Overview Peter's immediate environment, as a young child, was the granite, tree-covered mountains and clear waters of the Hollyford Valley. As a youth and into early adulthood it was the tussock country of the Te Anau Basin that he frequented. He was also among the early contract staff to carry out the initial task of levelling swathes of shrub and bush so that it could become productive agricultural soil. Leaving for a few years to live further south, Peter returned and worked for the Fiordland...

Overview Fifty years ago, while the politicians and planners made board table decisions about the future development of what was one of New Zealand's remotest regions, Chris Carran and his brothers were working on those changes from the ground up. As agricultural contractors, in the mid-1950s they were hired to clear the land and plough paddocks that would permanently alter the topography of former run country in the Te Anau Basin. From those inauspicious beginnings as a teenager, Chris returned to Te...

Overview The tourism industry has been an essential contributor to the local economy of the Te Anau Basin since the formation of the Milford Track in the late 1800s. Following the opening of a vehicle route to Milford Sound in the 1950s, the number of visitors to the district has grown to the extent that an estimated 650,000 people a year spend at least a few hours at Milford. Dave Moss, has just retired from the local hospitality industry after about 35 years involvement. First, he was at Milford...

Overview As he says during the recording, Bill's intention, on first being appointed General Manager of the THC Hotel in Te Anau in 1979, was to do the job for a couple of years and move on. Twenty-five years later he is still living in the town having played a prominent role in tourism in both Te Anau and Milford Sound. In this profile, Bill not only discusses tourism and the development of the hospitality industry in the region and across New Zealand, but he also provides an insight into the lives of...

Overview More than fifty years ago Ray first set eyes on the Fiordland Mountains while doing a tour of his adopted homeland. As a child growing up in war-time London, he immigrated to New Zealand in 1953 on the cusp of his seventeenth birthday to work on a dairy farm in Northland. Captivated by that first visit to Te Anau and Milford Sound, Ray and his wife, Helen, have lived in the Te Anau area since 1961, with only a five-year separation from the Fiordland Mountains when they worked as managers of a...