In this episode Gus explores the truly extraordinary pristine Fiordland – a place Maori call Ata Whenua – the Shadowland. Fiordland National Park covers an incredible 5% of New Zealand’s total land area and is also one of the wettest locations in New Zealand with seven metres of rain annually–three times as much as the Amazon Basin. Ancient glaciers carved up this massive landscape and in doing so, created hundreds of canyons…making the area a haven for canyoners. Gus’s first mission is a world first - abseiling the full 161 metre length of Bowen Falls. Fiordland is also home to ancient creatures found nowhere else on earth living alongside the giant native centipede, the Peripatus and the distinct black coral found in the dark still waters of the fiords. This park is also home to the Sutherland Falls, which at 500 metres high, is one of the tallest in the world. This National Park has its doors firmly open to people, with Fiordland’s Milford Track hosting more than 14,000 trampers every year. But those numbers are almost insignificant compared to the more than one million people entering Fiordland every year by road. No easy feat as the only access road winds through the floor of the Hollyford Valley, below 54 known avalanche paths. Gus meets the team managing this volatile slither of tarmac; throughout winter they drop explosives from helicopters to force avalanches, making the road safe. Travelling further into the park, Gus meets with the DOC worker responsible for threatened fauna in Fiordland and visits one of the last places that Kakapo were found living unprotected in Fiordland. Venturing deeper, Gus hits Dusky Sound –an hour by helicopter from Te Anau –with Greg Hay (Peregrine Vineyard) who is a part-owner of one of the few boats that have a DOC permit to offer charters in this most pristine of Sounds. Greg’s company has paid for the pest eradication and subsequent release of native saddlebacks on Resolution Island an

Gus takes a journey through memory lane. Having grown up in Nelson he’s thinks he’s seen all Abel Tasman has to offer, but this National Park has a few secrets it still holds close. The park is known for its golden beaches and high sunshine hours but there is a dark and dramatic side to this park...the incredible carved granite terrain of its inaccessible interior. This land is riddled with some of the biggest sinkholes in the Southern Hemisphere. Gus takes the plunge into unchartered territory with canyoning enthusiast Toine Houtenbos, and glimpses the mysterious interior pretty much untouched by humans. On the coast, Gus discovers a different story. From the 1850s colonists milled the coastal forests destroying much of the local fauna, but the land fought back; the granite bedrock eventually forced farmers to abandon their struggling crops. The forest is now regenerating, and with Adele Island predator free, the birds are starting to return too. Gus visits Rollo Wilkinson of Bark Bay, one of the park’s last remaining bach owners – a remnant of the parks more permanently populated past. And then takes a swim with one animal whose population is growing - the fur seal is returning to the coastline now that the Tonga Island Marine Reserve prohibits fishing within one nautical mile off-shore around the park’s coastline. From here Gus crosses to Nelson Lakes National Park where the terrain is dramatic, shifting from vertiginous mountains, down immense scree slopes, to alpine tundra and beech forest valleys. Lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti look pristine, but their surrounding forests have been besieged by a small yet brutal predator… an introduced wasp which preys on the defenceless honeydew bug. Left to their own devices, the wasps will decimate the food supply, starving the native fauna. Gus goes on a wasp mission with Drew Hunter, a Rotoiti local dedicated to getting rid of the wasps. The pure waters of Lake Rotoiti are home to the mysterio

Gus heads into the heart of the Southern Alps to find a dynamic alpine paradise. He explores a vast mountainous range, dominated by New Zealand's tallest peaks and largest glaciers.

Gus makes his way to the Central North Island of New Zealand, a vast desert-like landscape known as the central volcanic plateau. Rising from this unique geology is the commanding presence of three volcanic mountains – Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and Tongariro, while at their foothills lie the upper reaches of the spectacular Whanganui River.

In this episode, Gus travels to the national parks on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, a rugged remote landscape wedged between the Tasman Sea to its west and the great Southern Alps to the east, thrust upward by the collision of tectonic plates, and gouged by rain and ice over 23 million years. The West Coast is a wild terrain that continues to be shaped by the eroding forces of water. Here Gus finds Westland, Kahurangi and Paparoa National Parks, three conservation parks protecting this primeval landscape. The jewels in the crown of the Westland Tai Poutini National Park are its longest glaciers: Franz Josef and Fox, where Gus heads first. Fox Glacier trudges down from the Alps for 13 kilometres, a colossal mass of ice that grinds and gouges down the steep mountain slope, scouring out a massive icy ravine. Gus meets one of the tour guides who take more than ten thousands visitors to Fox each year, eager to see one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. He learns about Aotea, , a sacred stone to Māori, found in only one river of the wild west coast.The spectacular Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki, are a dynamic feature of Paparoa National Park formed by waves, wind and rain that pound exposed limestone, continuing to etch out these pancake-like formations. Some of the best features of Paparoa are underground, where the earth is riddled with infinite holes, shafts, passages and giant caverns – all the result of constant rainfall working its way through the rock over millions of years. Above the limestone caves, Paparoa National Park’s coast is lashed by wind, rain and swell; it's an environment where only the tough survive. Gus visits one of the hardy creatures that make this place home; the Westland Petrel. This is the only place on earth where these remarkable seafaring birds touch land. Another one off for this coastal area is Okarito, the largest unmodified wetland remaining in New Zealand and the only place where the

Gus explores New Zealand’s unofficial National Park of the sea - the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park. Covering 1.2 million hectares of open ocean, hundreds of kilometres of coastline and more than 50 islands, the Park was preserved by its own Act of Parliament more than a decade ago. About 1.5 million people live in Auckland city, on the doorstep of the Park, and years of shipping, fishing, tourism and recreation have seen it over-fished and polluted. Today, passionate people are fighting to restore the gulf to its former glory. Filled with a range of protection types from zero fishing reserves to managed zones for recreational fishing, Hauraki is an attempt to create a sustainable park that can serve its community and retain its unique qualities. Pockets are starting to teem with underwater life and some of the islands are beginning to flourish with native species. But the future of this model of park is still very much unknown. Only the window of time will reveal if it’s to be a success - or not. Gus travels to the Mokohino Islands Group, remote, seldom visited and the most solitary and desolate islands in the gulf. That isolation drove a lighthouse keeper to insanity in the 1880s, but has also been a saving grace for the marine life in the area. Here Gus meets up with a marine scientist who is fighting to restore the marine environment in the Park. Together they explore the areas of the Park where fishing is not allowed, including the spectacular Goat Island, New Zealand’s first marine reserve. This stunning ecosystem is laden with fish-life including the Southern Right Whale. Travelling onwards, Gus visits another of the marine reserves in the Park, Tawharanui. A popular destination on summer weekends, the reserve has been protected for more than 30 years. Gus also stops by Motorua Island, to check on the fate of New Zealand’s national icon, the North Island brown kiwi. Kiwis born on the predator-free island are helping to rebuild the native p