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.

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 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.

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.