(MAJESTIC MUSIC) 150 million years ago, the colossal push and shove of the ocean floor and undulating uplift formed this 80km long finger of land ` the Coromandel Peninsula, a mountainous strip that stretches far and deep into the North Island's Hauraki Gulf. (MAJESTIC MUSIC CONTINUES) There are around 400km of golden beaches here. Tourists and holidaymakers flock to them. They leave touched by the sun and by the beauty. Beyond the coast, the misty mountainous interior is lush with native rainforest. The history is rich and varied. It's all things to all people. Joining me on this fascinating adventure around the Coromandel coastline ` geologist Dr Hamish Campbell uncovers secrets of New Zealand's earliest settlers. It's really important for all of us. This is our history. This is our beginnings. Marine biologist Jacky Geurts rips up the surf. Actually travelling really fast. Yeah, so now you can see it's heading out towards the rocks. Marine archaeologist Matt Carter leaves the water to reach for the sky. (CHUCKLES) Are we there yet? Here we go. And I board a Yak to see the coast like never before. Oh, that's so wrong. We're on the Coromandel Peninsula, and this is Coast New Zealand. ('COAST' THEME) Captions by Julie Taylor. Edited by Desney Shaw. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 Our journey around the Coromandel takes in Te Puru, up to Long Bay, across to Great Mercury Island, through Pauanui, and Whangamata. The Coromandel Peninsula, joined to the rest of New Zealand at the Hauraki Plains, offers up a smorgasbord of beautiful beaches. Some remain untouched, like New Chums, regularly voted in the world's top 10 beaches, others have become a haven for holidaymakers. And there's Pauanui, a beach like no other in this country, a purpose-built holiday hamlet and site of the country's first canal housing development. It's currently home to a team of world-beating aviators. Kiwis are not, generally speaking, a flashy lot; not much given to obvious displays of extravagance. So here at Pauanui, the fact that you can park your own aircraft in your own backyard, is not regarded as showing off. I mean, if you could, why wouldn't you? In 1967, an enterprising family of five brothers, the Hoppers, purchased 256 acres of undeveloped land and set about creating New Zealand's first ocean beach resort ` Pauanui. Originally, the land was accessible only by boat, so naturally an airstrip was included in the town planning. From there, I guess it was a logical step to build these hangar homes along the runway. Kevin Jane is lucky enough to be the owner of one. How many people are there, like yourself, you know, who have got a house here and got an aircraft parked outside? Uh, there's about 25 or so on the edge of the airfield itself. Some have got hangars, some don't have hangars, but, yeah, it's pretty unique. And how does this operation work? Do you have to pay for the` I don't know, for the` for the service of the airstrip? Ah, we do. We, um` We've got on honesty box for... No. (CHUCKLES) Yes. We've got an honesty box, but it's $10 for all day. So you can do as many landings as you want all day. Or, like us permanents, we pay $100 a year. How did you get into the flying game? Were you a commercial pilot? No, I was a dairy farmer,... Ha! ...and I flew the helicopters to and from work, uh, and basically got into flying that way and then, um, bought one of these. And what is one of these? What are we looking at? Oh, this is a Yak-52. It's a basic trainer in Russia. Kevin is one of the Pauanui Yaks, who broke the world record in 2016 for a nine-ship formation, a display that was years in the making. (LIVELY STRING MUSIC) What is it about this plane that lends itself particularly to stunts and aerobatics? Oh, they've got a huge amount of power on the front with a 360 horse-power engine, and they can sustain flight and aerobatics. It's fully inverted, so it means you can fly along upside down for quite some time. And you` you could take me up in this? I'm pretty sure I could take you up in this. Yeah. And you can definitely bring me safely back down to the ground? I will definitely bring you safely back down to the ground. Cos that's gonna be quite important for me. (LAUGHS) (PLANE ENGINE STARTS) (EASY-GOING MUSIC) (EASY-GOING MUSIC CONTINUES) Well, not many people get the privileged opportunity to see the Coromandel Peninsula from this perspective, but here we are, looking down at the blue below from the blue above. Just amazing. Oh, look at that coastline there. That's magical down there. It's stunning. It's funny, isn't it, how everything looks better from above? Yeah. Seems to make more sense from up here. Yup. OK. This is downwind here. We're going to get into a barrel roll, OK? Barrel roll, here we go. Oh, that's so wrong. Oh, that's so terribly wrong. (LAUGHS) You may well laugh. (LAUGHS) Here we go for a loop. Here we go, everybody. Oh, gosh! Oh yeah, there's the loop. Sweet Jiminy. Whoo! (LAUGHS) Oh, man. There's the sea where the ground should be. Oh. Oh, take me home. (CHUCKLES) (EASY-GOING MUSIC CONTINUES) Two for clear. Thanks, Kev. You're welcome. There's something just so unlikely about the hangar houses here at Pauanui, and then you see ` or better yet, experience ` the Yaks in action, and suddenly it all makes sense. One minute, you're carving up the skies at 280-odd km/h, and the next, you're parked up in paradise. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) Up next ` is this where the ancients first came ashore? This is a incredible archaeological landscape. We're just uncovering a piece of bone, here. 1 New Zealand ` the last major land mass on Earth to be inhabited between 700 and 1000 years ago; when exactly, is an ongoing debate. Maori reached back through oral history and mythology for their understanding, while Europeans have been using science to find conclusive evidence of when Polynesians first arrived here. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) Geologist Hamish Campbell is on the hunt for answers to a question that keeps many a Kiwi archaeologist awake at night. First landfall ` when and where? I'm heading out to Great Mercury Island, where an archaeological dig is uncovering some very exciting news. Great Mercury Island is the largest island in the Mercury group, just 8km off the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. Privately owned, it's given over to farming, pine plantations, and a little archaeology that's revealing big things. Rebecca Phillipps is leading a joint team from the University of Auckland and Auckland Museum. So, what do we have here, Rebecca, and what are you looking for? Well, this is a incredible archaeological landscape. We've got nearly every site-type you could imagine for a pre-European/Maori occupation. We've got stone terraces for gardening; we've got terraces associated with residence. We have shell midden; we have fish midden. We have moa. It's just incredibly rich. And we could see there were a lot of obsidian artefacts on the ground. Obsidian is volcanic glass, formed by rapidly cooled lava. Before the advent of metal, it was prized as a cutting tool. Obsidian is a stone that was very commonly used in the past, but we have a huge quantity of that here. Is there obsidian actually on the island? Is`? Is there a source of it? No, there is no obsidian source on Great Mercury Island. All of the obsidian comes from further away. What does that mean? Why would they not just go to one source? It means that in, what we think is the earliest periods of Polynesian occupation of New Zealand, people are moving around quite a lot. We're just uncovering a piece of bone, here. It may be part of the exploration of this archipelago, finding out where the different resources are, or it may also suggest that people are quite connected with each other in that early period and they are maintaining those networks by procuring stone from distant sources. So, we have little pieces like this, and if you have a look there, and if you sort of see the transmitted light through there, and it's got a slight greenish tinge. Yes. Yes, it's definitely greenish. That usually tells us it's probably from Mayor Island. The country's largest single site of obsidian is at Mayor Island, a dormant shield volcano located off the Bay of Plenty coast. It's also been found as far north as the Kermadecs and at Tiwai Point, at the bottom of the South Island. The very first archaeological dig that I was involved in was 1975, in the Chatham Islands, and on that very occasion, I found obsidian. And guess what ` it was identical to this. It too was also from Mayor Island. But the true significance of this relates to people, and this tells us volumes about the life and customs; how people survived way back hundreds of years, and to think that these were among some of the very first people here in New Zealand. With a cooler climate than tropical Polynesia, settlers had to experiment with where crops could grow. Oral tradition referring to Great Mercury, or Ahu Ahu, as the homeland of kumara is now being tested in the field. Around a hill, in a marshy valley, Matt Prebble continues his pioneering work in field core sampling. Just watch yourself through here. OK, so, this is a D-section peat corer. We're actually going down about 2.5m, and we essentially attach a series of rods. So, Tom, here, is my trusty coring hand. Oh, look at that. (GRUNTS) And on top. Surely that's rock bottom? Yep. OK, so now we cut it, and (STRAINED) turning it around. It's all flat, all ready to pull up now. OK, so, you should actually have half a metre or so of sediment in the bottom? Of 14th and 15th century age garden soils. (GRUNTS) Ah, good. So, I'll just clean that up a bit. Right. So, what we've got here is, at the base, we've got a layer of` you can see it's a blue/green coloured sediment, and that's formed by an old stream bed. And above that you can see these flakes of charcoal. They date back to around the 14th and early 15th century. Right. These are highly dateable materials, aren't they? Well, they are, and` and so a lot of my work is collecting these sediments and sieving them for small seeds. So, what is the significance of this research? One of the hypotheses that we've been stuck with for` for decades is the whole myth of the moa hunter myth. So, that when Polynesians arrived in New Zealand, they gave up agriculture and just became moa hunters, and that was what they focused on. Right. It never really rung true for me and for a lot of my, um, peers as well, so it was like, well... And it's not what we see on any of the other islands in the Pacific, as well. People don't give up agriculture. They're agriculturalists. It's part of their DNA to be an agriculturalist. Taro is an ancestor. Kumara is an ancestor. You don't give up on your ancestors when you arrive on an island. This is myth-busting archaeology on Great Mercury Island. Auckland University's Professor Simon Holdaway concludes this was a valuable stop along an ancient trade 'super highway'. I think we've got to think that the` about the early Polynesian people moving around, using their great waka to go between places, to move regularly. The ocean and the islands tell us the story about movement. So the way that we can do this is to learn from Maori tradition, certainly, but also to learn from the materials that the very first people to arrive in our country left behind, and that's archaeology. So, what is the value of this knowledge? Oh, I think it's really important for all of us. This is our history. This is our beginnings. As a nation, these are the first people to discover Aotearoa, New Zealand, so it's fundamental to our sense of place, our worth as a nation, to understand our past. Coming up ` exposing the most dangerous threat in the surf. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) 1 The emerald Coromandel Ranges, wrapped by golden beaches so beloved by international and local holidaymakers. This is epic beauty created by millions of years of violent seismic activity, with another particularly pleasant by-product. Jacky Geurts is taking her spade ` without a bucket ` to Hot Water Beach to investigate. This is probably Coromandel's worst-kept secret. The name itself is a dead giveaway. Below my feet are naturally occurring hot springs that attract hordes of shovel-wielding tourists at low tide. The springs are formed by water seeping through fissures in the base rock. It travels down thousands of metres over molten magma and returns to the surface in hot streams at rates as high as 15 litres per minute. Despite its distance from better known hotspots in the centre of the North Island, Hot Water Beach is classified as a Small Geothermal System. Hi! Hi, Jacky. How are you? I thought I might join you. Welcome to our world-famous Hot Water Beach. Sheree and Grant Webster are Hot Water Beach regulars. Wow! That's really nice and warm. It is. It's beautiful. Doesn't matter what the weather is at Hot Water Beach, there's always hot water, so... How hot does it get? Um, it gets up to about 64 degrees, but there's three distinctive streams, and um, each of them are a different temperature, so the idea is that people sort of dig a hole so that they can hold the hot water in, and then the cold water will seep in, as well. It's like building your own fort. Oh! Hello! (CHUCKLES) How many people can come here during the peak times? Oh, some weekends you'll get, um, maybe a couple of thousand on the beach, but not just specifically here ` over the whole beach. So, what sort of people come here? For the most part of the year, it's the internationals that are coming through, but the nice thing is that hundreds and thousands of people can be here, and then this ocean comes in` the tide comes in, and there's no footprints left at all. So it's just a new day. Oh my God. Ow! (ALL LAUGH) OK, that's a little bit too hot for me. I'm gonna go jump in the ocean. All right. But thank you so much. (CHUCKLES) No problem. Thanks, Jacky. See ya. See ya. Whoo! (LAUGHS) That's really cold! Whoo! From hot to cold ` the shock to the system is one of the hazards of this place. But there are other hidden risks that make Hot Water Beach the most dangerous in New Zealand. Shari Gallop is a coastal morphologist who studies surfside water movement. She specialises in the very thing that catches out unwitting swimmers looking to cool off after their time in the hot pools. So, what's the most dangerous thing on this beach? On this particular one here is rip currents. Rips can form in a variety of ways, but the ones that we see here, we call these channel rips. So, these happen when you have sandbars, and you have a deeper channel in between, so you look for a calm area in between the breaking waves. That's where the rip current is. Yeah, so flatter? Yeah. Using more than three years' worth of images sent every second from a camera overlooking Tairua Beach, Shari created a computer programme to automatically locate rips off the Coromandel Coast. Today she's using a quicker and more graphic way to identify these deadly currents ` a non-toxic, water soluble dye that will trace the rip's flow. With accurate pinpointing of where the currents are headed, swimmers can be better informed about the dangers and how to avoid them. I forgot to wear my gloves. You're like the Purple People Eater. I am. (CHUCKLES) So, now hopefully we're gonna see the dye going out on the rip. See, you can see now, it's just kind of hanging around a bit in the breaking waves. A little bit is coming on shore. Look at it go. It's actually travelling really fast. Yeah, so now you can see it's heading out towards the rocks. I didn't think it would head around the rocks. I thought it would, like, travel out to sea. Yeah, so rips can sometimes travel in angles. So, in this case, it's got caught in the feeder channel. It's gone a bit along shore, and now it's turned and heading out seawards, out behind the rocks. So, you can see now how the dye is actually starting to dissipate at the end of the surf zone, and some of it is actually coming in` back in towards the shore on the other side of the rock. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) I imagine it's quite a scary thing when you realise that you're stuck in a rip, because all of a sudden you're out at sea, and... I mean, look how far I've come. (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) There are a few basic rules to follow if you do find yourself caught in a rip. Resist the urge to swim against the rip back to shore. Instead, let it carry you out until the current subsides, as the Hot Water Beach rip did when it rounded the rocks. If you can, swim parallel to the beach for 30m to 40m before heading back to shore. And most importantly, if you require assistance, stay calm, raise your arm and call for help. (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) And look at that! Apparently waving works. (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) Local surf life-saving legend Gary Hinds knows all too well the cold realities of Hot Water Beach. The rips we get running here are the biggest problem. We did 12,000 preventative actions involving about 57,000 people last year, on top of the 120 rescues we did, so we did the most rescues in New Zealand. Is it mainly locals? Or is it tourists? No, these... It's all tourists. I can't remember the last time we actually rescued somebody from the Coromandel. So everybody outside that, to us, is a tourist. You've got a lot of people coming from inland States or Russia or those countries that are landlocked, and they don't realise how much trouble you can get in in rips. We're very lucky to be living here, and they just come for that special, I suppose, feeling of what we've got up here. So there's a trap for young players. The gently steaming pools are indeed a natural wonder, but cool off at your peril, because Hot Water Beach can giveth, but she can easily taketh away. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) Look at the size of it. Next ` one of the last in a land of giants. That's about 1000 years old. 1000 years? Yeah. (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) Burial at sea ` it has such romantic overtones. For salt-weary men, hardened by a life on the open waves, to be wrapped in sailcloth, weighted with cannonballs and sent to their watery graves. Surely, that was their rightful resting place? But one poor young soul on the Coromandel, between Tairua and Whitianga, lies not just 12,000 miles from home, but 6ft underground. According to the original headstone, one Able Seaman William Sampson from Devonport drowned in the surf opposite this spot on the 6th of May 1842. Lt Commander Garth Mathieson is part of the Royal New Zealand Naval Reserve unit. They're charged with maintaining Sampson's gravesite. So, who was he? Uh, Able Seaman Sampson was a 22-year-old man, born in Britain, who joined the HMS Tortoise in Australia. Part of its mission was to come out to New Zealand to collect kauri spars for the Royal Navy to build masts. What happened to him? He was, uh, in the rowboat, and they were moving stores, uh, into shore. On the third trip, the boat was capsized, and he, um... uh, drowned. And this, of course, is not the traditional way in which men of the sea were buried, is it? Well, no. I don't` I don't know the answer as to why he wasn't buried at sea, but they` they decided to bury him here, and, uh, it's one of the oldest, if not the oldest, known graves, uh, in New Zealand of a Royal Navy, um, sailor, and that's why the New Zealand Navy maintain this site. OK. Good old Brasso. I bet there's plenty of that in the Royal Navy. (CHUCKLES) There's plenty of it. The Navy schedules regular maintenance of the site now. (POIGNANT MUSIC) There is a comfort to be had from knowing that, you know, one individual is just not forgotten in this way. Neil, as you'll be aware, Navy tradition, uh, and military tradition in general is very strong in remembering those who have sacrificed their lives, uh, or died in the service of their country, and it's very important that we remember those that have done that in peacetime, like William Sampson, as we do for those who have done it in war. Hear, hear. It was the Coromandel stands of mighty Agathis australis, or kauri, that led indirectly to William Sampson's death, but within a few years, the trees themselves would be gone. Matt Carter wants to find out what it was that made them so sought after. Studying the transit of Mercury, James Cook sailed into this bay in 1769, subsequently naming it after that planet. The impressive view included towering stands of kauri trees. It was a sighting that marked the beginning of the end for this land of the giants. I'm here at Long Bay, and I've been told that just up the hill there is a magnificent mature kauri. Now, I've never actually seen one of these up close before. If I'm really lucky, I might get to relive a childhood dream and climb a very, very big tree. I also want to find out what made them so valuable. Now, that is a kauri. Look at the size of it. It's... It's just so solid. And I mean... Look at that. That's` That's my arm span. That's` That's about 2m, and this must be 8m around. Kauri ` one of the world's giants. Reaching up to 50m, with a 16m girth, they can live for more than 2000 years. James Muir is a biologist and filmmaker. So, this is a mature kauri tree? Yep, this is mature. Um, it's about 1000 years old. 1000 years? Yeah. So it's been around since the time of Kupe, the first Polynesian explorer. I think this one's about 25m up. Kauri are a really unusual tree in that they actually dominate the` the landscape around them, so they completely change the ecology. There's no other tree in New Zealand that does this. And it` it actually drops all its branches and leaves and bark and gum, as well ` it has a very special gum ` and it creates this soil structure, which means it can further develop its own forest, but restrict the other forests from growing. Wow. It's just a monster in all facets, isn't it? You know? Yeah. It is, yeah. It's got the biggest canopy of all the trees in New Zealand. So, what do you reckon the view's like from up there? It's pretty good. Do you want to come and have a look? Yeah. Let's go. Put that on. (CHUCKLES) All right. Up we go. Wow. (CHUCKLES) As an underwater archaeologist, I'm used to being 20m under the water, not (PANTS) 20... 20m above land, and I can tell ya, it's hard work, but it's just an epic view, and you can` you can see the coast. So, what was the domain of kauri back in the day? So, kauri went from the top of the North Island, uh, down to Te Puke on the East Coast, and Te Kauri on the West Coast, so it's about a third of the North Island was dominated by kauri forest. So it was about 1.2 million hectares of kauri. It wasn't until the Europeans arrived and found these enormous trees that they saw it as a resource and took them all. There was a lot of clear-felling of forests, especially Coromandel. Coromandel was just wiped clean. So, what were the Europeans using all this wood for? Boat building, mostly. So, a lot of the British Merchant Navy was built out of kauri, and they used the spars from the rickers, the young kauri trees, as their masts. They make perfect masts. They're tall, straight, and you can cut one down and basically make a mast straight out of the tree. But also, they built a lot of houses. Most of Auckland, like, a lot of the old houses there ` built out of kauri. So, what percentage of kauri remains in the Coromandel? Uh, there's only about 1% to 3% of the original forest that's left, so it's pretty much all gone. They're a really important ecosystem provider, but more than that, these trees hold a spiritual significance. They're really important for Maori. They are really important in people's identity in the way that they` they view themselves as part of the land and the way that we view New Zealand as well. As coastal stands were exhausted, loggers moved inland, up and into difficult terrain, with the added burden of getting the massive logs out. One way was to dam rivers, building a volume of water, which was then released, sending the logs downstream. Here in the heart of the Kauaeranga Valley, DOC rangers, led by Cassandra Craig, are maintaining a scaled-down model dam. So, how many of these dams were built in this area? This valley ` there were about 100. The whole Coromandel ` there were probably up to 500. Um, so, this is the main dam up the valley, which was the largest in the valley. This was 60m wide and up to 12m high. Wow. That's awesome. Just the little guy there really puts it into scale, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, he's just tiny compared to that. So, you can see here all the logs waiting to be driven downstream. Um, this would just be thousands of tons of timber. That's a massive log jam. Would they have all managed to get down to the coast? So, actually, only about 80% of the logs would get down. The rest would, sort of ` with the force of the gates being open ` they'd just go flying, and they'd never be found again. Wow. So, it's pretty wasteful, really ` losing 20% of your profit. Down tributaries and rivers, the logs were destined for Whitianga, the Coromandel's main timber port, attracting sailing ships from as far away as Britain and Norway. Since 1987, all remaining kauri forests in Crown lands and most in private holdings are protected. Conservationists are planting new trees around the Coromandel, while also combating a root disease called kauri dieback. For thousands of years, kauri grew all around this area. With strict management, kauri should stand tall and return to being the grand old guardians of the forest. Coming up ` mangrove wars in genteel Whangamata. The mangroves do not provide any environment for the birds. Snapper will go up there at certain times of the year. No, they don't. People do get grumpy about it. They do. 1 (MAJESTIC MUSIC) The Coromandel ` idyllic, peaceful, but as is often the case, appearances can be deceiving. With much of New Zealand's wealth derived from agricultural endeavour, the human imprint has certainly made its mark on the natural landscape. And particularly here, in the calm bays and inlets of the Coromandel, where nature is staging a vigorous comeback that's causing much consternation. Marine biologist Jacky Geurts steps into no man's land to find out what's bothering the usually genteel folk of Whangamata. So, what's the deal? Well, there's two sides ` for and against, and a beleaguered council in the middle, going to war over this. Mangroves. Mangroves are usually regarded as vital to estuarine ecosystems, but in Whangamata, how much is too much? Hi, Carolyn. Hi, Jacky. How are you? I'm good, thanks. Nice to meet you. I'm heading into the warzone with Carolyn Lundquist, principal scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. Where we are right now, you can see that there are mangroves here right next to where a lot of the community lives, where people have their baches, and, um, we know the history from aerial photographs of how many mangroves there were. For example, in the 1970s, most of the mangroves in his harbour were actually quite far up the catchment, and then way up in the tidal creeks. So a lot of the expansion of mangroves has really been in the last few decades. All right. So, we're gonna get in here. It's probably going to be just over knee depth. Uh-huh. (GRUNTS) And then watch your step. It's a bit muddy. How many species of mangrove are there? Well, around the world there are about 70, but in New Zealand, we only have one species. So it's native? So it is native. Here. We'll let you hold those bits. Oh, a piece of stick. Piece of stick. So, that's actually a pneumatophore. Basically, the pokey-uppy bits that everybody sees coming out from mangroves, a lot of people think they're their roots. They're actually not. They're basically their breathing tubes that come out. We call them pneumatophores. Now, these pneumatophores also create habitat. So, for example, here, we've got a bunch of little black mussels,... Mm-hm. ...and so these are one of the many species. There are some barnacles in here, as well. All of these things encrust. We also find a lot of oysters, including the Japanese oyster. How long does it take for mangroves to spread? The average rate that we see in New Zealand is roughly 4% per year, uh, which is quite high, uh, particularly when you look at it in terms of the global rate of mangrove change, which is usually 1% to 2% decrease per year, so New Zealand is quite unusual compared to most mangroves around the world. Do you know why that is? A lot of it is how we are changing the land. So, what we've done to change the land, whether it be forestry or agricultural, horticultural areas; just that changing landscape increases how much sediment runs off. Now, if you bought your piece of coast before the mangroves arrived and watched as your million-dollar views and coastal lifestyle was crowded out, well, you can just imagine the dyspepsia. So, in the blue-water corner, representing the anti-mangrove opinion ` Ian Feasey. The, um, issue, as far as we're concerned, is when the depression came, all of the trees were removed from the hills around here and planted in radiata pine. And every 21 years, sort of, 30 years, they tear it down again, of course, and all the silt comes down when we get a heavy storm, and effectively meant that the mangroves had beautiful conditions to grow. And the community were really upset about the loss of the harbour, because if we lose the harbour, we've got nothing. It's a really big asset, as far as the town's concerned. The Regional Council, they, um, allowed us to clear 2.33ha through here. As far as we're concerned, if we leave it, the silt and the mangroves will actually smother the harbour. But don't the mangroves provide a healthy environment for the fish and the birds? No, they don't. Um, the mangroves do not provide any environment for the birds. They actually will come and grow into the rushes here, and it makes it more difficult for the birds to feed. Some people say that the fish actually breed and` and grow in the mangroves. Well, they do overseas, there's no doubt about that, but they do not grow and live in the mangroves here in New Zealand. Over in the green-harbour corner, Gordon Willis and Bob Nicholls are happy to let nature take its course. This is a nice view without any mangroves. (LAUGHS) Isn't it? It needs a lot more mangroves. We're a little worried about it. It's a nice view. Is it? These plants are protecting the hinterland. Part of the problem ` you can see the clear-fell on that, uh, pine block over there. What will happen with that pine block, felling like that, is that a whole lot of sediment will come into the harbour. The mangroves will hold the sediment rather than let it rush out into all` all the sensitive places in the ocean environment` in near ocean environment, uh, and create all the habitat and do all the other good things that it` that it does. So we think they've more important than the view. People do get grumpy about it. They do. I love them. You've just got to look at them in that` in that way, rather than see them as a boggy old swamp or a bit of rubbish land. It ain't like that any more. It's even better to actually go through them ` to get a kayak and paddle through the mangroves. And` And you'll hear mullet popping out of the water nearby, and you'll see the fish in there, swimming around. Snapper will go up there at certain times of the year. It's amazing, really, to get in there. It's just so` so nice and sheltered. So you don't like the idea of all these tractors driving in and clearing out the`? No. It's horrid. It leaves` leaves a sludgy, ugly mess. It turns the harbour into a desert. CHUCKLES: Yes. Once they are removed, it's a commitment then forever to keep removing them, because they won't go away, they'll keep coming back if the temperature and conditions are right. Whangamata ` caught between a mangrove and a hard place. It seems the solution lies somewhere over the horizon, between natural erosion, land management and always considering the diverse wants and needs of an evolving community. As they say in the recent classics, 'Good luck with that.' (GENTLE ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC) The Coromandel Peninsula has a reputation not just for golden beaches, but as a haven for those seeking an alternative lifestyle. In the '70s, thousands of hippies descended on the region in a move to get back to the land, so it's no surprise to find that on the Coromandel, they're big fans of recycling. Riria Hotere goes in search of a unique example of upcycling. My own memories of summer holidays revolve around our grandparents' caravan up north ` fresh flounder for breakfast, learning to swim in the tidal river, long days at the beach with my cousins, and then followed by the dreaded tub bath. Simple times, simple pleasures, and memories that last a lifetime. Likewise, there's a lifetime of memories in these ` the peninsula's distinctive baches ` which were rescued from the wrecker and put to work in a whole new way. Ron Julian runs the Te Puru campground with its delightful collection of metropolitan mementos. This is actually a tram! Oh, it is indeed a tram ` one of, uh, several in the campground here. Wow. Its a bit transformed, though, eh? None of them are ever as they were the day they` they were brought here, I guess, and they've had all sorts of bits and pieces done on them over the, uh` over the years of their` of their time here. So, how many trams do you have here? Um, last count there was 23. 23? Well, where did they originally come from? Um, originally came from, uh, Auckland. Some farmer from, uh, Te Tapu had this brainwave of making baches in the Coromandel, and decided to bring them across the` the gulf here to this side of the coast. The original Auckland tramway system opened in 1902 and was the envy of other municipalities, connecting remote suburbs and changing the face of the emergent city. By the mid 1950s, however, the trams were considered too expensive to run and were replaced by diesel buses. The 246-strong fleet was removed from the city streets in 1956, along with 72km of tracks. How did they get here? Would have put them on a barge, then got them up to the beach, and dragged them off that and down a gravel path, I suppose, to here. So they brought them across the water? Yeah, across the water. Imagine, back then, Auckland's population was less than 400,000, but its citizens took 80 million tram trips per year. I'm gonna go have a look inside one. (CHUCKLES) Knock-knock. Kia ora. Hello, come on it. Hi. Hello. Welcome. Sarah Taylor is the proud owner of two of the trams, joined together in a T shape. Here's the original photos of the two trams. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. When they were on the road still in Auckland. This one is this one here you're standing in, and that one is now bedrooms. Oh, look at this. I love this little space here. Yeah, so this would have been the driver's cab at one point. Is that right? Yes. The door would have been changed, obviously. It has a wonderful, sort of, recycled feel about it, eh? Yeah. I'm really fond of upcycling furniture and using natural resources when possible. This is a bedroom here. You've got one, two, three bedrooms? Yep, that's right. Two and a half. Two and a half. (CHUCKLES) I get the feeling this is a really nice place to be in. It's very different from my childhood memories of camping. What do you like about being here? Well, I really like being near the coast, obviously. It's just a short stroll through the park there, and I'm already on the beach. It's a wonderfully safe beach. You're on the doorstep of the Coromandel, really, so you've got bushwalks and rivers. Everything, really. Doesn't get much better. (LAUGHS) Can you feel the history when you're` when you're here? Yeah. I can, and I really like that. And living in a kind of quirky space is really nice too, rather than a conventional square. (CHUCKLES) # Well, my heart is sad, # but I'm lonesome. Sarah's beloved tram-bach is also the perfect place for rehearsals with her folk band, The Thames Tinkers. # ...oh, no, no, never. # Till we meet in heaven above. # Bury me under # Pohutukawa. # Near Te Puru by the sea. # Whether in a tram, tent or caravan, what hasn't changed in New Zealand is the simple joy of good memories of a holiday in a bach on the coast. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) The Coromandel is well-known for its recreational riches, where all New Zealanders come to play. But the history here goes all the way back to the time of the country's first settlers ` a thousand years of life and death, of plunder and renewal. And now, quite simply, a peninsula that's a pleasure to behold. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC CONTINUES)