Wairarapa’s largest river comes alive in new film

A respected television personality and environmentalist stars in a film exploring the life of Wairarapa’s largest river.

Ruud Kleinpaste is the show host of A River's Journey (working title), taking viewers along the Ruamāhanga River from source to sea and uncovering fascinating discoveries along the way.

Documentary filmmaker and producer Campbell McLean said the project highlighted the importance of respecting the needs of the living river and the rich biodiversity it supported.

“Insects, birds, forests, wetlands, and communities, we are all bound together and we depend on this rather fragile ecosystem to work the way nature intended,” he said.

McLean, a Ruamahanga Restoration Trust trustee, said the idea for the film emerged after he invited Kleinpaste to speak at several local schools.

“Ruud is very well-known and respected as a naturalist and entomologist ... he's our very own version of David Attenborough, so who better to highlight our biodiversity and the need to protect it for future generations.”

McLean said Kleinpaste made a surprising discovery of what appears to be a regurgitated pellet from a New Zealand Kingfisher at the edge of the river at Morrisons Bush.

“It has the odd appearance of a dark muesli bar, compacted with the indigestible outer exoskeletons of various insects.

“Anyone else wouldn't have noticed this lying among the rocks, but not Ruud – he was onto it straight away.”

McLean invited students from two schools to attend field trips.

“Our ongoing signature project, Schools Behind Our River, which has engaged with some 27 schools since it began in 2020, supports and encourages all manner of outdoor learning.”

“If we can convey this message to our youth and have them take up this cause as future guardians then the river and everything else will be in better hands in years to come.”

A small group of students from Opaki School joined Kleinpaste at Dunvegan Station, north of Opaki.

“So for the Opaki students, the native forest there is familiar turf, but having Ruud on site to dig around for insects and to entertain them with a weta was quite an eye-opener,” McLean said.

Another group from Featherston School visited Waihenga, south of Martinborough.

“Again, the students were fixated on Ruud's informative discoveries, which in this case included a number of black tunnel-web spiders and the New Zealand flatworm.”

They also visited Rathkeale College, where Kleinpaste was intrigued by the spring-fed wetland and the 600-year-old Kahikatea tree, which he lay under and paid homage to.

Highlights of the journey along the river included bioluminescent limpets, the world’s only freshwater snail that produces glowing slime, and Kleinpaste netting a New Zealand drone fly, and finding black tunnel-web spiders, native flatworms, and moths in traps near the Mt Bruce river. The team also discovered freshwater koura in a swamp maire QEII wetland.

“We didn't see as many birds as we had hoped for – but if it's any consolation, they saw us, and moved on,” McLean said.

“Let's also not forget that Ruud had his finger bitten by an eel, all in the name of science.”

McLean said the idea and script came naturally, but he relied on the skills of a camera crew featuring locals Sean Woolgar and Phil Stebbing.

“They both have extensive experience filming, directing, and editing wildlife documentaries overseas.”

McLean said they were in post-production and planned to complete editing in time to submit the project to New Zealand's Doc Edge Film Festival next year.

This story was originally published in the Wairarapa Times Age on 11 December 2025.