Wairarapa River to star in nature documentary

For documentary filmmaker Campbell McLean, love of the Ruamāhanga River began at Rathkeale College. “The river skirts around the school,” he said. “In summer, we’d go down to swim, and sometimes, as punishment, we’d have to carry rocks up from the river.” 

Decades later, in 2019, Campbell and a close school friend started the Ruamāhanga River Trust. “We wanted to do something good for the environment. We made our bond at school, and the environment was a key part of that.” 

The Trust supports environmental restoration and education across the Wairarapa plains through which the 130km Ruamāhanga snakes. They work closely with schools and, for several years, have brought well-known naturalist Ruud Kleinpaste to speak to the students. “We thought, let’s bring him up and use his TV experience and personality to make a film about the river.” 

Campbell has had an extensive career in film and television, and his crew of two specialises in wildlife filmmaking. The whole documentary was shot over two days and was almost entirely unscripted. “Ruud doesn’t really like working from a script. I gave him this rough idea of what I wanted him to say for the opening and the closing, and the rest is all-natural dialogue.”   

Once the cameras started rolling, Ruud’s enthusiasm and the river’s beauty did the rest. “He was very good at spotting things that most of us don’t see,” said Campbell. “Most of us are pretty much blind to what’s in the undergrowth, under rocks, or up in the trees.”   

At two different locations, they invited school groups to come along. “[Ruud] met the students, and he took them out into the bush, and showed them what’s there. He’s so passionate about it, and the kids are so intrigued. That’s what he does best.”   

One of the ultimate goals of the Ruamāhanga River Trust is to link the privately owned pockets of bush along the river’s edge so the river is rewilded from source to sea. “To link them all up would be similar to the success of Zealandia,” said Campbell. This is where the documentary comes in, with the hope that it will help convert those landowners slow to pick up the cause. “Ruud makes the audience really aware that all these living things are interconnected and that they all depend on the river and the river depends on us. It very much is a living river.” 

Having worked in the film industry, Campbell feels privileged. “Most of us are confined to the road and what we see from the window... Beyond the road, beyond the gate, a whole new world opens up. Hopefully, as storytellers, we can make those places accessible for a wider audience.” Campbell counts the Wairarapa among those special places. “There’s a good variety of vistas available to a filmmaker,” he said. “They’ve left a lasting impression on me.” 

‘A River’s Journey’ (working title) will be submitted to the 2026 DocEdge film festival.