Browse content similar to Tasmania. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Coast is on its biggest expedition ever. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
I've arrived in Australia. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
It feels like this ancient land has been there done that | 0:00:07 | 0:00:11 | |
and still has loads of energy for more. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
Around every corner, every bay you go into there's something | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
more spectacular, more fascinating, more immense. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:23 | |
But the true marvel of the coast | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
is its power to inspire the imagination, | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
the endless possibilities it holds for those | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
who know it, love it, and return again and again to rediscover it. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:37 | |
Australia's only island state, Tasmania, | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
is defined by its coastline. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
Separated from the mainland to the north by the formidable Bass Strait, | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
to the east by the Tasman Sea, | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
and rolling in uninterrupted all the way from Antarctica, | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
the chilling vastness of the Great Southern Ocean. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
Three Western empires put this island on the map. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:16 | |
Dutchman Abel Tasman was the first European to step ashore in 1642. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:23 | |
Then came the French surveyors who made several expeditions here, | 0:01:25 | 0:01:30 | |
but, of course, it was the British who claimed it, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
settling here in 1803. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
We've come here to explore how Tasmania's geographic isolation | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
has steered its history and shaped the people | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
along its south-eastern shores. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:47 | |
Brendan Moar journeys to remote rugged Tasman Island | 0:01:48 | 0:01:52 | |
to understand the dramatic grip of lighthouse life | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
on our coastal culture. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
This would have to be one of the most beautiful places | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
I think I've ever seen... But you can feel the isolation. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
Marine ecologist, Dr Emma Johnston dives into the battle | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
between alien sea urchins and giant rock lobsters. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
Oi! | 0:02:10 | 0:02:11 | |
Palaeontologist, Professor Tim Flannery, | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
reveals Hobart's crucial role in Antarctic exploration. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
In the footsteps of Scott and Amundsen and Mawson. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
They were tiny, weren't they? | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
Anthropologist, Dr Xanthe Mallett is grateful that fashion changes. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:28 | |
Oh, I do not fancy wearing this! | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
And I discover the enormous effort to restore a grand dame of the sea. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:36 | |
This is definitely in the once-in-a-lifetime category | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
of opportunities. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:40 | |
This is Coast Australia. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
On this journey, we explore a coastline | 0:03:11 | 0:03:13 | |
that starts at Wineglass Bay, on the Freycinet Peninsula, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:18 | |
continues on to Port Arthur, into Hobart, | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
and crosses over to Bruny Island in the south. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
The majesty of this coastal landscape and its flora and fauna | 0:03:36 | 0:03:40 | |
cannot fail to inspire. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
but its natural beauty belies a dark past. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:49 | |
From the European perspective, this island outpost was, | 0:03:49 | 0:03:52 | |
from the outset, the realm of hard men. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
Given how perfect it looks today, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
it's hard to imagine the scene down there | 0:04:04 | 0:04:06 | |
when the whaling industry was at its height. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
But when that bay was completely full of whales' blood | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
lapping against that perfectly circular rim, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
it was said to resemble a wine glass full of claret. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:19 | |
As if coloured by such a past, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
the rare pink granite, characteristic of the region, | 0:04:24 | 0:04:28 | |
forms nearly 40km of pristine coastline. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
As we head south, the rock changes colour, but not the history. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:38 | |
I'm heading to Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula, | 0:04:38 | 0:04:42 | |
the showpiece of Australia's convict past. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
In Britain, the initial fear of transportation was waning, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
so the British government had to up its game. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
What was needed was a new penal colony. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
A place who's very name would inspire fear and dread | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
in all who heard it. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:01 | |
The new Governor, George Arthur, was tasked with creating | 0:05:02 | 0:05:06 | |
a sophisticated new penal system designed to become | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
the ultimate deterrent for the Empire's most wayward malcontents. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
What he created...was this. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
From small beginnings as a convict timber-camp in 1830 | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
Port Arthur's settlement expanded into new industries | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
of both hard and light labour, | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
and new methods of punishment | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
to replace the bloody practice of flogging. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
By the time the last convict left in 1877, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
around 7,000 men had served time here. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:47 | |
At Port Arthur, the creed was simple... | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
To grind rogues into honest men. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
Now, it sounds unpleasant, and I'm sure it was. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
What I want to understand, though, is just how successful | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
they were at the business of reform through punishment. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
I'm meeting colonial historian, Dr Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
who has spent years studying this place, | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
and the people who worked their way through it. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
Hamish, I have to say, on a day like today, this place looks beautiful. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
It's hard to imagine it as a place of suffering, punishment. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
It's gorgeous, isn't it? | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
One of the interesting things is that the convicts that were here, | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
at least some of them, said exactly the same thing. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
So they wrote in memoires about the strangeness of being a prisoner | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
in a penal station, the worst sinkhole in the British Empire, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:35 | |
in a location that was so beautiful. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:36 | |
And what kind of prisoners ended up in this colony? | 0:06:36 | 0:06:41 | |
Secondary offenders, largely, so these are people | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
who had committed an offence in the colony, but not serious offences. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
So you did anything really bad you got topped. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
The largest single group of people who came here were absconders, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
so convicts who ran away from other locations and also, | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
really interestingly, | 0:06:58 | 0:06:59 | |
some people who commit crimes that are so spectacular | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
in the British Isles that they're singled out for special punishment. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
So who are these spectaculars? | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
Well, if you threw a stone at George III, for example, | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
that might get you here. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:12 | |
That goes in the box marked "asking for trouble." | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
Hamish is taking me into the penitentiary building, | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
in which 484 desperate lives were once cramped. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
How have you gone about, you know, understanding this place? | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
You know, how do you make sense of so much human misery? | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
Well, I think that's a really, really important question | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
because all we've got here is walls, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:37 | |
but one of the fascinating things about this site | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
is the records for this place are just insane. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
You can actually track individuals through this place? | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
We know the colour of their eyes. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
'Hamish has brought with him the very detailed records | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
'of Scotsman William Irving, a 40-year-old fabric printer, | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
'convicted for assault and sentenced to 21 years in the colonies.' | 0:07:54 | 0:07:59 | |
Complexion, head, hair, whiskers. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
How many people are recorded like this...to this level of detail? | 0:08:03 | 0:08:08 | |
72,000. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:10 | |
-72,000? -72,000 prisoners. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:12 | |
And you've got this level of detail | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
down to the colour of their whiskers and whatever? | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
Some of them we know species of the worm that infested their gut. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
Of those 72,000 lives preserved in Tasmania's convict records, | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
almost 10% spent time in these grounds. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
In 1850, a new building was opened at Port Arthur, | 0:08:31 | 0:08:35 | |
modelled on the panopticon design developed in Britain and America. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:39 | |
Where once flogging was the ultimate penalty for unruly convicts, | 0:08:39 | 0:08:43 | |
isolation was the new weapon. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
Having being transported to Tasmania, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
how does William Irving end up in the complex of buildings | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
at Port Arthur? | 0:08:53 | 0:08:54 | |
It's a really sad story, see, he almost gets his freedom, | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
but he can't get work and he ends up as a pauper/invalid. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:01 | |
And one of the places that pauper/invalids were sent | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
was Port Arthur. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
And he's in the invalids establishment | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
where he's done for being absent without leave | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
and he goes into this building. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
And this building here is... | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
Well, you were in a panopticon, so an all-seeing prison. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
And this point here is you know the heart of the panopticon, | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
it's where the warden sat and he can see down every corridor. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:23 | |
All of these cells are just single occupancy? | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
Yes. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:29 | |
This is a claustrophobic space, isn't it? | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
This is where a convict spent their time during the day, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
but if they had to go outside at all, they had to wear one of these. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:39 | |
Why do you put that on? | 0:09:39 | 0:09:40 | |
So if they did happen to be seen by another prisoner, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
the other prisoner couldn't recognize them. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
So, no name, no face? | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
-Just a number. -Gosh. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
This only half of it. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:53 | |
When William Irving is in this building, he again messes up | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
and he transitions into yet one more level below this. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:02 | |
Oh, this is the heart of darkness in here. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
It's a full-blown solitary confinement cell. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
And it would have been dark? | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
It would have been pitch-dark, and you've got four doors in this one | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
between you and the outside world. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
So, meter thick walls. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
-So it's sensory deprivation. -Absolutely. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:19 | |
I'm struck by how strong the desire to escape this place | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
would have been. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:29 | |
But beyond the mental torture, the natural, physical boundaries | 0:10:29 | 0:10:33 | |
have created a formidable challenge for the daring. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
The only escape by land was 20km north, | 0:10:37 | 0:10:40 | |
across the 30m wide neck called Eaglehawk. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
But even here, there was an even more fearsome, | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
and hungry, line of defence. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
I've come here to meet Port Arthur archaeologist, Dr Jodie Steele, | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
to discover what the chances were | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
of surviving a desperate attempt at freedom. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
Who's your ferocious friend? | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
He's part of the line of defence | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
that protected the gateway to the penal peninsula. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
Um, but he didn't act alone. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:05 | |
I've bought a little postcard from our collection | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
for you to have a look at. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:09 | |
-Oh, that's great, isn't it? -It is. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
A team of between 11 and 18 dogs, lined up between here | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
all the way across this isthmus out into the bay. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
If you wanted to make a break for it, | 0:11:16 | 0:11:17 | |
pretty much the ocean was your best bet but that meant swimming. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
But for all that, I presume men were trying to get out. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
There were a lot of people attempting it, | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
but usually they wouldn't make it very far. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
Everything about it is just a challenge for the convict, isn't it? | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
Oh, it would have been, and they were constantly wearing leg irons | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
in the chain gang, and I've brought a pair to show you. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
So anyone who's out in the... in the environment, | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
in the landscape has got their legs shackled? | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
They were, yep. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
They were usually in gangs | 0:11:43 | 0:11:44 | |
and they would have been wearing these heavy irons. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
And these are, these are the real deal? | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
These aren't replicas? | 0:11:49 | 0:11:50 | |
They are the real deal. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:52 | |
And you can see they're slightly burrowed, in an oval shape, | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
so they've had a fair amount of damage done to them | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
to try and get them off. | 0:11:58 | 0:11:59 | |
Right so that's... Someone has sat on a beach somewhere | 0:11:59 | 0:12:01 | |
and just thumped away at them with a rock or whatever. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
Most likely a rock or whatever they could get their hands on. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
What about William Irving that I've been hearing about? | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
At Port Arthur he just seems to disappear. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
A number of things could've happened to him. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
Um, you can assume that he got out, made it to the mainland, um, | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
might have changed his name and then lived happily ever after. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
But, unfortunately, not many of them did. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
We have records of the absconders ending up in the bush. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
Several decades later people finding them still with their leg irons on, | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
nothing but a skeleton. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
And I suppose any one of those could have been William Irving. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
Any of them could have been. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:36 | |
Old stories are aplenty here. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
Born of a daunting coastline, | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
and living in the minds of those | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
who watched over the ebb and flow of history's seafarers. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
Brendan Moar wants to know why at this very forbidding tip of Tasmania | 0:12:53 | 0:12:59 | |
the memory of it all is worth preserving. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
In Australia today, all lighthouses are automated, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
but they remain as beacons of a bygone era, | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
much-loved and cared for by small armies of devoted volunteers. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
I'm on a mission to find out why lighthouses | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
occupy such a romantic and dramatic place in our coastal culture. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:26 | |
But before I can board my ride out, I've got to scrub down! | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
I'm joining a working bee at the legendary Tasman Island Lighthouse. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
It stands in a particularly pristine environmental | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
which means no bugs or weeds from the mainland. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
Tasman Island.. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
off the rugged south-eastern tip of the Tasman Peninsula, | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
topped by that familiar sentinel of maritime safety. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
Oh, my God! | 0:14:04 | 0:14:05 | |
This is a rare privilege. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
I'm joining a very dedicated group of volunteers | 0:14:11 | 0:14:13 | |
who come here three times a year to maintain the Tasman Lighthouse | 0:14:13 | 0:14:17 | |
and surrounding buildings. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:18 | |
If anyone can explain the fascination with lighthouses, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
these guys can. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:22 | |
-Good morning. -Good morning. Hope your boots are clean! | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
They are very clean. You must be Carol. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:26 | |
-I am. Welcome. Welcome to the island. -Great to meet you. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
The Tasman Island lighthouse was opened in 1906. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
It was de-manned in 1977, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
and has run on automated solar power ever since. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
The homes too have stood empty since then. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
But why do the memories remain strong? | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
Carol Jackson spent her childhood here. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
For a lighthouse kid | 0:14:49 | 0:14:50 | |
it's different to being a keeper or a keeper's wife. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
As kids, Mum used to always say to us that, you know, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
we grew up with too much wind in our heads. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
So you have this freedom, you have an independence, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
you have a resilience. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
You had to make do. You had to make your own fun. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
We didn't have TV. There were no shops. There were no doctors. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
You had a life that was pure and simple. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:16 | |
With such strong family connections | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
she formed The Friends of Tasman Island eight years ago | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
to preserve its heritage, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:23 | |
in partnership with the Parks and Wildlife Service. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
Why is this important for anyone to do this? | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
People love wild places. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:31 | |
We have a...a motley crew each working bee. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
So some people are ex-keepers, or like myself, a keeper's kid, | 0:15:34 | 0:15:38 | |
and know the history and love the history behind it. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
The stories behind the light station here. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:44 | |
Others are pharophiles. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
They just love anything to do with lighthouses. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:49 | |
The volunteers arrived with a diverse range of skills to repair, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
paint and maintain the ageing buildings and gardens, | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
which cop the full force of mother nature. | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
This is a much bigger house. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:03 | |
Enormously important bit of maritime heritage | 0:16:03 | 0:16:05 | |
in a stunning, spectacular spot, and they deserve to be preserved. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
There are four brick keepers' cottages | 0:16:11 | 0:16:13 | |
and the remains of several other smaller buildings | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
that dot the plateau that's just over 1.5km long by 1km wide. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
And here we are arriving at what we call the wim, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
the top of the haulage way. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:27 | |
It's beyond stunning. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:28 | |
This is the most extraordinary view...landscape...thing. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:34 | |
It's amazing. It's just breathtaking. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
My back yard. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
Your back yard? It's a helluva back yard. | 0:16:39 | 0:16:43 | |
Before helicopters, ships were used | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
and it made for a hazardous landing. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:47 | |
People and supplies could only travel up the steep tramway | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
from the small wharf... All the way down there. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:55 | |
It's about 45 degrees most of the way down. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
But the last couple of hundred feet are one over one, | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
so you're actually laying on the trolley | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
but you're standing up almost, so... | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
-That's me. -Oh, that's you there? | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
-My mother. -That's your mum. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
Yeah, and this is how we got on the island. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
Gosh. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:12 | |
So, the basket would be dropped. So down on the landing. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:15 | |
There was a flying fox shed and the flying fox | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
would send the basket down and drop it into the boat. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
The boat would go back out. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
You'd clamber into the basket and then boat would come back on, | 0:17:23 | 0:17:27 | |
hook you up onto the flying fox and you'd be battered | 0:17:27 | 0:17:31 | |
back and forth until you got onto the landing. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
Sheep, cattle, all the coal briquettes... | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
everything came up this haulage way. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:43 | |
Were there ever any accidents? | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
Oh, yes. There's been a couple of deaths on the haulage way. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
When the crane wasn't working on the landing, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
one of the workers there fell into the sea, never to be found again. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:57 | |
Memories that linger on in the rusted wheels | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
and old homes that stand against the windswept landscape. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
It was a solitary life with just one purpose... | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
to keep the light burning bright. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
As Tasman Island's last permanent keeper, Karl Rowbottom, tells me, | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
it's always an emotional time when he returns. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
Can you smell the kerosene? | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
No. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:26 | |
Oh, I still can. The place was full of kerosene once. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
Let's go up. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
This is the first landing, Brendan, and we're still going to keep going. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
Right, Brendan. Come out and have bit of a look, mate. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
See what you reckon of this for a view. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
Oh, wow! My God! | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
-Yeah. -It's amazing. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
It didn't matter if anyone was sick or someone died, | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
or some...some catastrophe happened. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
This light would have to go every night. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:54 | |
It would have to go and everyone was secondary to the light. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
The light was God around here. | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
You're basically the last man standing. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:02 | |
How does it feel for you lightkeeping is now | 0:19:02 | 0:19:05 | |
a thing of the past? | 0:19:05 | 0:19:06 | |
It's a sad thing that that history is gone from our society | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
because they were men...men of a special calibre | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
and so were their families to live out in these places. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
The day I had to leave here was the worst part. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
That really hurt. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:21 | |
I think my heart died that day. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:24 | |
I went back to the mainland. I couldn't settle there. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
I... Oh, I became a rebel... | 0:19:27 | 0:19:29 | |
Wonder I didn't end up in jail, but anyway, | 0:19:29 | 0:19:33 | |
it's funny as I was going down in basket for last time, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
I could feel my heart going down and down with it and, um... | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
So that was a bit sad really and then when I saw John Davey, | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
see that he's still relief keeping... | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
um, went up in the basket and that's when I thought the job's gone. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
Bit sad. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
This will have to be one of the most beautiful places | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
I think I've ever seen. | 0:19:57 | 0:19:58 | |
But you can feel the isolation. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:00 | |
And to think of the people spending up to two years here, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:05 | |
which was the maximum posting, | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
I have no idea how they did it. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
I don't think I could do it. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
They're certainly made of sterner stuff that I am, that's for sure. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
Memories and traditions are well preserved in Tasmania, | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
particularly when it involves the sea. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
I'm going to meet the people who have committed to cultivating | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
a renaissance of Australia's wooden maritime culture. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:39 | |
They have a really big get-together every two years | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
to show off their precious vessels. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
It's called the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
and they've invited me along. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
I'm in Oyster Cove on a special day. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:54 | |
It's the ninth and last morning of a little boat raid | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
called Tawe Nunnegah. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
-Ros. -Good morning. -How are you? | 0:21:00 | 0:21:02 | |
Ros Barnett is a member of the Living Boat Trust, | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
a community devoted to keeping Tasmania's maritime heritage alive. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:10 | |
Ros, what is Tawe Nunnegah? | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
It's an expedition of small boats. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
It's a...a raid, we call it. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:18 | |
And the idea is that's a lot of these boats are so small | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
that they wouldn't be safe going alone so they go together in a group. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
How important is it to keep the boat-making skills alive? | 0:21:24 | 0:21:29 | |
Oh, just incredibly important. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
And to build a boat, you need the knowledge, the skill, and the timber. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
So Tasmania's got the best boat-building timber. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
We've still got some of these precious people that really know | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
how to build a boat really well, | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
and we've got these enthusiastic people that want to sail them. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
We're out there in boats. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
Best water than you'll ever get anywhere else in the world | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
and we're just having fun. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
With over ten nautical miles of water to travel before I jump ship, | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
I'm happy not to be relying on oar-power. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
We get the good boat... | 0:22:08 | 0:22:09 | |
..with coffee and everything. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:14 | |
I've scored a lift north on one of the biggest boats | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
in the Tawe Nunnegah raid. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:19 | |
-How you doing? -Hi. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:21 | |
It's a genuinely pleasing sight, isn't it? | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
To see so many vessels on the water together. It's just lovely. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
But I'm trying to spot my date to the festival... | 0:22:32 | 0:22:36 | |
An elegantly restored three-masted barque, | 0:22:36 | 0:22:39 | |
the tallest ship of the fleet heading into to Hobart | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
for the opening of the festival. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
Ah-ha! I've clocked her. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:47 | |
I make my way onto the 140-year-old James Craig, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:57 | |
to discover the extraordinary story of her salvage. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
Thank you. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:03 | |
Take in the main... | 0:23:04 | 0:23:07 | |
Bringing in the... | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
'Alan Edenborough has been a member of the Sydney Heritage Fleet | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
'since 1969, and fascinated by tall ships since a teenager.' | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
So all this madness is yours. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
Initially, yes, yes. A lot of people have helped since. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
Built in England in 1874 she ploughed the world's oceans | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
as a merchant ship. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:31 | |
Later reduced to transporting coal | 0:23:32 | 0:23:34 | |
and abandoned in 1932 in Recherche Bay, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
this is what Allan discovered in 1972. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
How did... I've seen the photograph of the...of the rusting hulk. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:48 | |
Well, somebody told us in Sydney. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:49 | |
They said, "We want one tall ship to Sydney," | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
and I was silly enough to take up the challenge | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
to see if we could find one. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:55 | |
So how did you finally come across...? | 0:23:55 | 0:23:57 | |
I found a little magazine which, uh, had written an article from | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
a Sydney sailor who'd been down to Hobart, and he'd seen the hull. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
I said, "That's the best looking wreck I've seen." | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
And the rest is history. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:07 | |
-That was the best looking wreck. -Absolutely. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:09 | |
And when you saw that hulk in that tragic condition, | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
you knew that this was achievable? | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
Not immediately, but we did two surveys. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
We went down and we spent, uh, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:19 | |
a total of about two weeks on board the ship. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
Living on board this hulk. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
We go down to the keel, and once we got to the keel | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
we realised that she was salvageable. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
The frames and the ship and the fabric of the ship was intact. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
That that's the critical thing. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:32 | |
I must admit we had to pour about two bottles of scotch | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
down the surveyor's throat before he'd sign the letter | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
to say it could be salvaged, but he was a nice chap. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
And then it was a 20-year slog to get it back into working condition. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:44 | |
She is one of only four barques from the 19th century | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
still sailing anywhere in the world. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
A true masterpiece of restoration, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
a 30-year labour of love for those devoted to her. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
I'm going up to that little white deck up there. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
Absolutely thrilled. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:11 | |
It is a bit good up here. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
How often does a person get the chance to look out at Hobart, | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
from this far up the mast of the James Craig. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
This is definitely in the once-in-a-lifetime category | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
of opportunities. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:41 | |
Since the early 1960s, Hobart's Tasman Bridge | 0:25:55 | 0:25:59 | |
has been the vital link between the city and its eastern suburbs. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
But, on a calm night in 1975, | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
fate shattered the peace and quiet of a sleeping city. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
A wayward bulk load carrier struck the bridge and sank, | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
bringing down pylons and concrete spans. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
Seven crew were killed and five motorists died | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
when their vehicles plunged 60m from the top. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:23 | |
The city was left with a bridge to nowhere for almost three years. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:27 | |
Hobart has never forgotten its night of adversity, | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
and today, it builds bridges of a different kind. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
This is the heart of Australia's enduring exploration of Antarctica. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:42 | |
Palaeontologist, Professor Tim Flannery, | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
discovers a heroic blend of science and adventure. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
There are more Antarctic scientists here than anywhere else in the world | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
because Hobart's the gateway to the Southern Ocean and beyond. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:59 | |
So I want to discover what a modern day expedition to the ice involves. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:04 | |
And to do that, you really have to understand | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
what happened in the past and you simply can't disregard | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
the greatest Antarctica story of them all. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
It begins when a raggedy, exhausted man | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
walks into this city hotel fresh off the boat | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
after an 18-month expedition. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:22 | |
Just over a century ago, a disreputable looking figure | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
made his way into this rather grand hotel lobby. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
The duty clerk mistook him for a tramp and gave him an inferior room | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
at the back of the hotel. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
But the following day, | 0:27:35 | 0:27:36 | |
that man would be recognised as a great international hero. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:40 | |
He was Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
And here he is after a well deserved shave and shower. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:48 | |
He had just travelled 5,250km from his triumph to Hobart. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:55 | |
The papers proclaimed, | 0:27:55 | 0:27:56 | |
"The hero Amundsen had conquered the South Pole." | 0:27:56 | 0:28:00 | |
The race was over. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:01 | |
His long time rival, Robert Scott, had died trying. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
And back then, the voyage out must have been a hazardous one. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:10 | |
But scientists are still going south and they're discovering great things, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
and I'm really keen to learn what the journey's like today. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
I'm returning port-side to meet | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
Australian Antarctic Division Chief Scientist, Dr Nick Gales. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:23 | |
So, tell me was it really all a race to the Poles? | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
Well, back then it really was. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:27 | |
That was where the attention of the whole globe was. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
They were the they were the rock stars of the age. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
Just like I and people of my generation and older | 0:28:32 | 0:28:34 | |
remember the lunar landing and where they were. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:37 | |
That was the scale of attention and it was a huge race | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
to get the first person into the South Pole | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
of this great unknown land. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
And one of them was this great Tasmanian, um, Lewey Vanacky, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
who came down here in the late 19th century with his family, | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
and went down as part of the very first expedition ever | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
to over winter in Antarctica. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:56 | |
And he went down as a scientist, so he was starting to measure | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
a whole lot of the science that was fascinating to him, | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
and to the scientists that followed him, | 0:29:01 | 0:29:04 | |
like Edgeworth David and Mawson. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:05 | |
So, Mawson was a geologist, wasn't he? | 0:29:05 | 0:29:07 | |
He was a great geologist but he was more than that. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:10 | |
He really was a renaissance man, | 0:29:10 | 0:29:11 | |
if you like, because he recognised the importance of the science | 0:29:11 | 0:29:15 | |
in Antarctica above and beyond everything else. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:17 | |
And like the science that he was doing back then, | 0:29:17 | 0:29:19 | |
is that still the sort of thing that's ongoing today, | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
or has he nature of it all changed? | 0:29:22 | 0:29:23 | |
Well, we do things very differently now | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
because we have all these wonderful new tools to do our science, | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
but the drivers were the same. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:29 | |
What happens in the Southern Ocean? What happens with the ice cap? | 0:29:29 | 0:29:33 | |
It's the engine room of global climate. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
So it's relevant to us all. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:37 | |
Modern day expeditions to the ice | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
remain physically and mentally challenging for everyone. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
I'm fortunate to be here just at the right time to witness | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
Australia's all-purpose Antarctic flagship, preparing to head south. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:53 | |
The Aurora Australis is Australia's only icebreaker. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
Since 1990, she's been transporting faculties of scientists | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
to Australia's three bases in Antarctica | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
to examine the ice continent. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:12 | |
On board, is Dr Tas Van Ommen, | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
an Antarctic Division scientist who specialises in ice cores. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:23 | |
So, how old is the oldest ice down there? | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
Well, we've got good reason to believe that the oldest ice | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
is probably over a million years old and there are some real puzzles | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
that we want to access one day by getting that old ice. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:34 | |
But, for the moment, we're satisfied trying to build up | 0:30:34 | 0:30:37 | |
our network of younger ice records, as well. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:39 | |
Antarctic has 18,000 km of coast | 0:30:47 | 0:30:49 | |
and most of it's actually hidden beneath ice. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
And the exact configuration of that ice-water interface | 0:30:52 | 0:30:56 | |
is so important for determining how the ice responds | 0:30:56 | 0:30:59 | |
in a warming climate. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:01 | |
In a sense, you could say the coast of Antarctica hold the key | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
to the changing coast to the rest of the planet. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:07 | |
When you're down there on the ice, | 0:31:09 | 0:31:11 | |
do you ever think about the heroic age of exploration | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
and the conditions Mawson and those other explorers faced down there? | 0:31:14 | 0:31:18 | |
Yeah, I do. And I marvel at the fact they went into the unknown, | 0:31:18 | 0:31:20 | |
whereas we're going into something that we've got some experience | 0:31:20 | 0:31:23 | |
and knowledge about. | 0:31:23 | 0:31:24 | |
And they achieved such amazing things with such basic equipment. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:29 | |
BOAT HORN HONKS | 0:31:29 | 0:31:30 | |
-Bridge, fore and aft, let go. -Copy that, let go, over. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:34 | |
Bridge to aft, letting go all lines. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
BOAT HORN HONKS | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
Thank you. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:43 | |
The boat just moves so gracefully and slowly | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
as it comes down the Derwind here. | 0:31:56 | 0:31:59 | |
It's more like a ballet than anything I would have expected. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:02 | |
I wish I was heading south with them, but it's time for me | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
to bid bon voyage to the Aurora Australis | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
for her 96th journey to Antarctica. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
And there she goes, a veteran polar explorer in the footsteps | 0:32:18 | 0:32:23 | |
of Scott, Amundsen, and Mawson. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:25 | |
While those heroic explorers venture south, | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
there were pioneers of a different hue further north. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:39 | |
Freycinet Peninsula is famously frequented by visitors | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
in search of its wildlife. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:50 | |
I'm heading to the site of particularly large nature fest | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
over 100 years ago. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
These naturalists, as they were known, | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
were forerunners in Tasmania's now famous green movement. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:05 | |
In Easter 1910, Coles Bay became the base for the naturalists' field camp | 0:33:07 | 0:33:13 | |
after nearly 100 naturalists, men and women, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
sailed here from Hobart. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:18 | |
I'm going to meet local historian Maureen Martin Ferris, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
to see what all the fuss was about. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
They really were very interested in studying some of the botany, | 0:33:24 | 0:33:28 | |
some of the beautiful granite, and also the marine animals | 0:33:28 | 0:33:33 | |
because they were botanists, you had zoologists. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:38 | |
-One of them, of course, was Errol Flynn's father. -Really? | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
-He was a zoologist. -Gosh, right. OK. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:44 | |
And he actually wrote a wonderful report, | 0:33:44 | 0:33:47 | |
and in the report it says that they actually discovered | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
60 new Tasmanian species and 25 Australian species. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:56 | |
So here's some of them and you can see them in their wonderful... | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
the women in their hats and their long gowns. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:01 | |
I'm so relieved that it's the kind of naturalists | 0:34:01 | 0:34:03 | |
that study wildlife and not the naturalists | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
that play naked table tennis. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
Well, actually, that's what I imagined they were like. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:09 | |
-And you can see...yes. -And this is this bay here? -Yes, it is. | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
Oh, that's the is that the headland there? | 0:34:12 | 0:34:14 | |
That's the headland. You can see it right there. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:16 | |
Oh, right. Fantastic. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:18 | |
What always gets me about these photos | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
is the way that nobody's dressed for the beach. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:22 | |
No, none of them. They're all dressed as if they were going down town. | 0:34:22 | 0:34:25 | |
Yeah. Look at that. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:26 | |
They look as if they've arrived in the primordial jungle there, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:30 | |
with tents dotted about. | 0:34:30 | 0:34:32 | |
Such simple kit as well, | 0:34:32 | 0:34:33 | |
I mean, they were just canvases is thrown over ropes. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:35 | |
Perhaps the greatest legacy of those early naturalists | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
was the creation of Tasmania's first national park, | 0:34:41 | 0:34:44 | |
here in 1916 to protect Freycinet's natural beauty for generations. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:49 | |
Preserving nature is a fine thing, but what if nature changes? | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
Further south, the tide is turning. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:00 | |
Australia's east ocean current has been delivering | 0:35:00 | 0:35:03 | |
some uninvited visitors to the area, | 0:35:03 | 0:35:05 | |
turning it into an underwater battlefield. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
Marine ecologist, Dr Emma Johnston is diving into the fight | 0:35:08 | 0:35:13 | |
to pick the winners from the losers. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:16 | |
What's the relationship between this and this? | 0:35:16 | 0:35:19 | |
Both are featured on expensive menus around the world. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:23 | |
But one is an unwelcome visitor, and the other one wants to eat it. | 0:35:23 | 0:35:27 | |
I'm here to find out what's gone wrong in the neighbourhood. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
Traditionally, the peaceful waters of Dunalley | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
have had a thriving marine ecosystem producing loads of seafood. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
But that's now under threat, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:42 | |
since the East Australian Current has been bringing warmer waters | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
from the north, and with it, armies of long spined urchins. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:49 | |
G'day! | 0:35:49 | 0:35:51 | |
'Marine ecologist, Dr Scott Ling, from the University of Tasmania, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
'has promised to take me to the battle ground.' | 0:35:55 | 0:35:58 | |
We're travelling to North Bay where these invasive urchins | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
are eating their way through the native sea kelp at an alarming rate, | 0:36:05 | 0:36:09 | |
leaving the sea beds increasingly barren and unproductive. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
I'm keen to see the evidence, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
and discover the creative solutions that might just save them. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
OK, we'll head down to eight and then swim across until we hit the... | 0:36:18 | 0:36:21 | |
Swim across and then we'll we should see a lot of the kelp bed | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
through here, and then some of the barren areas will start to emerge. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
-There you go. Set to go. -Thank you. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:30 | |
Generally, we've got a fairly healthy kelp bed system here. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:49 | |
This is showing the first signs of these urchins | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
overgrazing the system. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:55 | |
The barren patches that are really just starting to form. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
Look at that! Beautiful. | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
They're just like little eating machines, aren't they? | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
-That's right. -Munching away. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:19 | |
If you look at how long these spines are here, | 0:37:19 | 0:37:21 | |
really good protection from any lobster that's trying to eat them. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:23 | |
So purple! It looks black under the water. Pretty bright. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:30 | |
You can see their five teeth. His mouth's opening up there slightly. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
These are the... This is what's doing all the damage to the kelp. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
See their teeth are extremely hard. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:42 | |
And, um, they use a rasping type action | 0:37:42 | 0:37:44 | |
to strip the rock clear of all the algae. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:47 | |
Like a plague of marine locusts, | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
the prickly invaders are eating the sea bed bare. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:55 | |
The evidence of their destruction is overwhelming. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:58 | |
But, no more! | 0:37:58 | 0:38:00 | |
Enter the local hero... the Tasmanian rock lobster. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
Here we have the southern rock lobster. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
This is obviously a larger specimen. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:11 | |
It's these larger specimens that are able to prey on things | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
like sea urchins. | 0:38:14 | 0:38:15 | |
Obviously you've got all those protective spines. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:18 | |
It takes quite a large predator to be able to deal with that | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
and roll the urchin over and eat it... | 0:38:20 | 0:38:22 | |
Ah! Oi! | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
..on the underside. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:26 | |
With the support of local fishermen, Scott and his team | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
are returning to this area the once over-fished giant rock lobsters, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:34 | |
to take on their opponent. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:37 | |
Heading back to shore, Scott is going to show me | 0:38:37 | 0:38:39 | |
some rare and exclusive footage of an urchin kill. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:43 | |
OK, so if you have a look here, | 0:38:43 | 0:38:45 | |
we've got some infrared remote monitoring of a sea urchin. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
-Is that the urchin? -That's the urchin there. This is at night. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
You can see spines are quite relaxed until the lobster turns up. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:54 | |
And then the lobster goes about trying to grapple the urchin. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
It rolls it and starts attacking the urchin through the weaker underside | 0:38:57 | 0:39:00 | |
where there's less protection from the spines. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:03 | |
So, is it working? | 0:39:03 | 0:39:04 | |
Yeah, well, certainly it was a bit of a surprise as to how well | 0:39:04 | 0:39:07 | |
the lobsters actually took up residence | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
on these sea urchin barrens. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:10 | |
So what we're looking at here is, um... | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
first of all, there's really obvious yellowy coloured structure. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:18 | |
That's the...the roe or the gonad. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:20 | |
So that's the eggs, and for a lobster he cracks open an urchin | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
and the first thing he goes for is the roe. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:25 | |
You've got a lot more calories in there than anything else. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
I'm not sure whether you want to try some, but why not? | 0:39:28 | 0:39:30 | |
Oh, gosh. Really? Fresh? | 0:39:30 | 0:39:32 | |
-Yeah. Give it a go. Give it a go. Fresh. -OK. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:35 | |
Taste like the ocean? | 0:39:39 | 0:39:41 | |
That is delicious. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:43 | |
That's like ocean butter. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:46 | |
But a small platoon of lobsters is no guarantee | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
against a battalion of voracious urchins. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
So, I wonder whether our growing taste for urchin roe | 0:39:55 | 0:40:00 | |
may become another defence against the spiny invaders. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:04 | |
On the final leg of my investigation, | 0:40:06 | 0:40:08 | |
I'm returning to Dunalley Bay to meet diver and entrepreneur Dave Allen. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:14 | |
Wow, that looks like a huge haul. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:17 | |
How much have you got here? | 0:40:17 | 0:40:19 | |
Oh, probably 3/4 of a tonne. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:20 | |
How much roe do you get out of, say, 3/4 of a tonne? | 0:40:20 | 0:40:23 | |
About 80kg of roe. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:24 | |
And that's the premium product. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:28 | |
And at peak of the season that can bring as much as 400 a kilo | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
in the Japanese market. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:35 | |
Can we eat our way out of this problem? | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
Um...I think it's been proven most of the way | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
through the northern hemisphere, | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
the only way to control a sea urchin problem | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
is with a commercially viable industry. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
So, with a serve of science and industry, | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
we may not only rejuvenate an ailing ecosystem | 0:40:54 | 0:40:58 | |
but also sustain a peaceful and profitable underwater neighbourhood. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:02 | |
For decades, Bruny Island's small community has enjoyed | 0:41:07 | 0:41:10 | |
a peaceful and exquisite environment. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
But as anthropologist, Dr Xanthe Mallet discovers, 200 years ago, | 0:41:17 | 0:41:22 | |
the island's fortunes were built upon a grim and bloody business. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:26 | |
I'm walking along what's called the Neck, | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
which links north Bruny Island behind me, | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
and south Bruny Island in front of me. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:40 | |
To the west, the tranquil waters of Great Bay, | 0:41:42 | 0:41:45 | |
and to the east, the sweeping indigo arc of Adventure Bay, | 0:41:45 | 0:41:49 | |
naturally sheltered against the Tasman Sea. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
Adventure Bay is an idyllic setting, | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
sought out by nature loving tourists, proud locals, and urban escapees. | 0:41:55 | 0:42:01 | |
But I'm here on a very different journey | 0:42:02 | 0:42:04 | |
to find out why this bay was flushed red with blood. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
Soon after colonisation in 1803, Tasmanians discovered | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
a vast whale population in Adventure Bay during the winter months. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
And so, the hunt for whale oil began here in 1826. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:24 | |
The oil had a huge market in Britain where it fuelled | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
the country's street lamps and factory lighting. | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
Everyone wanted to be in on the game and the slaughter. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
I'm heading to the remains of a whaling station | 0:42:37 | 0:42:39 | |
at the bay's eastern most tip. | 0:42:39 | 0:42:41 | |
In its day, about 150 whalers were stationed here. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:47 | |
Good morning. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:48 | |
'Maritime archaeologist, Michael Nash, has studied the whaling rush, | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
'and says the bay is the perfect inlet for the harpooning of whales.' | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
In the winter months, they'd come in here to calve and to breed. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
Um, it's nice and shallow, it's a pretty protected bay. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:02 | |
It's very big, sort of straight access to the ocean out there. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:05 | |
Why are they called Southern Right Whale? | 0:43:05 | 0:43:08 | |
-Um, well, it's because they were the right whale to hunt. -Oh, really? | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
Yeah, because where they located themselves. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
They were easy to access. They were fairly big rotund animals. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:17 | |
Had a lot of blubber on them. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
They were reasonably slow at that time of year, | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
and also the carcass floated when it when they were killed, | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
so they could tow them back into here. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
When a whale was spotted, | 0:43:27 | 0:43:29 | |
it just wasn't the boats from one station going out to get it. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
There was maybe four or five stations | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
and they're all competing because | 0:43:33 | 0:43:35 | |
the one that actually harpooned it first, had the claim on the whale. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:39 | |
So, once they'd actually harpooned it. | 0:43:39 | 0:43:41 | |
The whale would tow the boat around for a while, | 0:43:41 | 0:43:43 | |
get exhausted and then they'd come in here to lance. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:46 | |
-Did people die doing this? -Oh, they did and I mean occasionally. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
Not a huge number but, you know, boats got upset, you know, | 0:43:49 | 0:43:53 | |
and the bad weather, or the whales, or the whale line | 0:43:53 | 0:43:55 | |
as it was going out would get caught around someone's leg or something. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:59 | |
It was a dangerous occupation. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:01 | |
They'd bring the carcass about 50 yards off shore | 0:44:02 | 0:44:04 | |
and set up a basically a platform where they cut the blubber off. | 0:44:04 | 0:44:10 | |
They'd draw it up with a block and tackle | 0:44:10 | 0:44:12 | |
and they'd roll the whale, basically. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
They'd draw the whole whale up and then kind of peel it like an orange? | 0:44:14 | 0:44:17 | |
Yeah, they do. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
One of the characteristics of these sites is we get these, | 0:44:20 | 0:44:22 | |
what we call, blubber bricks. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:23 | |
So they have this really thick residue. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
They used to use the scraps of blubber | 0:44:26 | 0:44:28 | |
to actually put back into the fire. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:29 | |
So it gave off this really greasy residue, | 0:44:29 | 0:44:32 | |
which actually sticks to the bricks. | 0:44:32 | 0:44:34 | |
If it leaves this black stuff when you burn it... | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
when they were making the actual oil it would have been giving off | 0:44:36 | 0:44:40 | |
a black smoke, then? | 0:44:40 | 0:44:41 | |
Oh, it would have been disgusting. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:43 | |
You know it would have been this big, thick, greasy thing. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:45 | |
And they actually reckon with the whaling ships, especially, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
even if you couldn't see the ships, | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
you could actually smell them from a couple of miles away. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
And this was what it was all about... whale oil. | 0:44:56 | 0:44:59 | |
An average 15m whale could yield about 8,000 litres. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
So, what happened, why did it all stop? | 0:45:04 | 0:45:06 | |
Basically because the whale numbers just declined | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
so dramatically from over overfishing. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:12 | |
They dropped, ah, the 1840s to the 1850s there was virtually | 0:45:12 | 0:45:15 | |
no whales being caught here. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:18 | |
In a sense, it was an industry that burned brightly | 0:45:18 | 0:45:21 | |
but consumed itself over a couple of decades. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:23 | |
So, what remains of that time? | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
Hello. | 0:45:29 | 0:45:31 | |
'On the final stop of my journey, I'm meeting Margaret Wise, | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
'a descendent of Adventure Bay whalers, | 0:45:34 | 0:45:36 | |
'and she's got a couple of interesting artefacts | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
'she wants to show me.' | 0:45:39 | 0:45:40 | |
And this is a pair of whale's teeth. | 0:45:40 | 0:45:44 | |
The sailors would etch pictures... | 0:45:44 | 0:45:46 | |
'This is Scrimshaw. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:48 | |
'The intricate design and etching was no mean feat given the pitch | 0:45:48 | 0:45:52 | |
'and yaw of ocean waves.' | 0:45:52 | 0:45:54 | |
Very fine detail. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
There was another product that we obtained from the whale | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
that was part of women's fashion and this was the baleen, | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
from the mouth of the whale through which they sieved. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:08 | |
It's fairly firm and thin | 0:46:08 | 0:46:10 | |
and became very, very useful in inserting | 0:46:10 | 0:46:15 | |
into a lady's corset. | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
And in the early days this is a corset that ladies used to wear. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:26 | |
-Right. -To keep their waists trim, taut, and terrific. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
-Shall we give it a go? -Would you like to? | 0:46:30 | 0:46:33 | |
Not having much faith that's going to fit, but... | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
The lace is at the back. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:38 | |
They were tiny weren't they? | 0:46:38 | 0:46:41 | |
Well... | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
I think we need to bring it down just a little. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
I don't think this going to go around me. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
No, they had such tiny, tiny waists. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:52 | |
Oh, I do not fancy wearing this. | 0:46:53 | 0:46:55 | |
I'm sure it would have been much bigger | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
had I had to wear one in those days. | 0:46:57 | 0:46:59 | |
-Oh, can we take it off now? -Yeah. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
Fortunately, fashion changes, as did the fate of whaling. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:06 | |
Commercial whaling was banned in 1986. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
At its peak between 1835 and 1839, | 0:47:11 | 0:47:15 | |
about 12,000 right whales were taken in Australian waters. | 0:47:15 | 0:47:20 | |
Today, worldwide, they number just 8,000. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:25 | |
150 years after the whaling stopped, | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
do you think we'll ever see whales back in Adventure Bay? | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
Earlier this year we had at least eight whales at one time | 0:47:31 | 0:47:36 | |
in Adventure Bay. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:38 | |
And we believe that one of them calved as well. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
So, the evidence is showing that each year there are more and more | 0:47:41 | 0:47:46 | |
whales obvious to us out in the bay, | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
and I didn't think that I would ever live to see the day | 0:47:49 | 0:47:52 | |
when so many whales were there. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:54 | |
But, yes, they're coming back. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:56 | |
I call that...forgiveness. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:01 | |
Our journey through Tasmania is at an end for now. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:10 | |
This island may have begun its colonial life | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
as a severe penal corner of the British empire, | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
but even the convicts recognised the paradox of doing time | 0:48:16 | 0:48:20 | |
in a patch of Eden. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:21 | |
Next time, Dr Xanthe Mallet discovers an abandoned fort | 0:48:23 | 0:48:27 | |
that had the job of protecting the nation. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:30 | |
Professor Tim Flannery explores Fraser Island, | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
a world-famous sanctuary, but is it edible? | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
It's like tasting history, really. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:39 | |
Dr Emma Johnston finds that to save the dugong, | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
you have to capture it first. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:44 | |
What we're looking for is when they pop up | 0:48:44 | 0:48:46 | |
and their nose pops out of the water. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:48 | |
Brendan Moar reveals the true history | 0:48:48 | 0:48:51 | |
of the great Australian prawn. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:53 | |
This is a strange and unsettling place. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
And I investigate an outpost for outcasts. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 |