mareTV Classics New Zealand - Bay of Islands
A landscape in which coast and sea combine in many different ways: Bays, headlands, sandbanks and 144 islands - this is the Bay of Islands in the north-east of New Zealand's North Island. Few people live here, but there are all the more animals and fish.
The emigration counsellor in Wellington comes to surf less and less often. Thousands of Europeans want to start all over again in New Zealand. No wonder, because the islands in the Pacific have a lot to offer: 18,000 kilometres of coastline, glaciers, rainforests, mighty waterfalls and huge seal colonies. The imposing fjord landscape of the ‘Marlborough Sounds’ at the tip of the South Island has everything that makes New Zealand special: dream beaches and wildly rugged cliffs. The post arrives here by mailboat and the mussel fishermen use their gigantic harvesting boats to harvest the world's largest mussel harvest. ‘mare’ reporters venture across the 90-Mile-Beach, a beach that is a road and only for seaworthy drivers.
Unexpectedly large waves, gusts of wind and gulleys make this highway a challenge. Maori Steve is a bus driver on this route, which never gets boring. In addition, ‘mare’ takes part in the biggest Maori canoe race in New Zealand. Canoes here are not puny ‘little boats’, but 36 metres long + carry up to a hundred crew. Once a year, the indigenous people of New Zealand engage in this fierce competition. The martial ‘Maori waka canoes’ are propelled through the water at more than twenty knots in honour of the Maori queen.
Broadcasting on 27th of April 2024 at 01.15pm on BR/NDR/ARD
Music: POPVIRUS Library.