Presented by pioneering producer Shirley Maddock, Islands of the Gulf was NZ’s first locally made TV documentary series. In this episode Maddock makes the 50 mile seaplane flight from Auckland to Great Barrier. Accompanied by ever present birdsong, she proves an eloquent, attentive guide to ‘The Barrier’. She recounts the SS Wairarapa tragedy and pigeon post, tramps to old kauri dams, and surveys the quirks of transport for the 240 people then living on the rugged bush-clad island, from the Land Rover-driving nurse, to a Chrysler taxi once owned by Al Capone.

In this episode from NZ television’s first local documentary series, pioneering producer Shirley Maddock visits the Hauraki Gulf island of Waiheke — just 11 miles from downtown Auckland. A time-consuming boat trip has kept it as the preserve of holidaymakers and retirees, but faster transport is on the way. In a nicely judged delve into island life, Maddock is eloquent and engaging as she meets local identities, visits a wedding, a 21st, and the primary school sports day — and ponders Waiheke’s past, present and future, as Auckland inevitably reels it in.

In the first all celebrity version of Touchdown reality TV hit Treasure Island, 14 marooned contestants must provide food, water, fire, and shelter for themselves on a Fijian island, as they compete to find treasure and avoid elimination. Presented by Pieta Keating — who was runner-up on the original Treasure Island — the "household names" include Olympians and All Blacks (Frank Bunce), model Nicky Watson, actors and TV tradesman John Cocks. Hunger and cheating suspicions soon exacerbate tensions between the teams.

Treasure Island was an early local example of a reality show staple — contestants endured the great outdoors, and each other. Over nine seasons the series went through multiple variations, including a Couples at War season, and another featuring favourites from the past. During the 2004 season of Celebrity Treasure Island, contestant Lana Coc-Kroft was airlifted from Fiji, after she cut her foot on coral and got a life-threatening blood-poisoning disease. On 2002's Treasure Island: Extreme, Barrie Rice — an ex SAS soldier — dealt with being eliminated by hiding in the jungle.

This documentary looks at the history of the island of Motutaiko, the prominent landmark in the middle of Lake Taupō. Motutaiko is a sacred site for Ngāti Tūwharetoa. Directors Toby Mills and Moana Maniapoto use interviews and shots of island life to examine Motutaiko’s geological and mythological origins, its strategic place in Māori history (from the muttonbirds that gave the island its name, to its role as a stronghold), desecration of burial sites, and its contemporary place as a conservation bastion free of predators — and home to rare birds, insects and trees.

Nia is an ordinary girl living in the Northland town of Tinopai. In this ninth episode, a trip to the wharf to help her Dad with some fishing provides a chance for Nia to think about how she'll feel when her best friend Hazel leaves. An imagined stay on a desert island (with a penguin for company) is interrupted when the boys turn up, seemingly up to their usual mischief. Nia's Extra Ordinary Life was made by the team behind Auckland Daze; they began filming a second series in 2015.

This 1952 film ventures off the Bay of Plenty coast to New Zealand’s most active volcano: White Island. The National Film Unit production joins a team of DSIR scientists, supposedly the first humans in more than a decade to to view this “fantastic laboratory of nature”. They camp in the ruins of a sulphur mill, where the acidic fumes have disintegrated factory engines. Steam in fumeroles destroys thermometers — “mapping the land brings the party to many a scene like this: a scene from The Inferno”. Elsewhere, gannets nest, defying the inhospitable environment. 

Islands of the Gulf was (narrowly) NZ’s first locally made TV documentary series — written, presented, directed and produced by the country’s first female producer, Shirley Maddock. Intended as a one-off programme about the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, it ran to five half-hour episodes examining everyday life in the area, at a time when local faces were still a novelty on NZ screens (with aerial shots courtesy of aviation legend Fred Ladd). Maddock’s subsequent book was extensively reprinted and, in 1983, she revisited the area and series in a documentary for TVNZ.

This animated series follows the adventures of Tamatoa, his cousin Moana and their animal mates Manu the moa, Moko the tuatara and Kereru the kereru. In this episode Tamatoa sets out with Moko and Kereru after his uncle tells him about an island where the pipi grow "as big as flax bushes", and the kina are bigger than his appetite. They arrive in search of giant kaimoana and stumble upon an army of giant hermit crabs ... it seems Tamatoa may have bitten off more than he can chew. Set in pre-colonial times, the series was made by Auckland company Flux Animation.

This early children’s TV classic is a Kiwi take on a genre staple: the summer holiday adventure. Aucklanders Peter and Laura meet up with their Wellington friend Rangi and his older cousin Dan (Wi Kuki Kaa), and go on an expedition to Kapiti Island. The trio (minus Dan, who has a sprained ankle) go bush for some kids vs. wild action, peppered with a menagerie of manu (kākā, weka, kererū, tui), and tales of Te Rauparaha, whaling and ghosts. They camp, fish, skylark around cliffs and caves, summit the island, and inevitably get lost, before ... getting safely home.