Original subtitles

Escape with us on a historic voyage

through the South Island in New Zealand,

as our train descends the spectacular Taieri Gorge

towards the glorious Pacific Ocean.

I live just across there.

You can see how beautiful it is.

On this fascinating journey, we travel through a landscape

that oozes frontier spirit...

I might have struck gold.

..where the characters are as colourful as the rocks themselves...

That's part of what we do.

..who live in a beautiful land, rich in history.

They just loved the fact that Captain Scott and his team

were using Dunedin as a departure point.

We'll meet the people who live and work along this special railway...

It was just a harum-scarum dream that turned into this.

..before we arrive at our enchanting destination.

This place is paradise.

This is no ordinary railway journey.

This is one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world -

Dunedin, New Zealand.

The South Island, New Zealand.

This jewel of the Pacific is renowned for its mystical beauty...

..and enchanting landscapes.

But one of its least known natural wonders

to the south-east of the island...

..is Taieri Gorge.

It's here our journey begins,

as our train prepares for its voyage

through the state of Otago.

We're at Hindon.

This is about the middle of the Taieri Gorge.

Used to be quite a big city once upon a time,

but it's now just a few holiday homes.

As our passengers get ready for the long descent

down to sea level,

veteran railwayman Grant is busy with boarding duty.

We put our step boxes down cos there's no platform here at Hindon.

As our train pulls out of the station,

passengers brace themselves for a riveting, 42 mile-long tour

aboard our DJ class diesel-electric locomotive, known as the Inlander.

It's a stunning one hour, 45 minute-long journey

through New Zealand's fascinating past.

In the south-east corner of the South Island,

our 42 mile-long journey begins with the descent of Taieri Gorge...

..crossing Wingatui Viaduct...

..on to our first stop at historic Dunedin.

We then follow the coastline,

soaking up the views of Otago Harbour

and Port Chalmers...

..across the headland to arrive at our destination,

the oceanic paradise of Waitati.

As the Inlander crawls gently along the contours of the gorge,

each twist and turn reveals the beauty

of New Zealand's wild interior.

Wildlife in the gorge is mainly just wild goats.

They seem to have taken over the place at the moment.

We occasionally come across a deer.

There's quite a few wild pigs,

and kanuka and manuka are the main trees and bushes in the gorge.

The purpose of the railway line was to open up the interior

and bring gold and farming produce to Dunedin.

The central target was always quoted as "over the garden wall".

You know, the need was there,

over the garden wall was the bounties of central Otago.

But when the railway builders first came here,

Taieri Gorge was no ordinary garden wall.

It was a titanic geological barrier over 25 miles long

that stood in the way of progress.

One person who knows all about its construction

is track inspector and history buff Shaun...

..currently at work high up in the gorge to the north of Hindon.

The whole track was completed in about 20 years, I think.

The first parts of it, they called it a mile-a-year track.

Everything that's been carved out here has been carved out by hand,

so they made a shelf to set the track on.

I mean, the gang that work up here,

we have to patrol at least once a month,

or in case of severe weather, we'll do it more.

Wind, rain, earthquakes.

Anything like that that may affect the track.

Almost as damaging as earthquakes is a notorious local beast

with four legs.

Oh, here we go.

Kick off the sleepers, you wally.

She's been here since I've been here.

They get released and away they go.

That's the kind of damage that they do.

They push all the ballast away from your sleepers.

At a notoriously steep section of the valley,

Shaun crosses the incredible 400 foot-long Flat Stream Viaduct.

Then he enters the notches, where the railway builders faced

the ultimate challenge -

crossing the upper gorge.

For two years, worker gangs of settlers and New Zealanders

hacked through the solid schist rock,

allowing the railway to finally pass through the gorge.

This is the remains of a settlement where the workers would have lived.

It's open, it's exposed.

Summers are harsh, winters are harsh

because there's no shelter and you've got frost, you've got snow.

Up in here is a bar that runs along and behind this rock,

and that's where they would have hung their Dutch oven,

do their cooking on, and this here would have been your fireplace.

There. It's even got a stamp on it, that one.

Even more history cos you know where it was made.

"West Bromwich".

Finding these historic artefacts from Birmingham

is a reminder of the thousands of settlers and locals

who made the railway what it is today.

There was dozens and dozens of chimneys when I first got here.

But I suppose even things made out of rock don't last forever.

Our train now descends the sweeping lower reaches of the gorge

and the Taieri River, at Christmas Creek.

And now, we're just coming up to the Taieri River,

which is the fourth largest river in New Zealand.

TRAIN CONDUCTOR: The last three weeks in a row,

we've actually seen a trail, a little creek.

Well, the miner that was up here found colour,

which was gold, in the creek here, in 1863.

You still see occasional gold miners, with sluices, mainly.

But, no, there was never a great deal of gold found in the gorge.

But expert gold panner AJ thinks

that Christmas Creek might yet have a few more surprises in store.

What I'm looking at, as you can see,

the kind of layers of gravel. So, the gravel is a good sign,

but at the same time, because the bend in the river,

the energy of the river's going to mean that gold will drop out

where the beach gets slightly higher, just on that bend, too,

so where that little bit of current picks up.

And what you can guarantee is, because it's hard to get to,

there should be gold there cos no-one else has managed to touch it.

AJ is hunting for alluvial gold -

grains and nuggets washed down by the river's current.

So the density of gold means that it's going to go to the bottom,

below the gravels, but the trick is keeping it down the bottom.

South Island's most famous gold strike took place further inland

in 1860, and became known as Gabriel's Gully.

Over ten million New Zealand dollars' worth of gold

left the country that decade.

The rail line was their link to the outside world,

and a lot of these places, you know, they were fairly much inaccessible.

Christmas Creek might well have been the next bonanza,

had AJ got here about a century earlier.

I might have struck gold - excuse the pun.

Ah, nice.

It's fine, though. I almost need my glasses to see it.

Maybe AJ won't be travelling first-class after all...

Argh...

..or even economy.

This is not a way to make a living, unfortunately.

Um, it's great, though, because it's a fantastic hobby, right?

It's so beautiful, man.

And look, there is nobody here except the train.

As the Inlander surges through the gorge,

flanked by the Taieri River,

this is only the start of the spectacular sights that lie ahead.

We're four miles into one of New Zealand's

most historic railway journeys,

descending the Taieri Gorge, aboard a train called the Inlander,

heading towards the coast.

It's beautiful. Quite fascinating to think

there's so much history along the way as well.

Passing Mount Allan, our train continues on through the gorge,

crossing the famous Wingatui Viaduct,

with a quick trip to the races,

before arriving at the historic city of Dunedin.

Nothing like rail travel

and the click-clack of the railway line, is there?

These days, modern railways weld their rail,

so you don't have that click-clack,

but our ones have got short-linked railway lines,

so you've still got the rail joints

that give you that click-clack noise.

As our train eases its way down the incline of the gorge,

creaking joints are the least of the train's concerns.

Here on the South Island, when nature strikes,

destruction soon follows in its wake.

This all came down when the river flooded.

It caused the railways problems

because the slash blocked their culverts

and washed their railway line out.

The Taieri River is famous for its periodic flooding,

which sometimes spills over onto the tracks, causing devastation.

The last major floods were in 2017.

But no force of nature is going to tame the frontier spirit

of some of the valley's residents.

Go, Susie.

Jeannine's one of the people that lives up here at Mount Allan.

She bought the land up on the hill over here,

but then developed it as a bit of a getaway.

She likes the location, the isolation.

Very independent, I'd say, to live here by herself.

A one-time fashion designer, Jeannine has felt

New Zealand's call of the wild.

It used to be called... SHE QUOTES MAORI NAME

..which meant Valley of the Work and Gardens.

The railway runs right past Mount Allan, where Jeannine lives.

Her renovated home is hidden away in this secret wilderness.

Piece of paradise, I call it. It's idyllic.

Never had a fridge or power or anything.

I've only just got solar panels. It was an absolute bog yesterday...

..so hence, there's bits and pieces everywhere.

Hopefully, there's not too much carnage.

This is when the old homestead was here,

and this house, I think on the third time

it got flooded right over the house, they sold.

Despite being flooded three times,

for Jeannine, there's no going back.

A lot of people, you know, have said I was mad, sort of thing,

you know, you can't eve... No cellphone coverage,

no power, at that point, but it's not, really.

I mean, sitting up here,

the fire going and the dogs, it's idyllic.

Why would you want to be anywhere else?

I don't know how many people get to look

out their window and there's the Taieri Gorge train going past

with tourists from all over the world.

Once past Jeannine's house at Mount Allan,

passengers are greeted by one of the line's greatest landmarks.

We're just coming on to the 47 metre-high Wingatui Viaduct,

the largest wrought-iron viaduct in the southern hemisphere.

Opened in 1887,

the 648 feet-long, eight-span Wingatui Viaduct

is the jewel in the railway's crown.

It's a really spectacular part of the line.

It takes a fair bit of maintenance,

so the viaducts are inspected every eight years.

It's been here for well over 100 years now

and it'll be here for another 100 years.

Despite the railway's popularity,

in 1990, the branch line went the way

of many local railways and closed down...

..until a miracle happened.

A few locals, like Clark, got together in a bar

and came up with the idea of resurrecting the railway.

Basically, it all started over a few drinks, I guess,

and we got a couple of cars

and they were in pretty bad shape.

And we started working on the cars, replacing the timbers,

replacing the seats, and so on.

And then we started painting them.

And as more and more carriages arrived,

we started to get a train set, if you like.

But their "train set" still needed over a million New Zealand dollars

to get off the ground.

The overwhelming local support still touches Clark today.

And I always remember one day a letter coming in from a...

it turned out it was a pensioner, with a $5 note pinned to it

and saying they'd like to have give us more

but, er, they wanted to be part of the railway,

and I thought that was magic. I should have kept...

VOICE BREAKS: Oh, sorry.

I should have kept the letter.

The fundraising was an outstanding success

and a people's railway was born.

There were paid staff, but volunteers ran it as well

cos they wanted the damn thing to work.

And I can remember - it was Americans -

and they were absolutely flabbergasted

that these people serving them were doing it

for the love of their railway.

It was just a harum-scarum dream that it turned into this.

With the gorge behind us, our train glides onto the fertile plains...

..passing the historic station of Wingatui.

Just heading into Wingatui, just on the outskirts of Dunedin.

It's renowned for its horse racing empire.

A lot of horses are bred and trained here.

Otago Racing Club lies just feet from the railway tracks,

a glistening, green 150-acre circuit, built here in 1899

by a town awash with money from the gold rush.

President of the club Murray has arrived here early

to check out some of the horses that will be racing later today.

The connection between trainer and horse is probably greater

than parents and their children.

Today, Murray expects big crowds.

It's the club's premier event -

a ten-race card, featuring the Dunedin Guineas

and the Dunedin Gold Cup,

that attracts some of South Island's best horses,

including Murray's horse, Dough Boy.

So, Dough, as in, "dough",

and then there's the English slang of dough being money.

And we'd all like to think that we were boys again.

So, Dough Boy was it.

Let's go.

While the excitement builds,

Murray takes a quick behind-the-scenes stroll

in the club's hallowed hallways.

As you can see by the attire,

that the landed gentry, for want of a better description,

how they are in force

in the restricted area with the best viewing,

and the working classes are in the background there.

You can just imagine, at the end of the day,

these lovely gowns would have been all soiled

from the ground and, dare I say it, the soot from the steam train

on the way home.

Those trains would have been full.

Obviously, the wealthy folk,

they would have been travelling in first-class,

and the blue-collar worker,

he and she would have been in the second-class.

But that's the good thing about racing.

All men and women are equal above and below the turf.

The last one's in.

The race doesn't start well for Murray.

Where are we? Oh, we're way back there.

Dough Boy is somewhere at the back.

Oh, well, he can only improve.

He's just starting to take off a little bit from the back,

but he's got a lot of improvement to be doing.

But it looks like Dough Boy might now be on the money,

looking like finishing...

Come on, come on!

Come on, boy! Come on!

..third!

Go on, Dough Boy! Come on!

Yes! Yes!

Well done. Jesus.

Leaving behind Wingatui,

our iron horse soon now has its own finishing line in sight.

We're just arriving in Dunedin.

Dunedin was founded in 1840

by the good Presbyterians of Scotland.

They chose Dunedin, which is Gaelic for "Edinburgh".

They came to this part of the world wanting a better lifestyle,

but that all got turned topsy-turvy when gold was discovered

and their nice little humble town became

the gateway to Otago.

It was the capital of New Zealand for a short time, a very rich city,

just a great place to be in the middle of.

CONDUCTOR: We'll shortly be arriving at Dunedin railway station.

Could you please check you've got all your belongings?

Make sure you've got your cellphone, your sunglasses,

your hats, your children, your grandparents.

LAUGHTER

Stepping off the train, our passengers walk

straight into one of the city's most famous buildings -

the station itself.

Built in 1906,

it's considered to be one of the most beautiful in the world.

It's been recently renovated,

and Donal was part of the painstaking effort required to restore it.

These tiles originally were laid in early 1903,

and there is over three quarters of a million tiles

on this particular floor.

We were able to source tiles from the UK from recovered floors.

The blue in the tiles that you see is actually glass.

Everything that's blue here has come from Italy.

After a short break, our same train awaits our passengers.

Straight down there.

On time at two o'clock.

For the second leg of the journey,

the train is now known as the Seasider...

..which makes an epic 17-mile trip

along New Zealand's spectacular coast.

We're on the second leg of our scenic tour

on the South Island in New Zealand...

..travelling east along the coast from Dunedin to Waitati.

There are few coastal routes as glorious as this one.

Our next leg follows the northern shore of Otago natural harbour,

passing Port Chalmers, cutting across the headland,

before once again following the coast

to our destination, Waitati.

Otago Harbour is 14 miles long,

the railway line following its northern shore.

It sits on top of a series of natural sand bars,

a more direct route towards the harbour mouth.

But the ocean inlet is more than it seems.

16 million years ago, this whole area was a giant volcano,

24 miles in diameter, eroded down to become the harbour we see today.

In the middle, a 37-acre island, called Quarantine Island,

contains remnants of the volcano's crater.

During the 19th century, the British colony used it as a holding centre

for incoming settlers to prevent them spreading nasty diseases

to the mainland population.

Today, Meghan and her family are the island's only permanent residents.

She was appointed its keeper by local Maori.

Back in the day, the ships would come through that opening there

and they would raise a yellow flag,

and the yellow flag would indicate

to the health authorities that they needed

to send someone out to assess the situation.

Sometimes it would be a health inspector rowing out

in a little rowboat, pulling up next to the boat

and having a conversation with the captain or the ship doctor.

And if they needed to be brought to the island,

they would transfer people over to the islands

for their stay during quarantine.

From 1863, for the next 60 years,

41 ships were required to stop here.

Married couples and women had their own special residence.

So, this is the inside of the married quarters.

There were 12 rooms on each floor, and a family would be quarantined

inside one of these rooms.

But if you can imagine having spent months on a boat,

to come to a place where you can open up a window

and have fresh air coming right into your bedroom,

I think would have been actually quite delightful

for a lot of people.

Only 70 burials have been recorded.

The rest of the 9,000 quarantined went on to forge a new life.

People who were coming over from the other side of the world

to come to the region, to find their fortunes

and live their adventures out in wider Otago,

but a lot of them had to come here first

and they would come here and they would visibly be able to see

where they were wanting to go.

Our quarantine-free journey continues

along the picturesque, sheltered waters of Otago Harbour.

The great thing about train trips is the fact that you'll pass

through countryside that you would not normally ever see.

She's beautiful.

Around half an hour into our journey,

our train swings into Port Chalmers,

a lively and charming harbour town, popular with visitors.

It's still a working port,

with over a million and a half tonnes of cargo passing through each year.

BOAT HORN BLOWS

But its unique geographical location in the Pacific Ocean,

at 45.87 degrees south,

has also made it the historic launch point for famous expeditions

to Antarctica, 3,000 miles further south.

Celebrated polar film-maker Max is passionate

about the town's connection to Antarctic history.

So, this is known as the last port to Antarctica, and it was from here

that Captain Scott sailed away to Antarctica for the very last time

and was never seen again.

At the end of 1910, the Terra Nova, the ship that he was in,

sailed out here, incredibly laden down with ponies and dogs

and all the men and all their gear,

and they had all the materials to build that huge hut

that they built down at Cape Evans all on board.

And that happened just out here.

Max has followed in Scott's footsteps to Antarctica many times

to film epic stories of penguins and polar science.

We even recorded temperature below minus 50 at one stage,

so cold that a cup of boiling water, thrown in the air,

will turn instantly to ice.

But despite all his filming adventures,

Max still loves his hometown of Port Chalmers

and the role it has played in Scott's legendary story.

It had a huge impact on Dunedin because they just loved the fact

that Captain Scott and his team were using Dunedin

as a departure point and thousands of people turned up to see them off.

In fact, they created a holiday for everybody in town

on the day that the Terra Nova left.

When Scott's ship set off on 29th November, 1910,

none of the well-wishers knew at the time

that neither he nor many of his men would return.

The town subsequently erected a memorial in their honour.

On the plaque is a quote from his diary

that they found on his body when they discovered it.

"I do not regret this journey, which has shown

"that Englishmen can endure hardships,

"help one another and meet death with great fortitude."

Incredible to think that he was able to write those words

while he was dying in that tent.

With Port Chalmers in our wake, our train veers north...

..passing through the lush patches of coastal broadleaf forest.

A thousand years ago, when the Maoris arrived here,

much of New Zealand was heavily blanketed in rich forests.

According to Nicola, a Maori elder,

this corner of South Island was particularly bountiful.

Er, very rich, fertile,

heavily clothed in native bush plants,

birds, kaimoana.

And a relatively small population here.

People nomadic, and quite a peaceful environment.

Nicola can trace her family to a remarkable moment in history,

when whalers and settlers first arrived here.

Her great-great-grandfather was Scottish sailor Richard Driver,

born in 1812, who fell in love.

Well, I'm a descendant of Richard Driver and Motoitoi.

Driver arrived here in 1838

at a beach called Whareakeake.

Motoitoi put her cloak round him and claimed him as her own,

and they set up a life together, living in a cave.

Their daughter was Nicola's great-great-grandmother.

That's quite a good little microcosm

of the whole story of New Zealand history,

of the meeting of two cultures.

The train route passes close to the ancestral Maori land

at this bay.

That's our land.

Well, I live just across there.

You can see how beautiful it is.

Now, the Maori community have set about restoring it

to its original splendour.

Centuries of deforestation and the introduction

of foreign species, like rats, have led

to a loss of biodiversity.

But their efforts are attracting young,

conservation-friendly farmers,

keen to rewild the land along the railway line, like Niki.

There's so many European plants that have been brought in,

but mostly in this big... this section here of forest.

It's actually really quite healthy.

It's got kanuka, we've got totara, we've got rimu,

we've got all the coprosmas,

and all of the beautiful species that make a forest healthy.

When not on conservation duty,

Niki keeps a small herd of cattle, along with her partner, Rhys.

The only problem is that the railway line cuts right across their pasture,

and today, they have to get their cows across it.

We have to wait till the train comes by before we can take the cattle

across the railway track.

Often we ring them and find out when the train's coming.

Hi, girls. I know, it's exciting, isn't it?

With so much train traffic, Rhys needs to alert the railway

to his cattle movement.

G'day, mate. Hey, I'm just wanting

to put some cattle across.

We just had a freight train go past us.

MAN ON PHONE: How long are you looking for?

We'll need half an hour.

Yeah, good for half an hour there.

Good one. Thanks, mate.

But getting a herd of free-range cattle across a railway track

is not quite so simple.

Oh, come on, girl!

Once you open the gate onto the railway track,

we have to trust

that the girls who've been through multiple times just go that way.

They should, theoretically, just walk straight across it.

Theoretically, of course, the cows will be perfectly behaved.

Come on. That's it.

Niki's free-range cows...

..seem to be living up to their name.

COWS BELLOW AND GRUNT

Not exactly as planned.

But they ran across after a bit of a skit around the paddock.

It does make it more tricky, but that's part of what we do.

Collision-free, our train surges on...

..following the contours of the Pacific Coast...

..towards our destination, Blueskin Bay,

and some of New Zealand's finest coastal views.

It's the final stretch of our epic 42-mile ride

through New Zealand's South Island, from mountain to coast.

Now, lush, green pastures meet the bracing Pacific,

as we head towards Blueskin Bay.

This will be the tunnel that was made,

because when the railway line was first built,

it was so steep that there were accidents

and a train nearly fell off.

And so they created this tunnel to make it safer.

TRAIN CONDUCTOR: Get your cameras ready for some spectacular views

of Blueskin Bay.

The enchanting Blueskin Bay gets its name from European settlers

who were impressed by the elaborate tattoos of a local Maori chief.

A century on, it has not lost its mystique,

with its crystal clear waters

and shimmering sandy beaches.

Our final destination lies tucked away deep inside the bay -

Waitati.

In a way, it's the road to nowhere.

You come down here, you're looking to visit the beaches,

and it's got a very lively community.

As passengers disembark the Seasider,

they may wonder if they've stepped

into New Zealand's version of Alice In Wonderland

or The Pirates Of Penzance.

Walk this way. Welcome to Waitati.

In fact, it's a community amateur dramatic group

called the Waitati Militia,

who are a throwback to the town's hippie days,

when the town was something of a renegade commune.

But a century earlier, the bay's sheltered location attracted

intrepid Victorian-era settlers,

who pulled in by boat here on its welcoming beaches.

There was a giant sand bar,

like a scene from The Piano,

and they just dropped all their things off

on the sand bar

and they were reliant on the local Maori

to carry all of their possessions in before the tide came up again.

When the railway arrived here in the 1870s,

Waitati really took off.

Lots of city folk would come out on the train

and they'd have conferences and meetings

and a lot of activity happened,

so probably the heyday of the village.

Waitati's frontier buzz still lingers,

a fitting end to our historic train journey.

It's been a great one - good people, thoroughly enjoying it,

all in a good mood.

Passengers come here to wander around the cafes

and craft galleries.

But the big draw is Blueskin Bay...

..with its pristine beaches,

famous caves at Doctors Point...

..and it's breathtaking volcanic shoreline,

the perfect end for our journey from mountain to ocean.

People accidentally land here,

and they're, like, "Wow, this place is paradise."

On our dramatic two-hour train journey from Hindon to Waitati...

..we have descended the steep-sided Taieri Gorge...

..met legendary characters along the way,

cruised along an ancient volcano...

..and witnessed the sheer beauty of the South Island's coast.

A train that travels through history and glorious, hidden New Zealand.