All language subtitles for Rise of the Continents 2of4 Australia 720p HDTV_Subtitles01.ENG

THUNDER CRACKS

In the darkest hours
of a winter night...

..in a forested corner
of southeastern Australia...

..I'm on a mission
to find an extraordinary creature.

It's a bizarre animal, and one that
few people have seen in the flesh.

And it can help us unravel
the mysterious history of
Australia,

perhaps the most surprising
of all the continents.

Australia is famous
for its odd and unusual animals,

but the one that I'm hoping to see
tonight

has got to be the strangest
on the planet.

This is a...is an ancient survivor,

the rarest of beasts that goes back
160 million years to a lost world.

A lost world, not only full
of strange creatures...

..but also a world where the shape
and character of our continents

was utterly different.

This is the way to see rocks!

I want to reach back in time
using the clues that are hidden
all around us...

You don't get much clearer evidence
than that.

..in living creatures...

There's one.
Can you see that, just over there?

..in landscapes...

..and written into the rocks.

The tiniest detail can reveal
the history of a vast continent.

I'm going to piece together
these clues

to uncover key moments
in Australia's history...

..and find out how Australia's
journey

has created the conditions
that allowed people to settle
this harsh land

and shaped the lives
of those who followed,

but also how that journey continues
to affect the destiny of people

far beyond the shores
of this island continent.

I've come to the Yarra Valley
in the state of Victoria

to search for the creature
that takes us back

to the beginning
of Australia's geological story.

It is a legendary creature.

I mean, it's described as venomous,
egg-laying, duck-billed,

beaver-tailed, otter-footed,
mole-furred.

Plus, it's odd, it lactates,
but it's got no nipples.

I mean, the lactating business
means it is a mammal,

but the egg-laying,
that's much more like a reptile.

It's a... It's an odd fusion
of animal.

I'm here with Josh Griffiths,
a biologist who does regular
surveys...

So, have you caught them here
before?

Yeah, I've caught some
just upstream here before.

..to check on the welfare
of these unusual animals.

Just need to stretch this out and
tie it up to the bank so it's nice
and secure.

This creature, which links back
to Australia's past,

lives today only in the wetter
forested parts of the continent

but it's hard to track down,

because it leaves
almost no detectable trace.

So, we could be in for
a very long night.

Do you think they can see us?
Do you think they're laughing?

Finally, after seven hours, I get my
first glimpse of an animal that few
people

have ever seen in the wild -
a platypus.

Oh, my gosh.
That's incredible.

This is what we've been waiting
for. It's a male, is it?

Yeah, it's a male. It's an adult
one.

Can I see his face? Can I see
that classic, classic face?

Three in the morning it is. You kept
us up till three in the bloomin'
morning.

But isn't that worth the wait?
Ah, no, absolutely.

Can I stroke...?
Yeah.

He's perfectly happy, is he?
Lovely.

I mean, the fur is very mammalian.

The fur's definitely mammal,

and the way that they regulate
their temperature.

Right.
Their eyes are quite reptilian,

and the way their legs are splayed
out to the side is like a lizard.

This strange mix
exists in the platypus

because it's a link back to a world
160 million years ago.

A time when our mammal ancestors
were just beginning to evolve from
early reptiles.

Millions of years ago, we all
would have shared a common ancestor,

and it would have been
very reptilian,

and it would have looked
a lot more like a platypus

than it would look like you or me.

I have to say, it's hard to imagine
that we've got a common ancestor.

It just looks so different from us.

It certainly does now,
but millions of years ago

we all would have looked much the
same.

While the platypus survives
in the backwaters of Australia,

the common ancestor is long gone.

All that's left
are tiny fossil fragments

that reveal creatures
from that long lost world.

The animal that gave rise to the
platypus and to all of the mammals
we see today

might well have looked
something like this.

Crucially, their remains have been
found across the globe.

These creatures
were living all over the place.

And that suggests something
highly intriguing.

Just as all life
has a common ancestor,

so too does the land
that we're standing on.

To imagine that time, you've got to
try to undo the shape and position

of each continent
that's been imprinted in your brain

by every atlas and world map
you've ever seen.

If you turn back the clock
through geological time...

..you see Australia
was once part of a huge landmass...

..in which most of today's
continents were joined...

..and over which
the platypus' ancestors roamed.

It's hard to imagine
what this ancient world looked like,

and how our modern continents
were arranged within it.

But there are clues
if you know where to look.

And the first one comes from the
substance that has helped to make
modern Australia

one of the wealthiest nations
on the planet.

This black layer that I've been
following here is coal.

This is a natural layer
that's been exposed by the waves.

Just a few miles away, though,

there's vast diggers pulling
this stuff out of the ground.

Around one million tonnes of coal
are exhumed from this land each and
every day.

But it has another value
that goes beyond the financial.

What I'm looking for
is a fossil that's in here.

There's a nice one, see that,
just here.

That's a little fragment.
That's a nice one too.

These fossils contain evidence
of Australia's past

and that of the whole southern
hemisphere.

But their importance
was brought home

only when almost identical fossils
were found on a famous expedition

to another continent entirely.

On the 1st of November 1911,
Robert Falcon Scott and his team

set out across Antarctica

on their ill-fated attempt
to be the first to the South Pole.

Their final days, in March 1912,
are now legendary.

Suffering frostbite, snow-blindness
and malnutrition,

they were only 11 miles
from a supply base

when a fierce blizzard hit
and trapped them for ten days.

Their last.

Almost eight months later,
when their frozen bodies were found,

something extraordinary
was laid out beside them.

16 kilograms of fossils.

Clearly Scott thought they were
valuable. And he was right.

They would help define
the boundaries of the landmass in
which Australia sat

and the nature of the landscape
that covered it.

What I'm really looking for in these
rocks is that exact same fossil that
Scott found

in Antarctica.

For all those that think rocks
are boring, look at this.

Look, it's just beautiful.

It just feels as though
it was created yesterday.

From these fossils

I can find the type of vegetation
that once covered Australia.

Glossopteris, lost forests,
fossils found in Antarctica.

Just packed full of plant debris.

These are leaves of a tree
called glossopteris

which formed 255 million years ago,

and that means that 255 million
years ago, this part of Australia
was lush forest.

It was these glossopteris forests
that transformed over time

into Australia's enormous coal
reserves.

And that's why the fossils
are found inside them.

But more importantly, because the
exact same fossil was found in
Antarctica,

it means that Antarctica
was also lush forest.

But that's not all.

Glossopteris fossils from elsewhere
also reveal the extent of the
landmass.

In fact, glossopteris is found
right across the southern
hemisphere.

It's found in southern Africa,
it's found in South America.

Thing is, the spores of these
glossopteris

just couldn't be transported
across vast oceans.

In other words, all those land
masses must have been together.

Glossopteris has helped reveal the
arrangement of all the continents

in the southern hemisphere
at the time.

Not only was Australia
linked to Antarctica...

..but also to Africa, India
and South America.

This vast landmass was called
Gondwana,

a supercontinent which was the
southern half of the even larger
landmass

of Pangaea.

The primeval land of Gondwana
was on an almost mythic scale.

It was carpeted
with glossopteris trees.

A forest more than four times
the size of the Amazon Basin,

stretching further than any eye
could see.

A tiny fraction of Gondwana's forest
still remains today

in a cool pocket of New South Wales

in eastern Australia.

It's quite an eerie sensation,
really,

to just be amongst
these giant ferns and things.

You know, you spend all this time
studying rocks and fossils in the
laboratory,

trying to piece together
the Gondwana forest, and here it is!

Here it is, just all laid out
for us.

I've been dumped
into the heart of Gondwana.

This tiny remnant stands for a great
phase in this continent's history.

Australia was green and lush
for over 300 million years.

Enduring through
the reign of the dinosaurs

as well as the rise of the mammals.

Gondwana was so huge
that it was destined to break up.

And it was that break-up
that created the character of
Australia.

The mighty supercontinent of
Gondwana and its fairytale forests

would soon be lost for ever.

A great change
was about to come across this land,

an event that would transform
Australia into the continent
we know today.

To piece together what happened,

you need to travel deep
into this continent's red heart.

The interior of Australia today
couldn't be more different.

A vast, empty expanse.

Thousands of kilometres
of burning, barren earth.

But as you fly deeper into the
interior, there's an odd sight.

Strange white pock-marks
across the surface,

hundreds of thousands of them.

Each pock is an entrance to a hidden
world beneath the scorched surface.

And down there is where
I'll find evidence of what happened

when Gondwana broke up.

This is the unusual country town
of Coober Pedy.

Unusual because the 3,000 people
who live here

mostly live underground.

Houses, restaurants, hotels,
churches.

There's even a subterranean
bookshop.

The people here have dug out these
caves to escape the desert heat.

You know, at first, the idea
of people living underground,

modern-day troglodytes,

just seems bizarre, really, and
there's definitely odd things here,

but actually, it mainly makes sense.

It's not claustrophobic,
it's cool and it's airy.

And for a geologist like me,
to be surrounded by rocks,

just ideal.

The reason the townsfolk
go to such lengths

is because this rock
contains a treasure,

one of the most precious jewels
on the planet.

For them it provides a livelihood.

For me, it's a crucial clue
to how this land changed

when Gondwana broke up.

And I'm on my way to see
what everyone's digging for

with straight-talking miner
Kevin Swain.

So this is it?
Yep, this is it. No doubt.

So, lift this over.
Yep.

Step through it.

Yep, lift it a bit. Down.

It's quite smooth. I like this.
Sit square.

Liking it less now.

There's no-one to answer you.
Stop talking to yourself.

HE LAUGHS

This is Kevin's patch for mining,
one of thousands around Coober Pedy.

A 22-metre shaft that takes me
into a warren of tunnels.

Oh, ho! Stop!

Kevin spends every day down here,
alone, digging for one thing.

It's like a knife through butter.
Very soft.

Where's the valuable
rock here, then?

Well, right up there by the light,
you can see it.

There's, er...
That kind of opaque, kind of...?

Yeah. That's good quality stuff,
that, there, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's opal.

A precious gemstone that, at best
quality, has more value than
diamond.

That's a good enough reason
for miners to work here

in these solitary subterranean
conditions.

This is no place
for big mining companies

because of the very small seams
in which opal occurs.

And how often do you strike lucky,
hit a rich seam?

Rarely.

Does that mean five years,
ten years, one year?

No, it's unpredictable.

If you work steadily at it...
Yeah.

..you get...you'll cover
your expenses

and every now and then,
you have a surprise comes along.

So, every time you come to work,
are you hoping for that big find?

Yeah. You wouldn't come to work
if you didn't. Yeah.

Pick's always sharp,
bucket's always empty.

Opals are extraordinary.

The highly specific conditions
in which they form

have occurred only rarely
in the history of our planet,

and then, mainly here
in the Australian outback.

But they've also occurred somewhere
strangely similar to here -

the planet Mars.

These distant places share a similar
chemistry in their red rocky
deserts.

In Australia, opals only occur

because of what happened
during the demise of Gondwana.

Ah, now, there's a bit.

And I can figure out those ancient
events by examining these gemstones.

Silica.

Sulphuric acid.

Bacteria.

An inland sea.

What I love about opal is it forms
through this peculiar set of
conditions.

You need two raw ingredients for it.
One of them is silica...

..and the other's acid.

Now, the silica's pretty simple,

it comes from minerals in the rock
around here.

But for the acid, you need a really
strong acid like sulphuric acid,

and the sulphur for that
comes from bacteria

that eat sulphur
when oxygen's not around.

Bacteria that live in the mud
at the bottom of a stagnant sea.

To turn that sulphur
into sulphuric acid,

you essentially need
to put oxygen into it.

So, you need to take the sea away,
exposing it to the air.

So, now you've got sulphuric acid,
and what that does is,

it just leaches its way through the
rock, picking up the silica

and concentrating it
into these narrow bands.

What all that
complicated chemistry tells us

is that there used to be
an inland sea here,

but actually, down here,
in a few places,

the opal's preserved far more
obvious evidence of that sea.

Now, look at that - sea shells.

You don't get much clearer evidence
than that.

It's hard to imagine now,

but here in the dry,
dusty interior of Australia,

there existed, for just a while,
an inland sea.

This sea was created by an event
of epic proportions -

the break-up of Gondwana.

Around 180 million years ago,

huge upwellings of hot rock
began to rise from the mantle,

deep below the Earth's crust.

These plumes wore away
at weak spots in that crust...

..until finally, 150 million years
ago, they gave way.

This was the beginning
of the break-up of Gondwana.

As the continents separated,

new sea floor
was created between them.

This new material was hot,

which made it expand
and displace the seas above it.

This was what caused
global sea levels to rise

so that water rushed into the flat
centre of what would become
Australia,

creating the inland sea.

And it lasted
for over 35 million years.

When it retreated,
the sea left in its wake

the specific conditions
for the formation of opals.

But the break-up of Gondwana
also created something else
extraordinary,

something which would help people
survive here millions of years
later.

The interior of Australia
is harsh. Forbidding.

When the Europeans first came here,
over two centuries ago,

they realised the key
to settling this land

was to find water.

From the time the Europeans arrived
in Australia, they had an obsession

and that was to get in
to the country's interior.

They were absolutely convinced that
somewhere in this vast landscape

there had to be an inland sea.

After all, all the other continents
that they explored had one -

the Great Lakes in the US,
Caspian in Asia.

Why should this place
be any different?

They were, of course, 100 million
years too late to find Australia's
inland sea.

But they didn't know that

and such was the importance
of finding water

that they kept on trying.

From 1813, they launched a series
of expeditions

that aimed to chart rivers
and find the inland sea.

But time after time, the expeditions
ended in failure and even death.

The place names that they came up
with gives you a sense
of their desperation.

There's Dismal Plain, Lake
Disappointment, Mount Hopeless.

But, of course, there was a people
who had lived here for many
thousands of years,

and they knew a source of water
that the Europeans didn't.

These people had ways and means
of finding that water in the desert.

They saw it in the land.

And they remembered it
with the stars.

And with their songs.

..it's not difficult.

Dean Ah Chee is an elder of
the Lower Southern Arrernte people,

and was schooled from earliest youth
in the Aboriginal ways of finding
water

in this dry land.

So, what is a songline?

So, is it like a kind of...an aural
map?

Is it like a map of the landscape,
but told?

Right.

And so do all the songlines
relate to water?

So, how far can you navigate
on a songline? Is it...?

So, how do you find it?
Tell me the secrets!

Ah!

Right.

Really? So, it's that important?

It's that crucial
that it's almost kept like a secret?

Secret law.

The Aboriginal people,

for thousands of years,
have used these songlines

to lead them to a reliable source
of water in the desert...

..water that emerges from
underground into what's called mound
springs.

So, is it cold or is it hot?
It's hot water.

It's hot?
Yeah.

Oh, it is! Ah-ha-ha!
I tell you, it's the mud.

Ah! That's a lovely temperature.
No crocs, yeah?

You sure?

Whoa!

Oh, that is lovely.

Ah, yeah... Oh, yeah!

I can feel... Look at this.

What the Aboriginal people
couldn't know

was how their songlines, linking up
one mound spring to another,

echoed the geology below.

Because deep in the ground,
all these mound springs were linked,

in a vast reservoir of water.

What's really intriguing about these
springs is just how many there are.

In this area there's a handful,
but across the region,
there's something like 700.

What's even more remarkable

is that I'm swimming above
this enormous reserve of water

that's deep down there

and extends beneath almost a quarter
of Australia's land surface.

This reserve is called
the Great Artesian Basin

and, incredibly,
it holds enough water to fill

26 billion Olympic-size
swimming pools.

It's a giant aquifer - porous rock
under the ground which holds water -

and a key part of it exists here
thanks to the ancient inland sea.

Even before Gondwana
began to break up,

the first element of the Great
Artesian Basin was in place.

Deep underground, there were layers
of porous sandstone rock.

But any water which got into that
rock would quickly escape again

because there was nothing
to contain it.

The inland sea brought,
and left behind,

the crucial ingredient
needed to trap the water inside.

Mud.

The mud hardened
into a lid of impermeable rock,

which lay across
the top of the sandstone.

So, when rainwater fell,

it could trickle around the edges
of the lid and get into the
sandstone,

but, crucially, that same lid
prevented the water
from evaporating away.

At a few places, where the lid's
broken, the water escapes.

These are the mound springs
that have sustained
the Aboriginal people

for thousands of years.

And because these springs provide
the only reliable source of water

for much of inland Australia,

they're a vital lifeline
for wildlife here,

as well as the great sheep and
cattle stations of the Australian
outback.

It's an extraordinary thought that
the muddy remains of a long-lost sea

still provide water
that sustains life here today.

By around 100 million years ago,
Gondwana had broken apart

but Australia still didn't exist
as a separate continent.

There was one big split yet to come.

One that would transform Australia,

and lead to the evolution

of one of the most spectacular
animals on the planet.

This is the Great Australian Bight,

over one thousand kilometres of
coastline on the southern edge of
Australia.

It's just vast.

The cliffs themselves are 80 metres
high, falling away to the sea.

If I'd been walking along here
90 million years ago, then...

there would have been no cliff,
there would have been no ocean.

Instead, I would have been able
to take a single step from here,

directly onto Antarctica.

This is how the coastline of
Antarctica and Australia joined up.

Despite the inevitable erosion,
it's still a neat fit to this day.

Although these two continents
are now almost opposites,

back then, the story
was very different.

They were effectively
identical twins.

Both, temperate, forested lands,

which lay together
near the South Pole.

And, like all twins,
they weren't easy to separate.

Although Gondwana was gone,

Australia and Antarctica stayed
close together for many millions of
years.

But the process that transformed
them into radically different lands

also had another consequence -

the evolution of the largest group
of animals that ever lived
on the planet.

Those great Leviathans of the sea.

The filter-feeding whales.

I'm off looking for whales.

It's the perfect weather,
perfect time of year, August,

which is breeding season,
so hopefully, fingers crossed,

we'll see some mums and calves.

Helping me locate them
is local guide Rod Keogh.

Oh, there's one.
Can you see that, just over there?

The black in the water.
A black strip.

Oh, there's two.
A fin to the side of it.

Oh, look, look, look!
Look at the face!

Can you see that?
Yeah! Yeah! It's great!

Just encrusted with barnacles,
just coming up.

WHALE CALL

Did you hear that? "Hooonnn."
That's the sound of a whale.

Oh! Look at that!

That was incredible.

That was one of the mothers
flicking her tail. That's Scottie.

Scottie from the Antarctic,
is that it?

Yeah. She was...

She was named short for "S-cot no
friends" cos she was always
by herself.

And now she's back,
she's still got no friends.

So, I still call her Scottie.
That's great.

Now she's got a calf.

Oh, yeah, see that.

These whales spend most of the year
in Antarctica feeding

but at this time of year, August,

they journey over 2000 kilometres
here to breed.

These are southern rights,
third largest whale species
on the planet.

You're only seeing
about 10% of the animal.

The bulk of it, 90%, is underneath.

These whales can grow
up to 15 metres in length.

And they can reach such a size
because of what they eat,

scooping up two to three tonnes
of food each day -

millions and millions
of miniscule krill.

How these great animals came
to survive on these tiny creatures

is a direct consequence
of Australia's geological history...

..and its separation
from Antarctica.

90 million years ago,

something happened to finally
separate Australia from Antarctica.

Volcanic activity
from deep within the Earth's mantle

forced up a new ocean crust
between them,

creating a mid-ocean ridge
which broke them apart.

Australia was, at last,
a separate island continent.

And that left Antarctica sitting
all alone over the South Pole,

still temperate and forested.

That was,
until the isolation of Antarctica

created an unusual effect
in the waters around it.

Normally,
the wind drives surface currents,

pushing the water onto shores like
these, where the energy dissipates.

But thousands of kilometres
over there is Antarctica,

and there,
the situation's slightly different.

The water goes round and round that
huge mass, building up the flow.

And without land to get in the way
to disrupt it,

the current just gets stronger
and deeper.

The oceans were free to flow
all around Antarctica

driven by the winds.

And this was the beginning
of the Circum-Antarctic Current.

Its effect on Antarctica
was profound...

..cutting off the continent
from the warm waters to the north.

In just one million years,

Antarctica was transformed
from a temperate forested land...

..to one entombed in ice.

From now on, Antarctica
would be a land of desolation...

..inhabited by nothing bigger
than a penguin.

But in the ocean, this new current
had a more positive effect,

playing a significant role

in the evolution
of all filter-feeding whales,

the southern right whale among them.

The motion of this current forced up
water from the depths of the ocean

to the surface, carrying with it
nutrients which support tiny
creatures

such as phytoplankton and krill.

This was a rich source of food,
just waiting to be scooped up.

And, sure enough,
around the time the current appeared

sea-dwelling mammals began
to develop a new way of eating,

filter-feeding
those vast volumes of krill.

Giant whales to this day
feed in the same way.

I could watch them all day,
just doing their stuff out there.

It's lovely to think that
it's the Circum-Antarctic Current

that played such an important role
in allowing these giants to develop.

And also keeps them fed today.

In a way, these whales are the last
remaining link between two
continents

that started as twins
and have grown so far apart.

Australia's fate was to be very
different to that of Antarctica.

It too would change dramatically,
but in almost the opposite way.

While Antarctica turned to ice,
Australia was turned to dust.

It continued moving northwards

and around 20 million years ago,
Australia pushed into warmer
latitudes.

And this would have significant
consequences for this land

and anything trying to live on it.

The forest died away,
save for a few tiny pockets.

It was replaced with bare, red land

and the one tree that thrived
in these new arid conditions -

the eucalyptus.

A tree that now accounts for almost
80% of the forest in Australia.

For the animals, it was a brutal
case of "adapt or die."

Only a few were able to evolve
quickly enough to survive.

KOALA GRUNTS

And a classic case of that rapid
evolution

is this fellow.

(WHISPERS) He's big.

He's really big.

I'm assuming you wanted
the big koala!

Yeah, big koalas are good.
I could have got a female.

I didn't have, necessarily,
a preference.

OK. Just don't move,
cos it can climb across.

Over this way, sweetheart.
Hiya.

Good boy. Under his bum.
He's not sure.

Yeah, I've got him. Gosh! He's
heavy.

What's that? Did you say 11 kilos?

About 11 and a half, Hank is, yeah.

It's just...!
Good boy.

This feels really nice, actually.

He's quite heavy,
like a toddler size,

and the fur feels absolutely lovely.

It reminds me of holding the kids
when they were young, actually.

It's quite nice. I've not done that
for years, and they're too big.

Wow! Yeah, you go for it! Erm...

I think koalas are great,
actually, now.

I mean, you know they're supposed
to be cute...

They do, they look cute.

Looks like your iconic teddy bear,
doesn't he?

But he's not actually a bear at all.

The koala's teddy bear features

and the anatomy that underpins them

are the result of having only
the eucalyptus tree to munch on.

A very chewy tree at that...

..as palaeontologist Mike Archer
showed me.

This is a modern koala.
Ah.

Most of this head has to do with
smelling, eating, hold the teeth,

and the muscles that drive the
powerful jaws because these trees
are hard to eat.

So, basically,
their head's a chewing machine.

Exactly. Now, if you look at some
of the fossils,

these fossils are 20 million years
old. Ah, cool!

You've got an animal here that's
about half the size of the modern
koala.

Yeah.
So, this thing has become gigantic.

It's a bigger and bigger face.

The Eucalyptus trees didn't change
only the koala's machinery for
eating

but also for communicating.

This bubble of bone here
is an echo-locating chamber.

That's very good at picking up
low-frequency vibrations.

A low frequency sound?
Yes.

That weird sound they make transmits
long distances, and they have to,

because where they live here,
the trees are far apart. Yeah.

KOALA CALLS

So, koalas have made this kind of
alliance with this tree, really.

I think so.
And then eventually,

that little niche
is the one that then spreads.

So, they're the lucky ones.
They lucked out!

They were the furry parasite
that lucked out.

The koala's face reflects
the dramatic climate shift

that Australia has undergone...

..turning from verdant forest
to mostly red, dry desert.

The drying out of Australia is just
one more phase in the changing
history

of this continent...

..that was born in the arms
of the giant Gondwana...

..was flooded by sea
when that supercontinent broke up

and spent much of its life
attached to an unlikely twin...

..before finally
becoming an island.

Throughout all that, Australia
has been relentlessly
moving northwards

and it's still going

which means Australia's
transformation isn't over yet.

An unexpected fate awaits.

You can already see signs of that
future by looking beyond Australia

to the Indonesian waters
of the Banda Sea.

Hi.

Hi.

Can I come in?

This is Mang, a member of the Bajau,
so-called sea-gypsies

and masters of these waters.

He's taking me on a fishing trip
into the seas which are his home.

He's completely gone.

Mang makes it look effortless.

And the Bajau can almost reach out
and take all they need from the sea.

Because with over 2,000 species
of fish

and over 600 species of coral,
these waters,

known as the Coral Triangle, are the
most bio-diverse and productive in
the world.

That was great! Ahh!

Fish caught,

Mang takes me to his village,
home to over a thousand Bajau
people,

all living off the fruits
of the sea.

So, there's lots of little fish
swimming around.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

I love this place. I mean, once you
get past the obvious oddity of it -

all the houses are on stilts,

and you get these treacherous planks
that you walk across -

what you get is this feeling
of a real lively community.

All these kids, it's fantastic.

You just forget
you're actually on the water.

CHILDREN SHOUT

But it means that all sorts of
things turn up in your back yard.

There is a snake.
Andwa.

Andwa? It's a snake, then?
Yeah.

Although Mang seems to relish that.

CHILDREN SHOUT

He's got the snake!

It's not aggressive, but ten times
more poisonous than a rattlesnake.

Well done, sir.
That's extraordinary.

I'm not going to point out
any other sea snakes from now on.

But sea snakes can't faze a man

who's spent more of his life
at sea than on land.

So, does anyone on this island
not like fish?

There's no vegetarians or vegans
or something?!

To find out why the waters here
are so rich,

and what this can reveal
about the future of Australia,

I'm going ashore,
to the nearby island of Wangi Wangi.

The Bajau villages are strung out

all the way along the coast
on this island.

But I've come inland,
up here into the hills,

to look for something
rather peculiar.

Because, strangely, the key
to understanding the richness

of the waters down there

is the rock on this hill up here.

This is what I've been looking
for here. It's coral.

You can see a whole
kind of colony of polyps.

There's another one here
and there's another...

I mean, essentially, all of the grey
rock you can see is coral.

Which is hardly something you expect
to see at the top of a hill.

And that's because this
is an ancient coral reef

that's been uplifted above the sea.

It's absolutely spectacular.

And by looking
at this fossilised coral,

I can find crucial clues
to the future of Australia.

Strontium.

Three million years.

A layer cake.

The clams and corals in this reef

are absolutely
exquisitely preserved. Beautiful.

But what's really interesting
is the age of them.

Scientists have dated these corals
with a form of element called
strontium,

which builds up over time.

And the age that they get
is less than three million years,

which makes this reef
a geological infant.

This means that this whole island
came up above the waves

no more than
three million years ago.

But the biggest surprise
is what lies beneath this reef.

A layer cake of ancient strata.

Beds of sand and mud

that have built up
gradually over time

in conditions of tranquillity
and stability.

Those conditions
just aren't found, really,

in the crumple zone
of Southeast Asia.

Instead, they're absolutely
typical of one place -

Australia.

The implication's intriguing.

These Wakatobi islands
are in Indonesia,

so you just assume
that they're part of Asia.

In fact, they're a fragment
of the Australian continent.

It all points to one thing -

that Australia has moved so far
north that it's colliding with Asia.

Continent is now grinding directly
against continent.

The reason why the collision of
these two continents creates such a
bounty of fish

for the Bajau here, is all down
to the effect it has on the sea bed.

As they smash together,
the crust gets fragmented and broken

because some parts are denser,
stronger than others

and the result is that
the sea floor around here

turns into this uneven patchwork
of highs and lows.

In a way, the sea bed
around here's a bit like this.

If I pour some water
in to create a sea...

When the sea level's low,
you get a series of isolated pockets

and each one of those
has different conditions

and so different species.

But if sea level rises
and the water spills across

then everything gets mixed.

The thing is, the sea floor around
here is constantly shifting,

constantly going up and down,

and so you're always
revealing new pockets.

And it's that separation, mixing,
separation, mixing,

that drives evolution here so fast.

And that's what, in turn,
creates these phenomenally rich seas

and a way of life for these people.

CHILDREN SHOUT

Being in this place, here, now,
it's kind of a rare moment in time -

a time when two continents are
starting to directly collide into
each other.

But the effects of Australia's move
north

are much, much bigger than the
fabulous haul of fish around these
islands.

They're visible all along the
boundary where these two continents
meet

as a startling variety
of dramatic natural phenomena.

It's forced up many of the volcanoes
of Indonesia, even whole islands

such as Timor.

And on the Pacific side,
in Papua New Guinea,

it's thrust up entire new mountain
ranges as high as Europe's Alps.

And the action isn't over,

not by any means,

because this is Australia's future.

To effectively become
a part of Asia.

It's impossible to tell exactly how
that collision will pan out

but a likely version of events

is that Australia crushes the
islands of Indonesia into Vietnam,

pushes on into China
and sideswipes Japan.

One thing's for sure -

Australia's brief existence
as an island continent

is coming to an end.

Australia's destiny is to become
much more like this place -

Indonesia.

No longer isolated
and with a lush climate once again.

What's happening now is the biggest
change in the history of Australia,

and it's happening
right before our eyes.

Of course, eventually, all of this
will be utterly transformed.

For a geologist,
it makes it just so exciting

because this is one of the most
dynamic places on the planet.

And it's all down to the slow and
steady movement of the one continent

that's always been considered
quiet and stable.

For so long, Australia was thought
of as dry, unchanging, isolated,

but its story
is so very different from that.

In the past,
it was twinned with Antarctica.

And its future's in the making
as it merges with Asia

to become this tropical land
of forest and mountains.

That's why, for me, Australia is the
most surprising continent of all.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd