oceans it's a gay city of trees and bright sunshine and its Island dotted Harbors are butterflied with yachts in this race for homebuilt boats the kids won't lose if they tip over in fact they can't win if they don't don't being able to capsize and write the boat quickly is one of the requirements of the race Den denon's different sedate a city of Greystone whose Founders came from Scotland in the early days [Music] [Music] yes a little bit of Edinburgh in the southern seas and then here in New Zealand's Christ Church you'd swear you were in England English trees English weather English [Music] architecture there's even a river aen Meandering through the city and lilacs in the squares and girls called Mary this jungle likee Forest the new zealanders for some reason call Bush and the odd thing is that in spite of its tropical appearance it's perfectly safe there are no snakes or harmful animals in the country and they won't even let you bring in your own if you do come across something unpleasant it's probably your own fault or your wives the native snail LS of odity it's carnivorous but the experts don't explain how it ever darts around quickly enough to catch anything Legend has that this mountain was a god romantic and beautiful he fell in love with another mountain and had to be driven off by a jealous husband today taranaki stands a mountain in a meadow ostracized and alone sadly mourning his lost mistress naroi has a different story far back in the past a native Chief was overcome with cold as he climbed towards the summit help he cried to the gods and they obligingly turned on the central heating and warmed him the chief of course has long since joined his ancestors but the gods have apparently forgotten to turn the equipment off and still it smokes away one of the sights of the northern Island thermal activity is frightening interesting or boring depending on which way you look at it audacious Engineers have sunk BS down into Hell's Kitchen and the steam that's rushing out gives you some idea of what's cooking down there the angry steam is tamed and harnessed and finally gallops happily along in a team of pipes to a Powerhouse Where It's Quickly converted into electricity something odd's been going on underground here too for a long time a careless move and you could snap 800 years off one of these with your elbow in the Eerie Silence of these caves is one of the wonders of the [Music] world you drift in a boat on an underground river and look out into Infinite Space the Milky Way glows with a strange blue light and galaxies Glide across the heavens past constellations of stars and then they tell us this miracle is performed by damp little worms hanging from the roof with their tails all lit up to attract their food the taale of the takahi isn't lit up but it's terribly Twitchy this is quite a bird for it was thought to be extinct then not long ago a startling Discovery in an unexplored region the South someone suddenly saw a blue flash of feathers this Rare Bird had actually survived after all now the Kiwi is about as hard as they come he Taps around like a blind man with a stick for he can hardly see a thing in the daytime he has no wings no tail he's got feathers like hair and his nose is at the end of his beak and perpetually dirty oh and he lays an egg nearly as big as himself himself herself yes A peculiar bird is the Kiwi almost as odd as the two aara a living fossil left over from the dinosaurs in spite of his appearance he's perfectly harmless rather a pet in fact he lives for hundreds of years and this one was probably sitting on this very Rock looking much as he does today when the pilgrims were landing at Plymouth wherever you go down here you come across the unexpected you fish one of the lovely streams you really get that outsize trout then if you like you can cook it in a boiling pool right on the spot trouble is it'll probably taste terrible but you can guarantee it'll be delicious grilled this way throughout the two islands waterfalls like the lakes are everywhere they're all sizes all shapes and they all fall downwards there does appear to be a little confusion here however this one's all mixed up and can't make efforts of course by this time you're not surprised to find they have fiords too in New Zealand Marv's Granite Canyons probing deep into the [Music] land vertical walls 4,000 ft high slide straight down into waterers so deep that no vessel can find an Anchorage [Music] part of the country around here is still actually unexplored locked away and secret behind the mountains but that's just another of the constant surprises you'll never run out of in this country there's a whole world here jam-packed into the mere thousand miles of these twin Islands amazing New Zealand in the southern Seas where only seeing is believing [Music]