Great Southern Land Episode Rating Graph

In this opening episode Professor Steve Simpson explores how we satisfy our appetite for food and power. Seen from above. Steve looks at how irrigation and other ingenious schemes have turned our dusty continent into a grand food bowl feeding Australians and 60 million others around the world

In the second part of this four-part epic series, Steve Simpson explores our complicated relationship with the natural world. Attracted by its beauty and fearful of its dangers, Australians are forever locked into a battle with the elements. But this isn't just a story about coping with drought, deluge and dangerous animals. Steve looks at how we protect the environment whilst harvesting land and ocean for its resources. In a stunning opening scene we join aerial fire fighter Rob Laver in South Australia's Deep Creek National Park executing a controlled burn - a small fire now, we learn may control a catastrophe later.

This week we see the mass movement we make across a sprawling land and how our daily habits push systems and networks of transport and data to breaking point. We follow the second busiest air corridor in the world - Sydney to Melbourne - as 150 flights daily prepare for the journey and watch Elyse Fordham as she prepares to captain the first flight of the day. Data visualisation reveals every flight in Australia over a 24-hour period. On the ground, Steve is stuck in traffic, becoming one of the 12 million people - more than half the country's population - trying to make their morning commute.