In this award-winning episode of the Rivers series, photographer Craig Potton visits Canterbury’s Rangitata River. The great braided river is home to the rare wrybill, and the landscape has provided inspiration for Samuel Butler (utopian satire Erewhon) and Peter Jackson (Mount Sunday is Edoras in Lord of the Rings). It’s been shaped by glaciers, the nor’wester, irrigation and farming. In this excerpt Potton and climbing mates try to reach the fabled Garden of Eden ice plateau and the river’s “pure heart”; a mission Potton and friend Robbie Burton failed to complete 30 years before.

John Wilkinson didn’t realise until after the end of World War ll that he’d broken his back when the plane he was piloting in North Africa was shot down. Captured and beaten up by Italian soldiers, interrogated by the Gestapo, John eventually ended up in the notorious Stalag Luft III prison camp in what is now Poland. He was involved in the Wooden Horse Escape, one of the most famous of the war. Later he would meet his future wife at the camp, a displaced person from Lithuania. Now 95, John’s memory of his wartime experiences remains undimmed.

Made by Philip McDonald (Such a Stupid Way to Die) for the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority, this award-winning short explores the impact of people on New Zealand’s water cycle. Shots of irrigation, industrial waste and run-off from dairy farming show Godzone’s 1972 waterways to be far short of 100% pure — the closing national anthem played over polluted rivers underlines the point. A young Sam Neill (then working at the National Film Unit) cameos as an eau-so-suave drinker in a scene showing the disconnection between water use and where it comes from.

Renowned landscape photographer, publisher and conservationist Craig Potton takes viewers up New Zealand rivers in this South Pacific Pictures series, made for Prime TV. Each episode focused on a significant Aotearoa waterway, and the ecology and people connected with it.  Episodes featured the Clutha River in the deep south, Clarence River near Kaikoura, Rangitata River in Canterbury, Mokihinui River on the South Island's west coast, and Waikato River in the central North Island. The Rangitata episode won Potton Best Documentary Script at the 2011 SWANZ Awards.