Taking the slow route:
Prime puts the brakes on the fast pace of life with a special travel doco.
Prime puts the brakes on the fast pace of life this week with
Go South. Journeying mainly by rail, but also road and water, the documentary travels from Auckland to the deep South with the trip condensed into an ad-free, three-hour show screening at 9.30pm on Saturday. And an extended version, also ad-free, will screen from 1.30am on Sunday. Peter Eley rode along for part of the journey from Picton to Christchurch.
On our train journey from Picton to Christchurch we chugged past a quaint cottage near Kaikoura, and an elderly couple stood by their fence and waved as though we were royalty.
The six-hour trip, filmed as part of a Prime travel show called Go South, was special because it was just the second day trains had run on the route since the devastating earthquake of November 2016 had cut road and rail links to the coastal region.
Viewers will see the shocking devastation caused to the coastline near Kaikoura, and get a feel for the incredible achievement by the North Canterbury Recovery alliance in fixing everything so quickly.
But ‘quick’ Go South isn’t. It’s a first for New Zealand – the country’s first foray into the genre known globally as slow TV, where travel and seemingly mundane events are shown in real time.
Go South will run in its longer form for a continuous 12 hours, travelling from Auckland to Milford Sound by rail where possible and filling in gaps by road and boat.
Fixed broadcast cameras, tiny Go Pros and drones record the journey. There’s no commentary – just the sound of the train, the wind or passing cars, although captions point out places of interest.
A day before I flew to Blenheim, I told some acquaintances about Go South.
“Oh, we’ve just watched something similar about that Ghan trip through the Outback.
“We kept on saying, ‘We must go to bed’ but we just kept on watching, and watching.”
Norway was a slow TV pioneer and a show called National Knitting Eve, where participants shear a sheep, spin the wool and knit a sweater in real time, can be seen on Netflix. It lasts 12 hours, the same duration as the long version of Go South. Another Norwegian show
about reindeer migrating goes for 160 hours.
So is slow TV like watching grass grow or perhaps snow melt?
Definitely not, says Go South executive producer Spencer Stoner, although he did say the first slow TV he saw featured a log burning.
“People are getting interested in programming that’s meditative,” says Stoner.
“Worldwide, programme makers are bucking the trend of compressing as much as possible into as short a time as possible. The thing that draws people to it is that meditative quality, where in their day-to-day lives they get information overload from a 24/7 news cycle. They’ve got so many things on their to-do list that this form of TV is a break.
“Sometimes people will watch this and are instantly fascinated and will stare at it non-stop. Other people will have it on in the background and will have dinner, get a coffee, and then engage in it again – much like a real train trip.”
Go South will be an eye-opener for many viewers. It’s a window into places that can be reached only by rail and showcase the country’s amazing scenery.
It features three rail journeys – The Northern Explorer from Auckland to Wellington, the Coastal Pacific, and the Trans Alpine. The towering central North Island viaducts that rise from the valleys below are amazing, as is the Kaikoura coastline and the Southern Alps, all seen from the comfort of your lounge.
More than 70 terabytes of 4K footage has been shot for the show, around 240 hours’ worth. It will be a marathon editing job, but the final result will appear as a seamless 12-hour journey or three hours in a shorter version.
“The crew has shot some of the most beautiful footage of Milford Sound I’ve ever seen,” says Stoner.
“And there’s this bit where we’re driving near Haast and the clouds part, letting this peach-coloured light through that illuminates the hillsides. Then it fades and we’re driving through native forest with stars showing through the tops of the trees.”
But the most special was a sudden snowstorm on the Trans Alpine train just outside Arthur’s Pass.
“We’re travelling through fields of yellow gorse and all of a sudden the hills and mountains just turn stark white and there’s half a metre of snow next to the tracks.
“It was just like the Polar Express – a magical moment.”