1 On the 21st of March 1847, deep in the Buller Gorge, Thomas Brunner wrote in his diary 10 simple words. He said, 'Rain continuing, dietary shorter, strength decreasing, spirits failing, prospects fearful.' If that doesn't sum up an ordinary New Zealand long weekend, I don't know what does. But who Thomas Brunner is, who he's with, and why they're here is all part of a bigger New Zealand story ` the story of the great unknown. (EPIC MUSIC) (MUSIC SWELLS) (TRIUMPHANT MUSIC) (WHIMSICAL STRING MUSIC) New Zealand has a past filled with people who thought, 'She'll be right,' when more often than not, it wasn't. Join me as we celebrate these true stories of the history that history tried to forget. (WHIMSICAL STRING MUSIC) New Zealand has many famous explorers, but there were a lot of people who helped them do what they did whose names we'll never know. Tonight we celebrate some of those people. To tell these true tales of extraordinary New Zealanders, I'm using some ordinary New Zealanders, some of whom you'll know, some you won't. So keep your eyes out for a former rugby star and my two favourite MasterChef winners as we tell the story of The Great Unknown. (SOFT STRING MUSIC) It's the 1840s, and the interior of New Zealand remains largely uncharted. But with ever-increasing numbers of Europeans flocking to live here, that is about to change. The new settlers of Nelson are desperately short of land, but here in the hills above the town, there's rumoured to be an immense plain, boundless to the eyes, where birds as big as geese are killing dogs. It sounds ideal. If only someone can find it. The man given the job is Thomas Brunner, a 26-year-old surveyor with a penchant for exploration and diary-keeping. And this diary is going to become one of the greatest books of exploration ever written in the history of the country... not that he knows it yet. He's travelling with two Maori guides, Hone Mokekehu and Epikewate, and they have with them their wives ` something about which Brunner is not too happy. That may explain why, despite his meticulous note-taking, not once does he ever mention the women's names. What did he write down? Oh, well, he does list the day he changes his underpants. Uh, for example, April the 4th ` 'My last pair of unmentionables are now brought into active use.' Ugh, why'd he mention that? Well, he also mentions he's travelling with his friend's dog, Rover. So he writes down the dog's name? Seriously? And not ours? (SIGHS) Thomas, you egg! The relationship between Brunner and the wives is becoming a little frayed. The tension between Brunner and the women is unsurprising given the rough terrain,... Argh! ...the incessant rain,... (THUNDERCLAP) (SIGHS) Great. ...and the fact that by day 14, Brunner notes that they are all suffering from dysentery. (RUMBLING) The nature of their journey means they can't carry too many supplies, so they intend to forage for food as they go. Despite these hardships, Brunner is relentless in his quest to find farmland. We'll be lost until we're not lost! That is exactly right. Exactly right. For Brunner if anything can go wrong, it does, apart from his relationship with Hone Mokekehu. It's a fascinating partnership, Maori and Pakeha struggling to survive together in an inhospitable wilderness. Why fascinating? Because of Hone Mokekehu's whakapapa and an event that occurred 200 years before. (EPIC MUSIC) It's the 18th of December 1642, and the people of Hone Mokekehu's iwi, Ngati Tumatakokiri, are about to become the first Maori to see on the horizon two vast, white-winged waka. Aboard them are Dutchman Abel Tasman and his crew, who, days earlier, were the first Europeans to see the place, whereupon Tasman said... Behold, men ` South America! This came as a great surprise to his men, because they were actually looking for Australia; a large land mass that Abel Tasman has, so far, not been able to find. As Tasman's ships sail into the bay, the people of Ngati Tumatakokiri do as custom dictates and blow a long note on the conch. (CONCH WAILS) Orchestra! Tasman, perhaps impressed by the warm welcome, instructs the ship's orchestra to play a tune in response. (TRUMPET NOTE WAVERS) (FAST DRUM BEATS) No one knows what that tune was, which` Well, it's a great shame, because it marks a significant moment in our history. For the people of Tumatakokiri, it symbolises that the ritual challenge to battle has been accepted. The next morning, as several of Tasman's men row across to the other ship, a canoe races effortlessly up towards them. The natives leap into the Dutchmen's dinghy. They begin laying about themselves with what appear to be exquisitely carved and very sharp pieces of jade. Within a moment, three of the Dutchmen are dead. A fourth lies mortally wounded, his brains oozing out of the hole in his skull. Fire! Tasman, witnessing this, does the only thing he thinks he can do in the circumstances. (BOOM!) He fires the ship's cannon. The men of Ngati Tumatakokiri think, 'Well, we don't really know what that is, 'but victory appears to be ours,' and they leave, paddling home with one of the bodies of the dead Dutchmen for the after-match function. Tasman thinks, 'Uh, this is not the place for me,' and he departs. He sails up the coast and after a few weeks, he leaves. (GRUNTS) Despite being the first Europeans to lay eyes on this fair land, neither Tasman nor any of his men ever actually set foot on shore. They probably should have called him 'not-so Abel Tasman'. Like Tasman, Thomas Brunner is also a little disillusioned with what he's finding. In Brunner's case, though, what he's finding is nothing. Hungry and frustrated, on day 76 of his journey, Brunner writes ` I am getting so sick of this exploring, the walking and the diet being so bad that were it not for the shame of the thing, I would return. Brunner set out to find flat farmland for the settlers of Nelson. But as an explorer, he simply cannot go back without discovering something. Like our names. Talk about the great unknown. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) 1 WOMAN: The slowest goes at the front, cos we was waiting around for you at the back end again. Ugh. Well, who made your belt to keep your skirt up? Yeah, made me the uncomfortable one, and you get that nice one that you made yourself. (SCOFFS) Thomas Brunner is travelling with two Maori guides, their wives, and his friend's dog, Rover, through some of the harshest terrain in the country. They're looking for new farmland for the settlers of Nelson, but things are not going well. ...nothing to cook. He should be out helping to get food. His main problem is that the birds they expected to hunt for food were gone. Only 70 years earlier, Captain Cook's crew reported that the sound of the birdsong in New Zealand's bush was so loud it could be heard miles offshore. But now... The bush is quieter than it's been for tens of thousands of years. They wouldn't, for example, have heard this ` (SIMPLE MELODY PLAYS) (MELODY CONTINUES) Hello, Sally. What are we listening to here? This is the song of an extinct New Zealand bird called the huia, that went extinct in 1907. And, um, these notations were made, um, by two different sources, I think. The first one was an anonymous surveyor, and then there was WT Carver of Wanganui. What they did was, what, they went out and listened to the bird and then wrote it down as a musical score? There is actually quite a lot of difference between what we're looking at here, and what the bird would have sounded like. So it's a ghost of what the bird was, based on a human, or a Pakeha interpretation of it through Western musical notation. So listening back to it, we're just hearing that` that filtering, that ghost. I think there's still a trace of the huia song in the native birds that are` the endemic birds that are still here. Like, I'm sure that the tui and the bellbird ` the tui, especially, cos it's a mimic bird, that'll have a trace of the huia in its song still. So maybe it will remember and start playing the songs again. It's amazing, isn't it, really, how quickly humans and introduced predators just devastated birds on what was an island nation full of birds. Yeah, well, that was the problem really, wasn't it? I mean, there were no mammals here, apart from a couple of bats and a seal or two, and` and the birds had no` They had no chance. If they can't survive on the mainland now, even though, you know, people are trying. The mainland ecosanctuary phenomenon is just fantastic. It is fantastic, but now people are complaining. 'The birds are too noisy.' (LAUGHS) Do you find an irony in that? We haven't learnt anything, have we? No, we haven't. We've gone through the great silence,... Yeah. ...and now that the noise is being turned up again, we're not used to it. Brunner is devastated by this silence. He'd been hoping to study the birds, to paint them, and, of course, to eat them. A lack of food isn't their only problem. Brunner and his guides have been exploring for nearly three months. They're exhausted, cold and permanently soaked from the incessant rain. And to make it worse, the women aren't getting along. WOMAN: We're always waiting for you, every morning. Brunner writes in his diary, 'My female travelling companions quarrelled and fought. 'I had much difficulty in reconciling them.' WOMAN: Yeah, because I pack everything. WOMAN: No, you don't. You're just... I don't know what you're doing. (SIGHS) But when a flash flood washes their precious canoe into the middle of a frozen lake, it's not the men who do anything about it. If only Brunner could have remembered their names. Thanks, uh... Thanks! Ugh! And it might have helped him if he'd read the diaries of Bishop Selwyn, written only a few years before. Selwyn is the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand. And here he is on his epic 1843 cross-country walking tour of the interior ` a tour on which he travelled with a Macintosh airbed. I refer to it as my state barge on such occasions. Safe travels. Who knew they had airbeds in 1843? Apparently, Bishop Selwyn. Now, you might think that I'm making this up,... Is that a rock? ...but that's actually true. Someone else who knew the value of airbeds was Edward Jerningham Wakefield, because in 1848, in his very handy Handbook for New Zealand, he wrote that people should follow the bishop's example and pack themselves a lilo. The handbook is fascinating because in it Wakefield describes the skills the settlers would need in this new frontier. And they're skills that New Zealanders still pride themselves on 150 years later. For example, Wakefield says... The ability to kill and clean a hog is far from useless. As true now as it was then. (SPLAT!) Ow, my leg! He also says, 'If you can learn how to amputate a limb, so much the better.' (GROANS) Surprised we still don't teach this in schools. No, no, I'm fine! REGRETFULLY: Oh. And because they wanted a society of sophistication and culture, Wakefield notes... Playing a musical instrument is an accomplishment of infinite value. (PLAYS VIOLIN) But he adds, 'Music should be learned before starting the voyage.' Why? Simple. Nothing is so disagreeable as a fellow passenger learning to sing or play an instrument. Particularly on a six-month voyage from England on a ship full of people adept at slaughtering hogs and amputating limbs. Quite right. But in this respect, Wakefield was wrong. There is something more disagreeable than a fellow passenger learning to sing or play a musical instrument. And that's being stuck in the bush with the very unlucky Thomas Brunner. Because according to his diary, things are about to get far worse for him and his companions. Ugh, I knew it. (GROANS) Where'd you get that apple? I think he's trying too hard. (CHUCKLES) (DOG BARKS) I believe I have now acquired the capability of walking barefoot. In fact, I feel I am just beginning to make exploring easy work. (LIVELY, UPBEAT VIOLIN MUSIC) Crushed my foot between rocks and severely strained my right ankle. Also hurt in several other places. On day 88, Brunner writes... This morning I suffered two hours of the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced. The natives ascribed it to the fern root diet. This is fern root, which Brunner describes as... Exceedingly indigestible. It's very high in fibre. In fact, all it really is is concentrated fibre, which means that everyone is suffering from severe constipation. So I guess you must all be looking back at that dysentery on day 14 with a sense of fond nostalgia. (LIVELY MUSIC CONTINUES) (MAJESTIC MUSIC) It's 1846. Thomas Brunner and his Maori guides, Epikewate and Hone Mokekehu` And their wives. ...and their wives and his friend's dog, Rover, are currently in the midst of one of the greatest feats of exploration in the history of New Zealand. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) They struggle through impenetrable bush, along treacherous riverbeds, and scale sheer cliffs, hauling Rover with them, often in freezing rain. Worse, they have virtually no food. Any normal person would have returned. But Thomas Brunner is not a quitter. Are we there yet? No. By day 175, Brunner says, 'Nothing to live on but a few rats.' On day 184, he notes, 'The natives, when very hungry, wanted to kill my dog, Rover, but I refused.' (SOMBRE MUSIC) A few days later he writes, 'The flesh of a dog is very palatable, 'tasting something between mutton and pork.' (SOMBRE MUSIC) (LAUGHTER, CHATTER) Because of this, Brunner became known as Kai Kuri ` the dog eater. Have either of you two managed to eat any dog in the past? Uh, no. No, I haven't, unfortunately. No, it's interesting, of course, um, it is one of those things that has a bit of a stigma. But, um, Captain James Cook himself said he'd never tasted a sweeter flesh than dog meat. So it was quite a common thing for some Europeans to actually eat dogs. I think dogs' diets were different back then, though. I think they had a predominantly vegetarian diet. So I think, you know, once they start eating meat, they taste a bit funky. Yeah. Yeah, so you're an (LAUGHS) expert on that now, are you? Yes, I am. (CHUCKLES) Mm-hm. What must it have been like for the women, you know? You two, you're playing people who are, essentially, often written out of history. I feel really sorry for them, actually. It would be hard being a woman out there. Yeah, and I think also having that` being a part of that history, and not, you know` no one knows about it, and nobody knows their name. You know, people still don't know what their names are, so it's pretty sad, to be honest. They often ate, um, a lot of fern root. Have you ever tried fern root? I` We haven't tried it, but I've heard about it. Um, you cook it for a few days, and it's really fibrous. And I think it's quite hard on your body as well, so` It is. It caused, um, terrible constipation. And, in fact, Brunner writes that the two women were so badly constipated, um, he says they had to take, um, a sharp stone and use it all about the painful parts. Which none of that's` I'm glad we didn't have to act that part. I'm glad that was left out of the script, to be honest. (LAUGHS) But none of it sounds pleasurable. What`? Can you imagine? What`? Did it work? No. A few days back, you were having to eat rats ` day 175. What would you do to those to spice them up a little bit? Hm, I think I'd butterfly it, and then I'd make, like, a sheet of kawa-kawa leaves. I'd put it down, make a pikopiko pesto, wrap that up and then I'd boil it so it became a sausage. And then I'd pan sear it and then slice it like that. You actually are making it sound ridiculously appealing. Thank you very much. I'm glad we didn't say it too loud because I imagine Brunner would, um` he'd be having conniptions if he knew that, you know, people could have done that to it. So, what is happening with Brunner now? Well, the dog must've proved fairly nutritious, because you are gonna continue walking. Oh, thanks (!) So off you go! (CHUCKLES) Happy trails! QUIETLY: Thanks. Say hi to Brunner for me. Is there any chance of, um` Can I have a biscuit? Any chance of a biscuit or a cup of tea? (SOLEMN STRING MUSIC) Brunner and his companions head all the way down the largely uninhabited West Coast to day 363. They're forced to survive by eating seaweed, and they still haven't found the vast and boundless plain in the hills above Nelson. I suspect they'd have trouble even finding Nelson. Or maybe Brunner just doesn't wanna go home because he has no idea how to explain what happened to Rover. But finally... Are we there yet? Yes. Unable to face another winter eating seaweed, they turn and head home. (SOLEMN STRING MUSIC) 125 days later, on day 488 of their journey, they find themselves, once again, deep in the Buller Gorge. And on April the 15th, Brunner writes what, I think, is the most powerful entry in his journal. During the night, I lose the entire use of my right side, and in the morning I could not move. I had the mortification of hearing Epikewate propose to Mokekehu to proceed and leave me, urging I appeared too ill to recover soon,... if ever. Brunner has suffered a debilitating stroke and is paralysed down one side. With winter fast approaching, Epikewate and his wife depart. But Mokekehu refuses to leave Brunner to die. The three of them, cold and starving, are in one of the most inhospitable parts of the country. No one knows where they are, and there is no hope of rescue. (SOMBRE MUSIC) Over a period of weeks, Mrs Kehu slowly nurses Brunner back to health, before Mokekehu carries him all the way back to safety. Brunner may not have found the vast and boundless plain, but at least he made meticulous notes and sketches on what he did find. But when they're nearly home, his notes get soaked. Luckily, he manages to start a fire and dry them. However, because this is Thomas Brunner, he falls asleep and fails to notice the fire consuming his precious papers. Reunited with Epikewate and his wife, who they found hopelessly lost, they eventually they arrive back in Nelson ` completing the longest recorded feat of exploration in the nation's history, having been away for 550 days. The final line in Brunner's diary reads, simply, 'To Ekehu I owe my life.' Ah, we made it. We did it. My lovely wife, where are you` As a tribute to Mokekehu's courage and compassion, they name a mountain after him ` Kehu Peak. Brunner's legacy lives on too. He did fill in a lot of the great unknowns on the West Coast. He discovered the sources of two major rivers; he got a lake named after him; and the rich seam of coal he found was named the Brunner Mine. What did they name after us? (SIGHS) Exactly. After this incredible feat of exploration, they arrived back to a typically understated New Zealand welcome, when the people of Nelson said, 'Oh yeah, we wondered where you'd gotten to.' Apart from one man who said... So, how's Rover? Well, he was good. Would've been a lot better with gravy. It's a long story. Have you heard of fern root?