The Kimberley, ABC review: a feast for the eyes and then some …

One of the big losses from over a decade of stagnant ABC funding is local nature documentaries. As genres go, nature docos are so popular that even the commercial networks will put them to air – something that can’t be said for many of the other programs the ABC champions.

Not to mention this is Australia, a country so full of weird and wonderful creatures that documentary makers from around the world come here to film them. Which again, isn’t really something you can say about much else here unless you’re talking about scenic small towns where a murder stirs up a past the locals would rather keep hidden.

So the new ABC series The Kimberley is cause for celebration. Hosted by Mark Coles Smith (Mystery Road: Origin, Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell), it’s a three-part look at, you guessed it, The Kimberley region.

Watch The Kimberley trailer.

This journey throughout the 400,000 square km region (roughly the size of England) is an exploration of both space and time as we explore the region during the six distinct seasons of the Nyikina calendar – Lalin, Jirrbal, Willakarra, Koolawa, Barrakana and Willbooroo.

To call this series a feast for the eyes is an understatement. The pre-title opening informs us that the Kimberley is ‘one of the wildest places on Earth’ while showing us a very cute White-Bellied Sea Eagle chick and her fish-grabbing parents.

It may be an ancient land full of incredible stories, but as with most nature documentaries, a big part of the appeal is that you can have it on the background safe in the knowledge that pretty much every time you look up there’s going to be something interesting to look at.

The Kimberley: episode one

Episode one begins the aforementioned journey through the seasons with Smith – who grew up in the region – as our guide. The focus here is as much on the cultural side of explaining the Kimberly as it is Western views of biology and the environment, making Smith as much a genial host explaining his back yard as a dispassionate narrator pointing out how the circle of life works when for months at a time there’s not enough water to live off.

Those six seasons are based on observation and natural cycles rather than the calendar, with each episode covering roughly two seasons. The series kicks off during Lalin: hot, dry, and sometimes deadly. With water in short supply, the local wildlife is concentrated at the remaining waterholes. And if nature documentaries have taught us anything, it’s that waterholes can be a very dangerous place.

After the first episode’s drought and flooding rains, the second moves to the mudflats and the coast (humpback whales? We’ve got them). The third returns to the savanna plains as the landscape begins to dry out again.

Harsh climate, wild terrain, remarkable biodiversity (complete with big scary spiders); what this hammers home right from the start is that the Kimberley is an extremely diverse region, containing just about every tropical landscape you can imagine, and a few you probably can’t.

Part of Smith’s job is providing the traditional narration over nature footage. But he’s also on-screen talking to the community about their interactions with the local environment. He’s asking them what it sounds like when the rains bring the Kimberly back to life, then he’s out there in the dark wielding a massive high-tech microphone to hear for himself what usually lurks below human hearing.

It’s still a nature documentary at heart, pointing out the wonders of a part of the world many of us will never see first-hand (and if we do, rarely as close-up as this). If you’re after footage of a tiny frog being pounded by raindrops so it looks like it’s dancing, this is most definitely the series for you.

But there’s enough of a local spin to make it clear that the Kimberley is, amongst many other things, a place that has its own culture. The wildlife might be the focus but this isn’t presented as a region untouched by human hands – the people and the creatures around them are an ecosystem in itself.

Guiding us through the region, Smith is an always genial and engaging host who often comes off as someone inviting us into his home. It just happens to have a lot of crocs in the rivers.

The Kimberley premieres on ABC and ABC iview on 13 May at 8pm, with episodes broadcast weekly.

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