Original subtitles

[soft music]

Downloaded from YTS.MX

♪

[instruments click]

[pilot] Prop exercised.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

Directional gyro set.

Fuel gauges checked.

Altimeter set.

Flight controls free.

Requesting clearance to take off

out beyond the reef.

[air traffic control] Granted. Will do. Enjoy the ride.

♪

[helicopter engine starting]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[indistinct radio chatter]

♪

[bright music]

♪

Wow, you can see all the coral!

♪

You can see the coral so clearly.

The water is so beautiful.

♪

That is where we're landing?

♪

It's like my own island.

♪

It's so beautiful.

♪

[helicopter blades whirring]

♪

[gasps]

We're landing!

♪

[helicopter blades whirring]

♪

[shrieking, giggling]

♪

Okay, that was a pretty soft landing.

[chuckles]

♪

[pilot] Welcome to Vlasoff.

[Shuang] Thank you very much, kind sir.

Wow.

Oh my goodness.

We are in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef

on my own little island!

This is amazing!

[gasps]

Look at how clear the water is

and how soft the sand is.

[moans]

Ooh, look, they have a little picnic set up for me.

Woohoo!

[soft music]

Wow, I've never had breakfast

surrounded by the endless coral sea.

I'm Shuang, actor, writer, and part-time adventurer,

and together, we're going to be exploring

this magnificent destination.

[majestic music]

♪

[energetic music]

♪

Welcome to one of the Seven Wonders of the World,

the Great Barrier Reef.

Located in Tropical Far North Queensland,

this is where ancient forests meet the coral sea.

A land of natural and historical significance

where humanity and nature collide.

♪

We are on a journey to learn more

about this wild corner of the planet,

and perhaps our place in it.

♪

This is Pablo, he's our skipper for the day.

He's gonna take us out on the reef

and find us a really beautiful spot

-for me to do my first dive. -Oh yeah.

So we're gonna go all the way to Flynn Reef,

which is one of our favorite locations

here in Cairns.

The marine life is incredible,

and we have such good weather conditions.

[Shuang] Yeah.

[Pablo] We're hoping to see a lot of the highlights

that the World Heritage area has to offer.

[majestic music]

♪

[Shuang] We are currently floating on top

of the world's largest coral reef system,

the Great Barrier Reef.

And today we have Patcy with us,

she is our friendly local dive instructor.

And she's going to be teaching me everything I need to know

to get my open water dive certificate.

[Patcy] Welcome to Flynn Reef.

This is such an amazing place for us to be.

It's one of the furthest reefs from Cairns,

so we're actually really close to the continental shelf.

And because of that,

there's a lot of gorgeous fresh water

flushing in through the currents.

And as you can see,

it's just an absolutely amazing day.

We've got the perfect weather, we've got amazing visibility.

This is one of our further sites,

and it's actually very popular with turtles.

So hopefully today we get a turtle into our cert.

So when we're starting our diving today,

we're just gonna go nice and shallow,

check out some beautiful reef fishes,

and see how you go,

and you're just gonna love it.

Okay.

Just put your shoulder blades together there for me.

Have you ever done any snorkeling before

-or swimming? -I have.

[Patcy] So it's pretty much the same.

You're still gonna be swimming around.

It's gonna be different, though, and way better,

because we're actually going to take the air down with us.

So I'm gonna strap a tank to you, and to myself,

and then we'll go down and we'll be able

to actually explore the underwater world

for way longer than you would be able to snorkeling.

Welcome to your scuba equipment.

We've got our air tank.

This essentially mimics the air that we're breathing here, 21%,

it's just highly pressurized

and put into a nice compact form for you.

With scuba diving, the reason that it's so amazing

is that even though we're putting all this heavy equipment

on you for you to explore,

once you're down there,

it's this feeling of weightlessness

that you've never experienced before.

You feel like-- almost like an astronaut.

As we're descending into weightlessness,

you become part of that marine world.

-Like Aquawoman! -Yeah.

-I become Aquawoman. -Like Aquawoman.

So, in the next four dives I'm gonna get you certified,

and we'll get you certified as Aquawoman.

[Shuang] Yeah, that's what I want on my certificate.

♪

[Patcy] Okay, so we've got our fins, we've got our masks,

we've got our dive buddies,

and we are mentally and physically okay to dive.

-Okay, yes, I think so. -Okay!

Good, that's so-- you always want to hear that,

-that they're ready. -Mentally,

'cause I'm a little bit nervous, I'm not gonna lie,

but I'm very excited to see the fish.

[Patcy] So the way that we're gonna roll into the water,

all we have to do is lean back and enter the water that way.

Sounds good, right?

-Easy enough. -Easy enough.

So go ahead and put that regulator in.

Hold your mask and regulator like so.

-Mm-hm. -And...

hold your other hand to your belly.

[excited exclamations]

Okay, three, two, one, roll.

[majestic music]

♪

[shrieking, cheering]

Put your face down and see what the--

the ocean's all about.

Wow, it actually is super beautiful.

Holy.

-Wow! -I know, right?

[Shuang] My God, it's so beautiful.

♪

[soft music]

♪

♪

Look at all these damsel fish and mesmerizing coral.

It's a whole new world under here,

and one that belongs to fish and turtles

and mermaids in training, like me.

The Great Barrier Reef is a spectacular ecosystem.

Hundreds of species of fish

can live in just a small area of the reef.

Patcy is so right.

It is magical down here.

You are weightless and seeing the ocean like never before.

♪

[music stops]

Check it out, I'm a natural.

This is my first ever dive,

but it sure won't be my last.

I have four more dives to go to get my certificate

and become the official mermaid

of the Great Barrier Reef.

[soft, bright music]

♪

[bubbling]

♪

♪

Woo!

♪

With my first dive complete,

Captain Pablo sets course for our next destination,

the Outer Reefs,

where we're going to catch up with my new friend,

marine biologist Eric.

♪

[pensive music]

♪

-Hi, Eric. -Hi, Shuang.

-Nice to meet you. -Welcome to

the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef, yeah?

-Welcome to you. -Thank you.

Oh, I'm so excited to be here.

Where are we, exactly?

[Eric] This reef itself is called Moore Reef.

Moore Reef sits around about 55 kilometers east of Cairns.

This reef is on the outer edge,

so it's close to where the continental shelf

drops straight down.

It's only about 10, 15 kilometers that way.

[Shuang] Oh, wow, so this is the edge of the reef--

[Eric] Pretty well, yeah.

Yep, past that, there's nothing more.

And it's full of life.

The biodiversity is through the roof.

So this is where you've got,

like, over 40 species of fish aggregate there,

and you can get over 10,000 fish in this one spot.

Yeah, and we got a very special wrasse in here too,

the Maori wrasse is one of your largest wrasses.

Gets up to, like, almost two meters in length.

A little bit bigger than you, so not too bad--

[Shuang] Very much bigger than me.

[Eric] All right, let's go check out the reef.

[Shuang] Let's do it!

Time to channel my inner mermaid,

although I always imagined my inner mermaid

would be wearing a slightly more magical crown,

but I guess this will do.

[excited squealing]

[Patcy] All right.

Wanna take a seat right at it?

Yeah, we're just gonna hook you up right here.

You've got a dive computer here,

and this will calculate everything

that's actually going on once we go under.

[Shuang] It's like you're proposing to me almost.

[Patcy] I propose for you to go on this dive with me.

-Do you accept? -I do.

[Patcy] And then make sure the strap goes underneath your ponytail

so that it's not too in the way.

I'll help you up, it's a bit heavy.

[soft music]

♪

[Shuang] I just have a really important question,

it's something I've always been wondering.

Is there anything I can do or individuals can do,

any little things we can do to help you

and help the reef stay in the condition that it is?

[Eric] Totally, one of my greatest passions

is promoting science in tourism.

-Yeah. -Right?

And I find the biggest way

to get people to help the reef is,

first of all, form a connection.

Get people, like, even through our storytelling

or showing them.

Because when people become connected to the reef,

they feel a lot more passionate and want to conserve it.

They actually want to do something for it.

You know, the greatest pressure to the Great Barrier Reef

is climate change.

Without a doubt, that is it.

But forming connections,

see the reef, fall in love with it.

Once you fall in love with it,

you want to do everything you can for it.

♪

[water bubbling]

[gleeful squealing]

Hey, well done!

[Patcy] How was that?

-You did awesome. -Nice one.

[Eric] Really, really good.

[Patcy] Aw, you were so good.

[Shuang] Oh, I saw Nemo!

I saw Nemo and his whole family.

His daddy, his sister, uh, his auntie.

[laughs]

I saw them all.

There were so many fish down there.

[Patcy] There were so many.

There were tons of parrotfish as well.

And they were blending in with the colors of the corals.

[Shuang] I thought I was gonna, like, do

a really magical swim through them,

[Patcy] You looked magical, you looked majestic.

For your first time, it was truly majestic.

You did an amazing job.

[Shuang] Thank you.

It took me a while-- I kept like sinking.

My body couldn't decide

whether I wanted to float or sink.

I was, like, doing these ones in the water.

[laughs]

[bright music]

The Great Barrier Reef is made up

of over 3,000 individual reefs,

and we've only seen two.

Today, we head out to Pressure Point.

♪

♪

♪

[music stops]

Now it's time to talk about this guy right here.

He is a beloved local, and his name is Wally.

Wally is a Maori wrasse and is nearly as big as me.

He's been following us around for quite some time,

and let me just say, Wally loves the camera.

Just look.

Here, here, and here.

[boat engine humming]

With just one dive left,

Patcy said she knew just the spot to send me:

The Three Sisters.

[bright music]

♪

♪

♪

[Patcy] I'm so proud to say that you're officially

a certified open water scuba diver.

[Shuang] Yeah!

And just like that,

I'm officially a certified mermaid.

-Nice one. -Thank you.

[Patcy] How did you feel about that today?

How was it?

[Shuang] Today being the second day

was much easier than the first day,

I've gotta say.

I was very nervous the first day.

[Patcy] I think one thing that is just amazing

is that you got to do your course

in one of the most amazing, pristine reefs,

and some of the most famous dive sites

that you normally only get to see on the internet

or in a book, you know,

in a magazine at the coffee shop.

[Shuang] I know, I feel so lucky.

And there were so many fish and corals,

and so many things down there to distract me.

Otherwise I think if I realized I was 10 meters underwater,

I would have, like, freaked out a little bit.

-At the start. -At the start.

[Patcy] What was your favorite part of the course?

[Shuang] Uh, probably, um, ooh, the turtle.

We saw a turtle today.

[Patcy] The turtle today.

[Shuang] Which has been, like, my dream, as you all know.

The whole time I've been like, "Let's see a turtle.

Where is that turtle?"

Finally saw it today.

[Patcy] It did take a couple of dives,

but we officially saw the turtle,

and it was so in love with you.

I think it really, really, really liked you a lot.

-We had a connection. -Had a deep connection.

And that means a lot,

especially because that means they've made it.

One in a thousand turtles make it to adulthood.

[Shuang] That is so sad.

[Patcy] But that's why today was so amazing,

'cause that turtle loved you

and was, like, ready to be on our dive with us together.

So that was amazing, amazing.

[Shuang] I looked in his eyes.

[Patcy] And he looked in yours, and he was super happy.

[Shuang] Yeah.

[classical music]

♪

[Patcy] Another thing were those massive schools of fish.

How amazing was that, to just be swimming through?

[Shuang] Yes, and there was just this nice hurricane of fish

just going around this pinnacle.

And there was this slight current.

And it was thousands of fish, beautiful colors.

It's so hard to describe the feeling,

but it was just pure tranquility,

like, just from watching the fish.

It was--it was--I don't even know how to explain it, guys,

but you have to come.

All of you have to come to the Great Barrier Reef

and ex--just explore and experience

the water for yourself,

and experience the reef for yourself.

And become a diver like me, so you can actually see it,

I think the proper way.

This is the only way to see the reef as a diver.

[Patcy] Absolutely.

[Shuang] I'm sold.

[Patcy] Woo-hoo!

♪

[Shuang] With my new dive certificate in hand,

it's time to say goodbye to Patcy and Captain Pablo

and head to our next destination.

[majestic music]

♪

[soft music]

We've made our way to Green Island.

Green Island is sanctuary

for a vast array of land and marine life.

No one understands the impact

us humans have on the Great Barrier Reef

better than the person I'm about to meet,

Jennie Gilbert, marine biologist and cofounder

of The Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Center.

So, I have to say, I've been diving for the last few days,

and I've been seeing a lot of amazing sea animals.

But I must say, the most memorable has been a turtle.

[Jennie] I know, and they're beautiful out in the ocean, aren't they?

And that's where they belong.

They don't belong in tanks.

But unfortunately,

we run the Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Center,

so we get to see very sick and injured turtles.

And they're in tanks for, you know,

extended periods of time,

sometimes up to years before they recover.

[Shuang] What are some of the main reasons

why turtles end up at the rehabilitation center?

[Jennie] The turtles are under enormous threat

every day in their life out in the ocean.

The main thing that we see is Floater Syndrome,

and that's a term for air under their shell.

And that's caused by them eating plastic,

microplastics, fishing line.

[Shuang] How do we help these turtles?

[Jennie] Look, there's many ways we can help those turtles.

Say no to single-use plastic.

Watch what we put down the sink.

Dispose of your fishing gear, you know, properly.

[Shuang] Yeah, that sounds easy enough.

[Jennie] And also, the other thing is,

why they're so important to the reef is,

if we've got a sick reef, those turtles can tell us.

-Really? -So what happened was,

we had a mass stranding event of green sea turtles.

Now, green sea turtles eat seagrass,

and we found that due to the cyclones,

the seagrass beds were wiped out,

and that's what green sea turtles eat.

And so when we started getting

so many turtles and juveniles in,

we knew there was a problem.

So they actually-- they actually tell us

when there's a sick ocean.

[Shuang] The other day,

I met a hawksbill turtle in the wild.

[Jennie] That is really lucky to see a hawksbill, yes.

[Shuang] Oh! Why is that?

[Jennie] Well, hawksbills are critically endangered.

[Shuang] Oh, I hope I get to meet another hawksbill turtle.

[Jennie] Well, today you're gonna meet Billy,

and you're gonna help me release Billy

back out into the wild where she belongs.

-Uh, wow, really? -Yes.

And also, the thing about Billy is,

she actually has a satellite tracker on her back,

so we can actually follow her,

and that's used for her health profile.

So when she goes in the water,

we know that she's gone back to eating,

we know how far she's traveled,

all of those sort of things.

And that gives us a great view on what is actually happening.

And you're gonna help me release Billy

back out in the ocean where she belongs.

[Shuang] Well, I'm so excited to do that.

[Jennie] She will be too!

[laughing]

[bright music]

Shu, now I'm gonna run through what we're gonna do, okay?

You're gonna have your hand around the flipper there

and the back of her shell.

♪

[indistinct chatter, shrieking]

[Shuang] Oh my God!

♪

Aww!

[unintelligible squealing]

♪

[water splashes]

♪

♪

♪

Since her release, Billy has swum over 2,000 kilometers.

I wonder what adventures she's having right now.

Whatever she's doing, I'm sure she's thankful,

and we should be too,

to Jennie and her team for doing all they can

to get turtles like Billy home.

[soft music]

♪

What better way to explore the Great Barrier Reef

than by sail?

I'm about to meet Steve on his boat,

the Sailaway IV.

Steve knows these waters like the back of his hand,

and he's taking us to one of his favorite places,

so it's anchors aweigh.

♪

Steve might be the captain,

but on this yacht, everyone lends a hand.

♪

-Can I join you today? -Hey, come.

Yeah.

Would you like to have a go, do some steering?

-Am I allowed to? -Yeah, take the wheel.

Looking ahead.

Hardest thing is to go straight,

so look straight ahead.

Then you can feel-- feel the pressure on the wheel.

So this is where we can control the whole boat.

Now, a little bit of trivia.

I wanna tell you, how do you know which side's which?

♪

So when we're talking about,

"Let's put the sail out, let's do something,"

we have to give it a name.

Because if I'm facing this way,

left and right can be opposite.

[Shuang] Oh, that's true.

-So, on this side is port. -Okay, this side is port.

[Steve] It's colored, normally, red.

-Red? -Yeah, like a red light

would be a port light.

And on the other side, we have full starboard.

-Starboard. -And when you go into the land,

you need to make sure you get the right side

of the lights, to either red or the green,

which is called the starboard,

otherwise you could be on dangerous water

-that's shallow. -Don't want that.

[Steve] So let's feel the pressure on the rudder

if we go a little bit to starboard.

♪

-Ooh. -Yeah?

-It's very stiff. -Yeah.

So you feel the strength, feel it, yeah.

[Shuang] What am I moving?

[Steve] You're moving this,

this goes to a wire, and to the rudders,

and that's pushing against the water.

So let's go to port.

This is better, nice and smooth and straight.

And a good secret way is, see, see this?

That's the rudder angle indicator,

and that tells us where the rudders are

so we don't start going like this.

Yeah, we go nice and straight.

What we're gonna do now

is we're gonna get the main sail up.

So if I can ask you to press that button,

give you a tie there, yep, go for it.

That's it, yeah.

Excellent, keep going.

Excellent, yes, hoisting the main sail.

That's good.

Good.

[rope winding]

Okay, stop, stop.

Perfect.

Well done.

Give yourself a clap.

[laughing]

-High five. -Excellent.

♪

♪

♪

♪

[seabirds calling]

♪

So now we're underway,

I want to explain a few little things

about how cool it is, where we're going.

So, remember, we started off in Port Douglas.

This is incredible coastline, the Daintree National Park.

World Heritage rainforest.

Right next to it

is the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef,

so we're actually going between the two of them,

out across the shipping channel

to the clear water of the Outer Reef.

So we're gonna actually aim

to get out to these incredible snorkeling sites

just up here.

We'll look out for some turtles.

We've got white sandy caves.

They're pretty exciting places to look at.

The only living thing you can see from space

is the Great Barrier Reef.

So two and a half thousand kilometers

of the most incredible sites.

[Shuang] It's quite amazing how close the shoreline is to the reefs.

[Steve] Yeah, I mean, these are two World Heritage Sites

that actually collide in this area,

so that's why it's so special.

And going through this gap here,

it enables us to see some incredible sites.

[Shuang] So we're heading to Mackay Reef today.

[Steve] Yes, yeah, that's a really nice combination,

so there's a whole mixture

of the white sand and the aquamarine colors.

We can't wait to get you in the water there.

Every day's different on the reef, yeah,

so we don't know exactly what we're gonna see.

[Shuang] How long have you been going to Mackay Reef?

[Steve] Well, about 19 years now.

I've been at sea all my life,

so this is one part of the world we enjoy,

and it's absolutely stunning.

We hope you'll fall in love with it just as much as we do.

[bright music]

♪

♪

♪

[music stops]

[Shuang] See this rusty-colored streak right here?

This is coral spawn.

Just once a year, after a full moon,

the coral on the reef release a multitude

of tiny particles into the ocean,

where they follow the currents, find a safe spot,

and grow into new coral.

Isn't that amazing?

Anyway, where were we?

[bright music]

♪

♪

Born from a mountain range,

growing from ancient forests of coral,

sculpted by little fish,

the Great Barrier Reef is an absolute masterpiece

of organic engineering.

And as guardians of this planet,

it is our responsibility to take care of it.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[soft music]

♪

♪

♪

♪

[sighs dreamily]

It has been truly an eye-opening and mesmerizing last few days,

to say the least.

Before I came on this journey,

I always thought of the Great Barrier Reef

as an iconic Australian landmark

or popular tourist destination,

or even the land of Finding Nemo.

And don't get me wrong, it is all of that.

But it's also so much more.

It's a complex, living, breathing organism.

And we as humans of this Earth

are not just surveyors of it,

but we're a part of it,

which means we also have our part to play.

And it could be as simple as declining a plastic straw

next time you go out,

or taking those fabric reusable bags with you

when you go shopping,

or even just taking a moment every now and again

to breathe and really take in this environment and...

♪

...appreciate this wonderful ecosystem

that we're all a part of.

And I think you'll agree with me

when I say that protecting our beautiful oceans

are definitely worth

making those small little sacrifices for, right?

♪

[birds chirping, squawking]

[soft music]

♪

♪

This place is teeming with noise and energy.

This dense, rich jungle

is basically a living relic of the Gondwana,

which is an ancient supercontinent.

And basically what happened was,

180 million years ago,

that supercontinent broke away into pieces,

and those pieces became smaller continents

known as Africa, South America, Antarctica,

the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian peninsula,

and, of course, Australia.

So, basically, this isolated part of the jungle

is a living relic of an ancient rainforest paradise,

and I get to hike it.

Lucky me.

[birds chirping, squawking]

[majestic music]

♪

The Daintree Rainforest.

Over 180 million years old,

it is the oldest rainforest in the world.

The Daintree is a breathtaking sweep

of jungle-clad gorges, dense forest,

rivers, and waterfalls

that travel 95 kilometers

from Port Douglas to remote Cape Tribulation.

[birds chirping]

♪

♪

Wow!

♪

I made it!

This is amazing!

Woo!

[soft music]

Hi!

♪

Hello!

♪

[insects chirring]

♪

Woo!

Hello, rainforest!

[water splashing]

♪

[soft music]

Since 1891, Kuranda Scenic Railway

has been carrying people and goods

through the World Heritage listed rainforest.

The famous railway winds its way

from Cairns in the south to Kuranda,

a village in the rainforest in the north.

♪

♪

♪

Wow!

What a spectacular view!

You can see the Daintree Rainforest,

the Barron Gorge.

You can also see the ocean from here.

Ah, after being on a boat for the last few days,

I'm thoroughly enjoying this change of pace.

And the fact that I get a view like this

without having to hike is a bonus.

♪

♪

♪

[birds chirping]

♪

One of Australia's most recognizable waterfalls,

Barron Falls, is fed by the mighty Barron River,

70 kilometers outside of the Daintree National Park.

It's over 100 kilometers of wild water

that heads out to the Coral Sea.

And what better way to get introduced

to this impressive rainforest than from the river itself?

[dramatic music]

[water rushing]

I'm so excited for this!

Let's go!

♪

[unintelligible], friends.

[excited clapping]

♪

[unintelligible]

Oh my God!

I'm not ready for this!

[laughing]

High five!

[laughing]

♪

If we want to say, "Stop,"

is there, like, a stop?

[laughing]

Oh my goodness.

Hold on!

Woo!

I'm not ready for this!

[screaming]

♪

If there's any more than that, I don't want it.

♪

Okay!

[laughing]

[screams]

[exclaiming]

Okay.

[water rushing]

I did not sign up for this.

Hold on!

[screaming]

♪

[laughing]

♪

Now is as good a time as any

to introduce my awesome crew.

You've got me up front,

Sophie, my exceptional wardrobe supervisor,

awesome Emily, hair and makeup artist,

and ever-amazing Beckie, one of our producers.

This is my all-girl whitewater adventure crew.

Right, let's get back to it.

♪

[laughing]

♪

Oh, oh!

[water rushing]

[screaming]

[splashing]

[screaming]

[laughing]

♪

[cheering]

[mellow music]

♪

This is actually...

a great way to get introduced to the rainforest.

[tranquil music]

This is an amazing view.

♪

♪

♪

As we head towards the Daintree Rainforest,

we make a quick little stop to meet local chefs

Ben and Rachael.

Ugh, all this adventure has made me incredibly hungry,

and I've been told just the place to go to

for an incredible meal.

Ah, today I'm at Oaks Kitchen with Rachael and Ben.

-Hello, hello, hello. -Hey, how are you?

[Shuang] Good, thank you.

And they're gonna show me how to bring

this incredible produce to life.

[Ben] So, today we're gonna be doing a dish

using the local coral trout

that's just been caught off Oak Beach.

[Rachael] Some Thai basil, some green mango,

some kaffir lime leaf.

So, yeah, let's get cooking, hey?

[Shuang] I love all this stuff.

My day-to-day diet.

[Ben] Very good.

[Rachael] So, just a little bit about what we do.

So we're organic and we use permaculture methods to grow,

so that's really supporting the ecosystem,

and I don't use any fast-growing fertilizer

or anything like that.

[Ben] So, to start with,

this is a Nam Dok Mai,

which is a Thai type of green mango.

So we want to do about four slices down that side,

and then if you want to, we want to chop it up finely.

That's it.

Move this guy aside for now.

And the next guy we're gonna chop

is the chilli, ginger, garlic, and then the kaffir lime leaf.

So now we're on to making the nam jim.

[Rachael laughs]

[Shuang] This is bigger than my head.

[Ben] So I'm gonna get you to be my smasher.

-Can do. -And what we're gonna do is

we're gonna use garlic...

[clacking]

...a little bit of ginger now,

and then the last bit we're gonna be smashing up

is the green chilli.

Cool, and then we have our palm sugar here,

some lime juice,

little bit of fish sauce,

and now we'll have a little try-on.

[bright music]

-Cool, that's good. -Oh, good work.

-Yeah, thank you. -Good one, yeah.

[Ben] So we've got our coral trout now,

and what we wanna do is, with this one,

we're just thinly slicing it.

♪

So we've probably got about enough there

for what we wanna do now.

[Shuang] Are you sure? I'm very hungry.

[laughter]

[Ben] We can slice a little bit more.

[laughter]

Now we're pretty much up to the plating-up stage.

-Gonna use this guy here. -Oh, pretty.

[Ben] So we're just gonna make like a line down the middle here.

[Shuang] This is how I'm gonna serve myself sashimi from now on.

It's plated and beautiful.

[Ben] And then we've got our nam jim that you smashed as well,

and what you wanna do is, I want you to just get

spoonfuls of the nam jim,

and you're just going over the top of the fish like this.

[Shuang] That looks delicious already!

♪

[Ben] And we've got all the little bits that we chopped earlier.

We want to get a little bit of the green mango,

and we're just kinda just letting it randomly

just go over the fish like that,

and then we wanna go with the lemongrass as well.

And then we will get, actually, a few leaves

of Rachael's Thai basil, which we have here.

[Shuang] There's an art to this, my friends.

[Ben] And then we have our green ants,

which is gonna add another little zestiness to the dish.

[Shuang] I used to get bitten

by green ants a lot when I was younger.

[Ben] Yeah, this is how we get back at them.

-Yeah! -This is payback.

[Shuang] This is revenge time, green ants!

[Ben] And then we just have a kaffir lime.

Yeah, so that's our coral trout with green nam jim,

green mango, green ants, Thai basil, and kaffir lime.

-It's just a lot of green. -A lot of green.

[Rachael] A lot of green and herbs and fruit from the garden.

-Shall we try it? -Yes, let's try it.

[Shuang] So I notice we didn't cook the fish.

[Ben] No, we didn't.

So, yeah, it's using the lime juice

that's in the dressing, that little bit of the acid

from that's gonna help cook it a little bit too.

[Shuang] Okay.

Oh, I'm getting a lot of green ant in mine.

Oh, I love that lime smell.

Oh, I can smell the Thai basil as well.

-Really fresh. -Really fresh, zesty,

with that mango, Thai basil.

[Shuang] Oh!

There are so many flavors in my mouth right now.

The texture is amazing.

The mango is very crispy.

It's really nice.

[Rachael] And that coral trout, I mean,

it just--it is its own.

-Yeah. -It's delicate,

it's beautiful, fresh.

[Shuang] The lemongrass is amazing.

I feel like I'm eating a Thai sashimi.

-Yeah, that is. -Yeah, it pretty much is.

[Shuang] Yeah, I've never had a Thai sashimi before.

Mm, and the green ants.

I want to have a green ant just by itself.

Here we go.

Oh, it's very limy!

-Yeah. -Ooh, crunchy.

[laughter]

Crunchy lime.

Mm.

That is really delicious,

and it wasn't that hard to make.

This is going to be a staple in my house from now on.

-Thank you. -Appreciate it.

-No worry. -All right, now that I'm fed,

on to the next adventure.

[vibrant music]

[birds chirping]

♪

Welcome to Wildlife Habitat,

home of the Tropical Animal Rehabilitation Centre.

Here, we're getting the chance to be up close and personal

with the Daintree's best-known inhabitants.

[animals chirping]

Right now I'm with some kangaroos.

They're native to Australia,

and they're the friendliest animals!

This is a cute joey.

I love joeys, they're so adorable.

Oh, they're so friendly!

[animals chirping, squawking]

♪

This is an eclectus parrot.

This is my new friend.

He's gonna come home with me.

Aren't you?

Yes.

♪

[chirping]

♪

Say hello to the most famous Australian animal, the koala.

This is Romeo, and I think we just became best friends.

Koalas rarely drink water.

They get all the hydration they need

from the eucalyptus leaves they munch on.

They can eat a kilogram a day,

and then they have a nap for up to 18 hours!

Lucky them.

[gentle music]

[chirring]

♪

It's a magical morning on the Daintree River,

and today, we join David to track down

the Tropical North's most prehistoric resident,

the saltwater crocodile.

[David] This is the Daintree River,

and we're about nine kilometers up from the sea,

which is down behind us.

The whole thing's about 120 kilometers long.

Big river, very wide river,

but really shallow, so at low tide,

we have to zigzag up here so we don't hit the bottom,

and on the very low tide, you can actually walk across it

if you wanted to from one side to the other,

but that's not recommended

because those crocodiles live in it.

[birds chirping]

♪

[Shuang] And, David, I notice that your boat is very quiet.

-Can you tell me why? -It's an electric-powered boat,

so we're nice and quiet and clean.

So it's quite ideal for being in nature

because we don't have any exhaust or fumes,

and we can sneak up on things and get close to them

without scaring them, and, uh, good for the environment.

No impact on the river at all.

♪

So over here on the left, just under these trees,

you can see the top of a head of a crocodile.

[gasps] It's a crocodile!

It's so big!

[David] Yeah, deep under here.

Biggest crocodile in the world.

[Shuang] It's really camouflaged.

You can't even see it. It's so hard to see.

♪

[birds chirping]

Can you tell me a little bit about crocodiles,

like what they eat?

[David] Crocs like to eat fish and crabs

most of the time, that's their normal diet,

and, um, they wait till it's low tide.

At the moment, we're at about three meters

of tidal difference here, it's about three quarters full.

As it gets lower, there is a beach

along the edge of the river, so the water's down

away from the mangrove roots, there's nowhere for the fish

and the crabs and the prawns to hide.

The crocodiles take advantage of that low tide,

and they swim along the beach with their legs stuck out.

They stick their front leg out and make a dam

between their face, their leg, and the shore.

Anything that bumps into their leg or their face,

they feel it and they swish their head around

and they grab it.

They've got really sensitive skin.

The skin on their face is more sensitive than our fingertips.

Crocodiles have an endless amount of patience.

If they don't get it today, they'll get it tomorrow,

the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year,

'cause they are reptiles

and they're very, very efficient.

They rely on the sun to get their body heat.

They don't have to generate body heat like we do.

They don't need a lot of fuel to keep them going.

[Shuang] How long can a crocodile hold their breath under water?

[David] Well, the record is seven hours.

When they're under the water, you can't tell.

There's no bubbles, there's no ripples.

You've got no idea if they're there or not,

but they know where you are

'cause they can feel the vibrations.

So, uh, they're really good at hiding.

They're like the ultimate predator.

[laughing]

[mellow music]

♪

[David] No one's really sure of the life span of a crocodile.

So they're very understudied animals.

They're dangerous,

they are very secretive animals,

and they do live for a long time,

so they often outlive their researchers.

And the animal itself has been around, you know,

for millions of years.

They predate dinosaurs.

They've seen the dinosaurs come, they've seen them go again,

and they're still with us.

♪

[chirping]

♪

[Shuang] This is called river drift snorkeling.

It's a crocodile-free zone because this water

is much too cold for our scaly friends.

♪

We are pulled downstream by a natural tide,

giving us the same vantage point

as all the other creatures hanging out

in the relative safety of the river.

A pretty chill place to call home, don't you think?

♪

♪

♪

♪

It's time to take things down a notch

and move at a slow enough pace to take in

this complex, biodiverse, and otherworldly place.

[sighs]

You know what? I think the crocodiles knew

what they were doing with the sunbaking.

[sighs]

[bright music]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[birds trilling]

David Attenborough once called the Daintree Rainforest

the most extraordinary place on Earth.

We're about to go find out for ourselves

exactly what makes this place so incredibly special.

Daintree, it's nice to meet you!

[wildlife sounds]

To get to the heart of the Daintree National Park,

I met up with environmental expert Matt

who is going to show us what makes

this ancient tropical rainforest so special.

[Matt] I understand you've been to the world's oldest reef.

-Yes, I have. -Well, welcome

to the world's oldest rainforest, the Daintree.

[dramatic music]

How good is this? Have a look around.

[Shuang] It's beautiful.

[chirping]

♪

♪

[splashing]

[Matt] Have a look around, have a look at the beauty of this place.

The Daintree Rainforest, how good is it?

You will not go anywhere in the world

and see anything like it.

This is essentially a living museum.

There's plants here that have been around

longer than dinosaurs,

when dinosaurs were walking the Earth.

It's absolutely mind-blowing.

[Shuang] Yeah.

[Matt] Oh, I'll bet you're starting to feel that humidity.

It's definitely coming through.

As you can imagine, the rainforest is a wet place.

As you can see, this is a really, really unique habitat,

and it's dominated by these huge fan palms.

Now, just one of these fans alone

can be around two meters in diameter.

[Shuang] That is taller than me!

[Matt] It's pretty big,

but only two percent of the sunlight

actually makes it to the forest floor.

And as you can see, this canopy closes over very, very nicely.

So because not much sunlight makes it to the forest floor,

these trees need to be able to adapt,

so some of them can climb very, very well.

And have a look at that tree over there.

That is actually what we call a strangler fig.

Starts off as a small seed

planted in the top of the tree by a bird,

sends its roots all the way down to the forest floor,

and eventually consumes the host.

It completely eats that tree.

-Unbelievable, isn't it? -Yeah.

[Matt] And did you know that the Daintree Rainforest

is around 180 million years old?

-That's old. -It's unbelievable, isn't it?

[Shuang] What's your favorite tree, Matt?

[Matt] It's funny you say that.

This guy right here, actually.

It's the Hope's Cycad.

He is so slow,

he grows one centimeter every single year.

So that plant right there is about a thousand years old.

[Shuang] Wow, I'm sure that plant has a story to tell.

[Matt] I bet.

[vibrant music]

♪

♪

[chirring]

[soft music]

[Shuang] Now it's time for something really special.

Juan is a proud First Nation Kuku Yalanji man

and has offered to take me on a unique culinary adventure.

[Juan] Hey, Shuang, before we head off and go walking to the mangrove,

I'm gonna do a quick smoking ceremony,

Welcome to Country, and this is just a special thing to do

as a way of letting the old people know

that we're traveling through Kuku Yalanji Bubu.

[speaking native language]

♪

♪

This area here, this is my stomping ground.

Mangroves, if you have a look at the root systems,

how thickly tangled they grow and bind together,

these are like giant filters.

-Yeah. -So the mangroves filter

all of the sediment from mainland

and protect our Great Barrier Reef.

♪

So, Shuang, you see here?

This is an edible snail.

[Shuang] Oh, that's the Kunkun.

-How do you normally cook it? -Me, I'll fry 'em,

a little bit of coconut oil, garlic, and chilli.

♪

Okay, so, Shuang, so, now you've got your spear.

The next thing is how to spear stuff.

So with the crabs and small stuff,

you can get very close to 'em.

I can get two, three meters from them.

If you get close enough, hold the spear long,

so hold the point away from your body,

put the point as close as you can to the animal.

Once you have it lined up, just stab straight through

and hit it as hard as you can.

The harder you hit it, the better chance

of the spear piercing it

and you pinning it to the ground.

Once you have it pinned, hold the spear in the ground,

and then we can walk over and pick the animal up.

So that's how we spear small things or crabs

that are close to you, so if you want to practice,

hold the spear long...

-Long? -Yup, that's it,

right down on the end, one hand,

keep the other hand away, line it up,

look down the spear, once you have it lined up,

bang, stab through.

-[grunts] -That's it!

That's it, so that's Crabbing 101, easy.

[Shuang] All right! Can be done.

[mellow music]

♪

Oh, I see one, I see a crab!

It's over there!

No, it's over there!

[laughing]

♪

[Juan] There it is, back at your feet.

-Okay, don't move. -There it is, there it is.

[Shuang] I can see, I can see, I can see.

[Juan] Remember, take that bottom hand away.

[Shuang screams]

-Okay. -You did well, you did well.

[Shuang] Wait...

[Shuang screams, laughs]

This is really hard!

I keep stepping on it!

-Gotta stay still. -Sorry.

Okay, now, what you can't see here

is that every time I aim for a crab,

they run straight for my feet.

Apparently they do this a lot.

Juan told me later that what I'm doing

is affectionately known as the crab dance.

I think I did a pretty good job anyway.

Check this part out.

[Juan] Lift that bottom hand when pulling the spear away.

Go on, give it a shot.

Yeah, smashed it!

Straight through the middle, so lift him up.

-Really, do I really have him? -Oh, yup.

Keep your hands--spear there.

[Shuang] Spearing.

[Juan] Okay, pull your spear out.

-Pulling out. -Hard.

Keep going, hard.

[Shuang] Oh! I got him!

Did you--

[laughing]

I got him!

I caught us dinner, guys!

We're not gonna starve tonight!

[laughing]

I caught one!

[Juan] All that hard work, it'll taste even better.

So we got this one in a mangrove,

and we found him in a hole, so checking the hole,

I put my spear in and just hooked him

and I pulled it out.

All right, so you ready to go and cook up?

-Yes, I'm ready! -All right, let's go back.

[Shuang] Woo-hoo!

Dinner time!

♪

[birds chirping]

So we've caught our crab.

When I say "we," I mean me.

Caught our crab, our dinner for tonight.

And Juan's gonna teach us how we're gonna make it.

[Juan] Yeah, so, um, quite simple.

This is a local family recipe.

So we're gonna do a garlic, chilli, and coconut mud crab.

-Ooh, that sounds delicious. -Yeah, should be really nice.

But, starters, got some fresh damper,

so I baked this this morning.

That's for all of the sauce once you're finished.

[Shuang] That's smart.

[Juan] We've got some limes here as well,

and I'll get you to slice up the limes.

While you're doing that, I'll clean the crabs

and kick the gas cooker on.

[Shuang] Okay.

[Juan] All right, now, have you ever cleaned a crab before?

[Shuang] I can't say I have. Yeah.

[Juan] So, normally people just throw 'em in boiling water.

Today I'm gonna take 'em apart before we cook 'em.

The phallus comes off,

then we pull the carapace off.

[Shuang] Okay.

[Juan] But then inside of this here

is all the fat.

Always cook with the fat, it gives it--

that's where all your taste comes from.

So, all of that orange in there.

-Orange part. -That's all the fat in there.

♪

[Shuang] This is very Chinese. We cook with woks.

[Juan] Yeah, we have a strong Asian influence in all of our food.

So, yeah, this is some coconut oil,

um, garlic, minced garlic,

and then some chilli vinegars.

Okay, and then to get the fat out,

you just have to get dirty, so get your finger in there,

squeeze, and all of that comes out.

♪

[Shuang] Delicious, my mouth is watering.

[Juan] Yeah, to make sure you get the flavor through the shell,

so with the claws, especially these big ones,

give it a hard tap until it cracks and opens all up

so you get flavor all through it.

♪

[Shuang] Ah.

♪

[Juan] And last thing to go in are these little Kunkun.

So these are those little tree snails that we got earlier.

[Shuang] I'm very excited to try this.

Ah, okay, my stomach is grumbling.

♪

[sizzling]

♪

[Juan] I reckon we can get in with the soft-shell crab,

you don't even have to peel it.

You can just grab it.

♪

Mm!

That is delicious!

That lime is perfect.

I can taste the garlic,

I can taste the coconut oil,

a little bit of chilli, it's got a kick to it.

This is so tasty!

Okay, I'm gonna try it with the damper.

-Yeah, yeah, please do, yeah. -Would you like some?

-Okay, ready? -Yup.

[laughing]

♪

[Shuang] Mm!

[Juan] You get all that fat.

-It's lovely. -This is so tasty!

♪

[sizzling]

♪

[birds chirping]

♪

[insects chirring]

[fire whooshing]

[gentle piano music]

♪

[birds chirping]

♪

♪

We have seen the Daintree from almost every angle,

and now there's only one more left.

However, to start our journey, we need to beat the sun

because we've been told that sunrise

is the most magical time

to see Mother Nature at her best.

[majestic music]

♪

[fire whooshing]

♪

♪

♪

It is absolutely breathtaking up here.

You can see so much!

♪

I tell you what, this was worth conquering

my fear of heights for.

It is unique to Far North Queensland

to see the pristine blue of the ocean

peeking through the rainforest.

There are few places on Earth

where a powerful, dominating rainforest

gives way to the ocean.

Prehistoric rainforests thrive

alongside the kaleidoscopic Coral Sea

where Australia's First Nations people

lived in harmony with the environment

for more than 50,000 years.

♪

The writer Alan Watts once said,

"You did not come into this world.

You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.

You are not a stranger here."

If this journey has taught me anything,

it's that we are part of something

much bigger than ourselves,

and more importantly, we're not alone.

From the crocodiles to the turtles

to the sweet little damselfish,

we're all in this together.

This place that we call home

has been millions of years in the making,

and now it's time for us to protect it

so that the people coming after us

also have a chance to enjoy this wonderful world.

The smallest actions, when all put together,

make the biggest impact.

Your life will leave a mark in this world.

Now it's time to decide what that mark will be.

[laughter]

[grand music]

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[vibrant music]

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