BBC - Coast Australia Series 2 (2015)

Coast Australia is back. Historian and archaeologist Neil Oliver returns to visit eight more spectacular coastlines around this vast and dramatic land. Joined by local experts, Neil and the team set out to capture the dazzling diversity around the edge of a young nation built on an ancient land: its people, their history, and its many natural wonders.

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Part 1: Skull Rock
In this opening episode, Neil Oliver becomes one of only five people known to have set foot on the isolated island known as Skull Rock. At Eagle's Nest, explorer Professor Tim Flannery delves into prehistory, revealing his own role in discovering Australia's polar dinosaurs. Historian Dr Alice Garner visits Victoria's notorious Cheviot Beach, reliving the fateful day Australia lost its prime minister to these waters. Neil travels to Phillip Island, and reveals how an entire town was removed to save the penguins. Landscape architect Brendan Moar tackles the tricky sport of Blo-Karting along the flat sands of Waratah Bay. On the Gippsland Lakes, marine ecologist Professor Emma Johnston hunts for a brand new species of dolphin, and finally Neil takes to the skies with aviatrix Judy Pay for an unforgettable tour of the Bass Strait coast in a fully-restored warbird.


Part 2: Encounter Bay
In this week's journey, Neil takes to the air on an RAAF training mission to seek and destroy submarine invaders. Palaeontologist and explorer Professor Tim Flannery has a close encounter with history as he uncovers an unlikely meeting between two French and English navigators at Encounter Bay. Landscape architect Brendan Moar visits the moody Coorong to remember the ground-breaking Australian film Storm Boy. Neil investigates the quest to preserve Adelaide's mother-ship, freshly saved from Scottish ruin. Marine ecologist Professor Emma Johnston dives deep into the stunning underwater caverns of the Limestone Coast. In Robe, historian Dr Alice Garner gets a taste of how Victoria's gold rush was the making of this coastal town across the border, and Neil examines new archaeological evidence of a wild fur trade that sprung up on remote Kangaroo Island, and its lasting impact on the endangered sea lions of Seal Bay.


Part 3: Byron Bay
Neil Oliver unearths the surprisingly dirty history of much-loved Byron Bay. Professor Tim Flannery uncovers the world's longest recorded unbroken raft journey. Neil investigates a war that the authorities were determined to cover up at great personal cost. In the pretty seaside town of Woolgoolga, landscape architect Brendan Moar uncovers the historic roots of the largest regional population of Sikhs in the country. Off the coast of Coffs Harbour, Dr Xanthe Mallett floors it with 600 horsepower of high-octane speed. Professor Emma Johnston comes face to face with a grey nurse shark. At South West Rocks, historian Dr Alice Garner discovers the surprising high society created by German internees during World War II. And in the name of science, Neil launches a research missile into the East Australian Current.


Part 4: Augusta
Neil Oliver travels from Perth to Augusta. He begins in the rigging of the Duyfken, a replica 16th Century Dutch ship, the first known European vessel to visit Australia. Professor Emma Johnston heads to Cockburn Sound to explore the world's first fully-submerged, large-scale wave energy conversion project. Neil learns of the professional triumph and personal tragedy behind the construction of Fremantle Harbour. Dr Xanthe Mallett joins the Police Dive Squad off Dunsborough for an exercise in underwater body retrieval. Neil retraces the steps of six Irish prisoners of conscience whose daring escape off Rockingham beach nearly triggered a war with the United States. Tim Flannery travels to the vineyards of Margaret River to see if he can taste the maritime clime in its signature drop. Neil Oliver discovers the perfect Coast vehicle to gad about in, while Alice Garner visits a small coastal chapel in Prevelly to explore its link to a wartime history of resistance on Crete. Finally Brendan Moar journeys to Augusta to expose the strength of a great pioneer and her legacy as a world-class botanical collector.


Part 5: Horn Island
Neil travels to Horn Island in Australia's extreme north to uncover the role of Australia's only indigenous battalion, a Second World War fighting force of Torres Strait Islanders. On Possession Island Tim Flannery stands where James Cook finally claimed Australia for Great Britain, and discovers the riches that he missed. Xanthe Mallett ventures into the treacherous Adolphus Channel, the scene of Queensland's worst peacetime maritime disaster. Neil Oliver visits Mer Island to tell the story of its most famous son, Eddie Mabo, who spearheaded Australia's land rights' revolution. On Yam and Tudu Islands Tim Flannery is on the trail of fearsome headhunters to unearth the significance of their historic practice. Alice Garner joins an unusual border patrol on Saibai Island, less than four kilometres from Papua New Guinea, and finally Neil Oliver meets the Torres Strait's most prominent musician, who started recording at the age of 70.


Part 6: Norfolk Island
On this lush green island, 1,500 kilometres from the mainland, Neil Oliver wanders amidst penal ruins as he discovers the inspiring legacies of two historic figures; the first an audacious convict, and the second a reforming commandant. Alice Garner meets descendants of the famous mutineers on the Bounty at their annual festival and witnesses their cultural heritage in full swing. In the race to save one of the world's most endangered birds, Tim Flannery finds an island ark in the making on nearby Phillip Island. On Mount Bates, Emma Johnston uncovers the role of the island in the birth of radio astronomy. Neil Oliver tests his mettle with a meal of local dream fish, claimed to cause LSD-like hallucinations, and Brendan Moar explores the dangerous job of unloading vital supplies on an island without a harbour.


Part 7: Southern New South Wales
In this week's journey, from Seven Mile Beach to Gabo Island, Neil Oliver discovers the fatal engineering errors behind Cape St George Lighthouse that cursed Wreck Bay for four decades. In Callala Bay, Tim Flannery uncovers the life-saving properties of seaweed. On Gabo Island, Emma Johnston witnesses a secret method for growing unusual pearls in wild abalone. In Eden, Neil investigates the truth behind the folktale of Old Tom, the country's most famous killer whale. Alice Garner revisits the weather-bomb horror of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, which became a race for survival. Tim Flannery unearths a piece of lost British treasure that went down with the Cumberland ship in World War I. In the peaceful town of Currarong, Brendan Moar explores a century-old love of coastal-gazing, and the mighty fibro beach house. Finally Neil recreates the great age of speed, racing vintage cars along their old stomping ground of Seven Mile Beach.


Part 8: Pilbara
Tim Flannery begins this North-Western adventure in the remote Montebello Islands, where he finds evidence of British atomic testing from 1952. Neil Oliver boards an iron ore carrier to discover only a tiny margin of error allowed in docking and loading these enormous vessels. Emma Johnston travels to Dampier to dig into the world's largest solar salt operation. Tim Flannery explores the highest concentration of rock art in the world in an ancient gallery off the Burrup Peninsula. Emma Johnston blends science and art in Port Hedland's intertidal reefs. At the former port of Condon, Neil discovers the pastoral history of a wool trade in the region, and then takes to the air above De Grey Station to appreciate the challenges of a one million acre property with coastal frontage. Finally, at Cape Keraudren, Neil revisits the scene of an extraordinary scientific expedition to prove Einstein's Theory of Relativity.