Original subtitles

This is a story

30 million years in the making.

(thunder rumbles and cracks)

(man sings)

A story of isolation,

adaptation, and ingenious evolution.

(rain patters)

Set in a land sculpted by the forces of nature

and deep time.

It's a story of extraordinary creatures

that thrive in the harshest environments,

where millions of years of isolation

has produced animals unlike anywhere else on Earth.

It's a love story, too.

One that's been told for countless generations across this land

by people who have cared for it for over 50,000 years.

A land where vast areas remain wild,

and every landscape has a story to tell.

This is a continental odyssey

in search of the hidden stories

that make this biological Ark unique.

This is Australia,

the wild continent.

(water splashes)

Like all continents, Australia is a huge landmass,

slowly moving across the globe,

driven by forces beneath the Earth's crust.

♪ (soothing, pensive music)

She's currently heading north at around seven centimetres a year,

carrying hundreds of thousands of species with her.

The sheer isolation of this biological Ark through deep time

has led to the evolution of some unique adaptations.

(birds chirp)

To understand where these incredible creatures came from,

we need to travel back in time

and 4,000 kilometres south

to Antarctica,

where it all began.

The frozen continent of Antarctica

sits over the South Pole,

making it the coldest place on Earth.

And it's become a haven for some pretty unique marine creatures.

(animals call)

The cold, nutrient-rich ocean

and continuous sunshine in the summer months

drives enormous productivity.

♪ (orchestral music crescendos)

Sustaining a huge variety of marine mammals.

(whales squeak)

(whale bellowing)

(music fades to silence)

Inland, however, life is long gone.

On average,

the entire landmass of Antarctica

is covered by 2 kilometres of ice.

♪ (gentle piano)

But it hasn't always been this way.

Many millions of years ago,

Australia was connected to Antarctica.

Back then,

Earth was a much warmer place.

It was so warm

that Antarctica was covered in rainforest.

(animals call) (water sloshes)

This was the supercontinent of Gondwana,

home to dinosaurs,

reptiles, and just a few early mammals.

Over tens of millions of years,

the supercontinent began to break into huge chunks.

South America, Africa, and India

went their separate ways.

Around 33 million years ago,

the last piece split from Antarctica,

forming a new continent,

Australia.

As the new landmass drifted slowly northward into warmer latitudes,

it carried with it a precious biological cargo

of Gondwanan flora and fauna.

Now totally isolated,

these plants and animals

evolved to fill every niche that became available

on their new home,

creating the unique array of Aussie animals

we know and love today.

(birds chirp)

While the landlocked animals of Australia

embarked on their evolutionary journey,

the creatures of the ocean remained free to roam.

Today, the migratory paths of whales

continue to connect Australia with her frozen continental cousin.

Every year, thousands of these ocean giants visit the Nullarbor coastline

on the Southern edge of Australia.

And every year, for tens of thousands of years,

they have been greeted with song and ceremony by the Mirning people

who live in the Great Australian Bight.

(man vocalises)

Bunna Lawrie is a whale songman Elder of the Mirning tribe.

(vocalising continues)

(vocalising continues)

(man speaks in Mirniny)

That means we're home together in our beautiful home,

sea home, sea coast home.

For more than 65,000 years,

our people were protectors and guardians.

We are family to that sea, and we are family to that whale.

The Mirning believe the land here was made by Jeedara,

a giant white whale

sent from the stars by the great Creator Spirit

to make the land and sea,

and teach the creatures how to care for country.

Very special place right here.

It's the Whale Tail, which is a dreaming place.

This is the start of the song line,

The Journey of Jeedara, the Great Giant Whale

who came in the Dreamtime.

That rock there that was pushed out through this giant big, big tail.

Left that there for his two companions, friends,

Yaum and Mininya, the great two big sea eagles

so that they could be the guardian of that place

and watch over that place.

(chuckling) Beautiful.

(speaking Mirniny) That means it's

incredibly, really big and beautiful.

Bunna's people lived off the bounty of the sea,

a resource they shared with a huge variety of animals.

The ocean is rich in this remote corner of the planet,

and the Mirning people have been caring for these creatures

for generations.

Their law and customs place the environment

at the centre of their culture.

For more than 65,000 years, our people have done really well

with the abundance of resources.

Marine life that lives in the sea also share that food with us.

We care for it. We don't abuse our culture.

We treat it like it's our family,

and that's why we still have it today.

We give take and share this beautiful country.

Very special.

It's there for our children's future to continue to keep that wisdom

and that knowledge. It's important to have that

because one day,

if you haven't got that wisdom and knowledge for survival or

custodianship, man will live a lonely life.

I wouldn't change this for anything.

I wouldn't change a thing because I like it the way it is.

According to the Ancestors, Jeedara, the great white whale,

created the Nullarbor Cliffs, coastlines, and islands,

pushing his way through water and rock.

♪ (meditative music)

And that creation story

is mirrored in the Western scientific understanding of this landscape.

Millions of years ago, these dry plains

were the floor of a shallow ocean.

Organisms like gastropods, coral, and plankton

lived and died here in their billions.

Their calcium carbonate shells and skeletons

settling on the bottom of the ocean.

Over aeons, these remains formed

into the largest continual piece of limestone in the world.

This limestone slab covers an enormous 200,000 square kilometres.

Some local Aboriginal language groups call this region Ngurie

or the waterless plains.

Every now and then, the dry expanse is punctured,

revealing an incredible underworld.

A team of divers are preparing to explore the secrets

hidden beneath the surface.

(light chatter)

The flow of rain and groundwater over millions of years

has slowly eroded the limestone,

forming a labyrinth of caves and passageways.

The water that carved these caves

is still working its way through the limestone,

flowing far beneath the surface.

Around 400 metres in,

a subterranean lake is revealed.

From here, the divers will set out with specialised equipment

to explore the flooded tunnels.

They lay a line as they travel

to make sure they can find their way out of the labyrinth.

There is no room for error.

If you lose your line, your bearings, or your light,

you are probably not coming out.

♪ (ambiguous music)

Groundwater is a precious resource on Earth,

making up around 99% of Earth's liquid fresh water

and sustaining billions of people and ecosystems.

And it's especially important in Australia

as it flows beneath some of the driest deserts

on the driest inhabited continent on Earth.

(soulful vocalising)

These days, more than two-thirds of the Australian continent is arid.

But for most of Australia's history,

this land was covered with Gondwana's great forest.

As Australia drifted north into the desert latitudes,

it began to dry out.

But even the best adapted desert dwellers need water to survive.

(vocalising continues)

Groundwater springs and temporary water holes

are havens for life across Australia's arid interior.

Huge flocks of budgerigar parrots

fly hundreds of kilometres from water hole to water hole

as they search for green pasture.

Red kangaroos hop vast distances

in search of water.

Hopping allows kangaroos and wallabies

to expend less energy over long distances.

This adaptation has helped them to thrive in nearly every habitat

on the Australian continent.

Even on in a rugged desert peaks of Adnyamathanha country

in South Australia.

The yellow-footed rock wallaby

is Australia's equivalent to mountain goats,

able to hop four metres in a single bound.

These social creatures live in large family groups,

and they love the treacherous terrain

as it keeps most of their predators at bay.

But there is one predator that is hard to escape.

The wedge-tailed eagle is Australia's largest bird of prey.

The wallaby's are safe in the shadows,

but as soon as they step out into the sun, a chase is on.

♪ (dark, driving music)

Wedge-tailed eagles have extraordinary eyesight,

but the wallabies are quick

and perfectly camouflaged against the rock face.

Now you see her...

Now you don't.

As Australia continued its slow drift away from the South Pole,

the northern reaches of the continent entered the tropics,

where high temperatures and monsoonal summers

created an evolutionary hotspot.

An explosion of biodiversity

sheltered by ancient geology

and surrounded by one of the wildest tropical coastlines on Earth.

The Kimberley Coast is a rarity on our planet,

a thousand kilometres of unspoiled beaches and sandstone canyons.

♪ (inspiring music)

The rugged terrain, treacherous navigation, and huge tides

have kept the modern world out.

And those same tides drive immense productivity in the ocean.

(eagle squeals)

(inspiring music fades)

In the sea country of the Dambimangari people,

the tides that drive the ecosystem

also transform the seascape.

For a few days each month, the pool of the full moon

draws the ocean away, causing a 32-foot tidal swing.

♪ (music builds)

And one of the most spectacular natural events on Earth begins.

The rise of Montgomery Reef.

More than 300 square kilometres of living reef emerges from the sea.

But the magic of Montgomery Reef has only just begun.

For this is the birthplace of giants.

Every year,

tens of thousands of whales make the long trip from Antarctica

to socialise, mate,

and give birth in this marine wonderland,

making this the biggest nursery

for the largest humpback whale population on the planet.

This mum will spend a few months in these warm tropical waters,

building her calf's strength with hundreds of litres of milk a day.

As the summer approaches,

mum and calf will leave Montgomery Reef

and begin their 7,000-kilometre journey back

to the frozen feeding grounds of Antarctica.

Just after the whales leave, something in the air

begins to change.

(thunder rumbles)

The tropical north of Australia is a place of extremes.

It has a monsoonal climate that ranges from bone dry through the

winter to torrential rain in the wet.

(man vocalises)

The annual deluge has sculpted the ancient rocks.

Low-lying areas flood, creating huge wetlands.

The hot, steamy conditions drive plant growth,

kickstarting an ecosystem like no other.

(cacophony of animal calls)

Insect populations boom,

creating food for thousands of creatures,

including the highly specialised jacana.

It uses giant toes to spread its weight

over floating vegetation,

a perfect adaptation to life on the lily pads.

This father is looking after his freshly hatched young,

teaching them where and how to find food.

They have a lot to learn.

Below the lilies, lie hungry fish who would love a bite-sized snack.

Plenty of crocodiles also prowl these wetlands

on the hunt for their next meal.

When dad senses danger,

he calls the young in.

Hidden under his wings, they stand perfectly still.

♪ (mysterious music)

When the threat passes,

the little ones continue their search for tasty bugs.

As Australia drifted into warmer latitudes,

the ocean off the Northeast Coast

reached the perfect temperature for the growth of coral,

paving the way for the formation

of Australia's most famous natural wonder.

The World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef.

The largest living structure on the planet,

stretching 2,300 kilometres,

covering an area the size of the UK.

This huge coral reef network

supports the greatest concentration of life on the planet.

Over 400 coral species and 1,500 fish species.

Billions of creatures make their homes in this coral metropolis,

including some toothy ones.

And thousands of people come to immerse themselves

in this marine wonderland every year.

But there is another coral reef in Australia,

one that is much harder to visit.

Off the island of Tasmania, in Australia's Southeast,

a team of expert divers have just set out to explore a deep reef.

Cinematographers John Shaw and Damien Siviero,

hope to dive over 100 metres in depth

to capture images of a rarely seen ecological community.

As they descend, the sunlight from the surface begins to fade.

They are now in a deep decompression dive.

Their bodies are oversaturated with gas under pressure.

By 70 metres,

the sunlight is almost gone.

We descended down and we were going through darkness.

The school of fish then separates and parts,

and it just reveals this mass of colour.

You just see the colour of sponges and gorgonians

and black coral trees. It really was amazing.

You think that the ocean would just be dark and dingy

and there would be nothing down there,

but it was absolutely teeming with life.

Some of the growth on this deep reef could be thousands of years old.

Corals and sponges, similar to the ones found on this reef,

have been found growing 6km below the surface.

There may be as many deep sea coral species

as tropical shallow water species,

yet we know virtually nothing about these ecosystems.

It's a great reminder

that there is still so much to explore and learn

about our incredible planet.

Back on the Tasmanian coastline, the rocks also have a story to tell.

These columnna basalts

are the result of huge amounts of magma

that rose up from the depths as the supercontinent of Gondwana

began to break up 180 million years ago.

♪ (soaring strings)

Magma from the event filled the voids forming along fault lines

that would eventually separate the great landmasses

in the Southern hemisphere.

Rocks like these can now be found

many thousands of kilometres apart in South America,

Antarctica, and South Africa.

Monuments to deep time, the stunning legacy

of drifting continents.

The greatest tribute to deep time on our planet

is, of course, the huge diversity of life that surrounds us.

And few places on Earth have a biological legacy

as old as the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests of Australia.

(man vocalises) ♪ (didgeridoo plays)

These are the last surviving pieces of the great forests

that once covered over 50% of the Earth's surface.

Living relics from the dinosaur era.

The oldest surviving forests on Earth.

Remnants of the Great Gondwana Forests

can be found in isolated pockets

along 2,000 kilometres of Australia's East Coast.

This fragment of the forest is the land of the Gumbaynggirr people

who have been custodians of this ancient rainforest

for tens of thousands of years.

Today, Gumbaynggirr Elder Michael Jarrett

carries the legacy of his people.

(man sings)

For countless generations,

young Gumbaynggirr men left home for years to learn

the ecology of the forests and the laws that governed her protection.

That song that I just sang

is a song to greet them young men back into our clan again.

All the way around the Gumbaynggirr Nation,

they would be learning stories, the songs

and the sacred places of their land.

Their education system

passed on knowledge that would allow them to conserve

and care for their land.

The web of life here

has taken hundreds of millions of years to evolve,

and the Gumbaynggirr people understood

how interconnected all this life is.

When the sun is coming through over there on that root,

that's giving life to that root and to the moss that's on that root.

And those birds, they come down for a bath

and they come down for a drink of water.

These creatures, they have all got a part to play.

We should be in awe and appreciate everything

that Mother Nature put in place for us.

The Gumbaynggirr people believe that every creature has a role to play.

From koalas in the canopy

to insects in the undergrowth.

Together, we are forces of nature.

But alone, we cannot survive.

♪ (reflective music)

The Gumbaynggirr people believed they had to keep life going.

Not only keep it going, but make it better.

The way that they did this was respect the autonomy

of everything that's on the planet

and not threaten anything that's on this planet

so that everything has a right to be where it is.

They truly believe that everything was connected.

What we do here, we affect the whole universe, the whole creation.

The Australian continent,

with its precious cargo of unique flora and fauna,

has been cared for by its first people for millennia.

Their respect for the natural world has preserved a heritage

that stretches back more than 30 million years.

We all have a role to play in caring for our planet,

and together we can all look after this great biological Ark.

♪♪

♪♪