Landmarks - The Main Trunk Line

Television (Full Length) – 1981

This eighth episode in the Landmarks series was the first episode filmed, to test how geographer Kenneth Cumberland handled being in front of the camera. On a Cook Strait ferry in a southerly, he begins exploring how trade and people have gotten about Aotearoa: from the “Māori main trunk line” (beach, water), sailing ships, Cobb & Co and ‘Shanks's Pony’, to the railways and Bob Semple’s roadmaking bulldozers.The episode ends with the national grid and airways, with a rocky landing at Wellington airport demonstrating that the wrestle with place is an unresolved one.

New Zealand history has few big moments, but the crowds who came to this remote spot in special trains from Auckland and Wellington to watch Sir Joseph [Ward], surely witnessed one of them.
– Kenneth Cumberland, on the 6 November 1908 driving of a silver spike to open the main trunk line, at Manganuioteao

Key Cast & Crew

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Kenneth Cumberland

Presenter, Writer

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George Andrews

Director, Producer

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Ken Dorman

Camera

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Liz Cooke

Research

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Alf West

Assistant Editor

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Brian Nelson

Camera Assistant

See all 11 credits