(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Wind works in mysterious ways.

It's invisible, yet what it does to our planet is visually astounding.

From the shifting of sand, to the filling of sails, to the entire reshaping of ocean and earth, (maestoso music) (wind blowing) wind animates the inanimate, breathes life into our planet.

(waves crashing) And when when makes icons, it goes above and beyond.

(dramatic music) (mechanical whirring) (animal braying) (elephant groaning) (wind blowing) (tranquil music) Because of wind, the world has Sossusvlei.

Sand dunes unlike any on the planet.

Rising up in the heart of Namibia in Africa.

(mechanical whirring) Grain by grain, breath by breath, wind has built this otherworldly place and continues to rebuild it every moment.

(upbeat music) The dunes of Sossusvlei are part of the world's oldest desert, the Namib Desert, which dates back over 40 million years.

And the dunes themselves took millions of years to form.

Orange in colour due to a high iron content in the sand, which oxidises in the weather, this "rusting" process reveals the age of each sand dune.

The darker the red, the older the dune.

This reddening sand originated in the aptly named, Orange River, South Africa's longest river, whose current transported the sand northward and dumped it ashore in the surf.

Wind then carried the sand inland to form the dunes.

This partnership of water and wind has built some of the highest dunes in the world; many are over 200 metres in height, with the highest over 380 metres.

(dramatic music) One sand dune is affectionately called, "Big Daddy".

At around 325 metres high, it's famous for its buckled form.

(dramatic music) There are dunes in the region so old and stable, they've petrified into solid rock; but most are dynamic, constantly reshaped by wind.

Both the pattern and direction of wind dictates the character of a dune.

Long linear dunes with a perpendicular crest are crafted by unidirectional wind.

They are the most stable and often vegetated.

Multi-directional wind creates multiple ridges on dunes.

They're referred to as, "Star Dunes" because of their star-like appearance from above.

They are the most mobile dunes and largely unvegetated.

(dramatic music) The word Sossusvlei originates from two languages, Afrikaans and Nama, and means, "Dead end marsh".

The floor of Sossusvlei is a sand-encrusted clay pan, flattened over time by Tsauchab River.

To add a finishing touch to the dunes, the wind sweeps across the clay created by the Tsauchab River and collects the finest of the sand, which it deposits on top of the dunes to create distinctive V and U-shaped mounds.

The architectural force of this wind is bone-dry and searingly hot.

Combined with the absence of water, it can suck the life out of a place.

This is starkly demonstrated in an area just next door to Sossusvlei.

(sombre music) It's called, Deadvlei or dead marsh.

More than a thousand years ago, the Tsauchab River flooded this area.

A rich marshland and resulted, enabling camel trees to grow.

Then suddenly the climate changed, bringing drought.

Sand dunes encroached and blocked the river's course.

The marsh dried and the trees died.

But because the climate was so harsh, the trees didn't decompose.

Instead, sun and wind blackened their bodies like bones.

These skeletons are 900 years old and seem destined to stand here forever.

Sossusvlei is actually rich in wildlife, of mostly species that don't mind getting thirsty.

Ostrich thrive in the savanna desert.

This flightless bird can survive long periods without water and loves nothing more than a hot breeze through its feathers.

(sombre music) But the best thing to emerge through the heat haze is probably this, the cheetah.

Namibia is Africa's cheetah capital with around 3,500 of these endangered cats roaming wild here; the highest concentration on the planet.

(insects chirping) Sossusvlei is the most popular tourist attraction in Namibia.

(soft music) But at Sossusvlei, visitor's experience timelessness rather than time passing.

This is one of the most uninhabited and uninhabitable areas on earth, and humanity's impact is minimal.

Within seconds, footsteps are erased by the wind, and the sand dunes reconfigure, as they have done for aeons, long before humans existed.

(wind blowing) (mechanical whirring) (animation swooshing) (sombre music) The burnt-orange splendour of Sossusvlei is mirrored in another wind sculpted place.

The Bungle Bungle Range.

(gentle music) This icon is situated in Western Australia's Purnululu National Park, in the vast Kimberley region that occupies the Northwest corner of the continent.

Although largely inaccessible, the Bungle Bungles are renowned for their geological uniqueness.

The work of wind helped put them on the map.

(helicopter blades slapping) Around 350 million years ago, a river flowed through here.

It carried and deposited sand and gravel.

This sedimentary layer compressed into sandstone, which then uplifted into a mountain range.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) Originally, it was one large block, but tectonic movement left weak spots.

Weather was quick to capitalise on those weak spots, wearing away crevices and deepening cracks.

A major culprit in this dirty work was wind.

It whistled in from the Tanami Desert removing sand and weathering sandstone; turning crevices and cracks into chasms and gorges, replacing solid earth with pockets of air.

The powerful alliance of wind and water is best seen in Cathedral Gorge.

(dramatic music) In the wet season, water pounds through this gorge, helping to carve out a massive red rock amphitheatre.

This amphitheatre lies in the epicentre of the Bungle Bungle Range, and is famous for its acoustics.

One amplified sound is an unusual wind instrument, (bees buzzing) wings.

(bird chirping) Native bees nest in the rock.

And to avoid overheating, they beat their wings inside the hive to act as air conditioning.

(soft tribal music) Coincidentally, bees lend their name to the most famous feature in the Bungle Bungles, the beehive domes; so-named for their shape and colour More scientifically, they're termed, "Cone-karst sandstone", and are the most outstanding example on earth.

Hundreds of these domes dominate the Bungle Bungle Range, rising up to 250 metres from the surrounding savanna grasslands.

(creature trilling) They have been revered by Aboriginal people for tens of thousands of years, with countless rock art and burial sites in the surrounding region.

But incredibly, the domes remained a secret to the outside world until 1983, when a film team was location-scouting for a documentary called, "Wonders of Western Australia" and spotted the iconic landmark from a plane.

(wind blowing) World heritage status followed in 2003.

Like their namesake, the beehive domes are striped orange and black.

(dramatic music) The darker layers are higher in clay content and hold more moisture.

This enables a primitive blue-green algae to grow, which photosynthesizes sunlight for energy and gives the sandstone a darker hue.

The lighter layers have less clay, are more porous and dryer.

The algae can't survive here, so the sandstone is unprotected from the elements.

Its iron content rusts and turns orange.

Colour is also enhanced by time of day and weather; an ever-changing palette of beauty.

(dramatic music) Geologists are still piecing together the puzzle of this iconic landscape.

Some of its evolution remains unclear, almost miraculous.

And its evolution is ongoing as the wind continues to infiltrate its weaknesses and polish its surfaces.

(wind blowing) (mechanical whirring) (animation swooshes) (upbeat music) Birds are masters of the wind, and birds on the wing are integral to the spirit of Colca Canyon in Southern Peru.

(wind blowing) For over 70 kilometres, the canyon slices through Peru's Andes mountains like a giant fissure.

It was formed by erosion of volcanic rock as the Colca River followed a fault line in the Earth's crust.

At its deepest point, it drops to around 3,400 metres, making it the world's second deepest canyon and twice as deep as the grand canyon in the US.

Colca Canyon is always windy.

It's narrow deep formation acts like a funnel, forcing wind along the rivers course from the Andean peaks to the Pacific ocean.

(gentle music) Nothing less will do for the Andean Condor.

Based on a combined measurement of weight to wingspan, this is the world's largest flying bird.

With a wing span of over three metres and a body weight of up to 15 kilogrammes, this is as big as a bird can get and still fly; and it does so because of the wind.

So it chooses where it lives based on the wind.

Wind renders them weightless and enables them to soar for hours with minimal energy.

They time their flights to the optimum wind conditions of early morning and late afternoon and nest high in the canyon walls.

(soft instrumental music) People fly in from all over the world to see them here with the Condor Cross lookout, a favourite observation spot.

Colca Canyon is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Peru, with over 10,000 people visiting annually in search of windswept adventure.

(wind blowing) (soft flute music) The headwaters of the Colca Valley begins some 4,000 metres above sea level and dramatic mountains rise on both sides of Colca Canyon.

(wind blowing) Some structures in these highlands pre-date the Inca with many built to store food.

And for thousands of years, the Cabanas and Collauga peoples have lived here and are still largely untouched by modern civilization.

These pre-Incan cultures stored seeds and crops in stone granaries in the canyon walls.

These granaries were called, "Colcas" and give this iconic place it's name.

(upbeat music) The people here continue to live like their ancestors, farming potatoes, quinoa and corn on terraced hills, and keeping guinea pigs, llamas and alpacas for meat and entertainment.

In response to Colca's weather, the people here also fashioned wool from their livestock into highly decorative clothing, which is, of course, windproof.

(wind blowing) (animation swooshes) (gentle music) Wind is not just a phenomenon of earth, it also occurs in space.

And when this off-planet wind collides with our planet, the result can be heavenly.

This is a Aurora Borealis, the celebrated Northern Lights of Earth's far north, a light show conceived by the sun and orchestrated by wind.

(upbeat music) The best front row seats are located in the Northern Hemisphere.

The closer to the Arctic circle, the better.

(wind blowing) The so-called Aurora Zone lies between 60 and 70 degrees north.

The countries that transect this zone and offer the best guarantee of a performance are Iceland, Finland, Sweden, and Greenland, and the upper reaches of Alaska and Canada.

The optimum time of year is from August until April, which is mostly winter.

(wind blowing) It makes for a frigid theatre, with temperatures sometimes plummeting to -30 degrees Celsius.

The days are short, the sun's position is low in the sky and bone-chilling wind whistles through bare trees.

(upbeat music) Coldness sets the scene, but has no role in the light show; only darkness does.

To see Aurora's lights, daylight must be switched off.

This happens best in the far north in winter.

In fact, many places experience almost 24 hours a day of darkness.

The stage is set.

(gentle music) (vehicle rumbling) Millions of people from around the world converge on the Arctic to see the Northern Lights, shovelling billions of dollars into the economy.

Their quest is called, "Aurora hunting", and they hunt the lights in novel ways.

The really obsessed Aurora hunters will get as far away from civilization as they can, where there's no light pollution.

It's then a matter of waiting in the icy darkness, praying for cloudless skies, staring at the heavens and hoping like hell.

Aurora Borealis is never guaranteed to make an appearance.

So when it does, it seems the whole world stops to watch.

(wind blowing) (object whirring) The technician behind this light show is wind, a solar wind created by flares from the sun.

These sun flares emit electrons, which flow towards earth.

When this solar wind strikes Earth's magnetic field, it's deflected.

(gentle music) Deflected, it moves around the earth to the poles where the magnetic field is weakest.

As it pulls into our atmosphere, it excites particles in the air, which release energy as light.

Earth's magnetic lines toy with the solar wind, turning illuminated particles into streams of colour.

(upbeat music) (water crashing) Most solar particles collide with our atmosphere around 96 to 240 kilometres up where oxygen is concentrated.

The result is green, the most common shade.

At high altitude where oxygen is thin, the solar wind flashes red.

At low altitude, nitrogen tints it blue.

(wind blowing) The Arctic skies are set alight like a disco, revealing the nighttime antics of many animals, even whales dance under the glowing stratosphere.

(dramatic music) Aurora occurs at both the North and South Poles, but it's the Northern Lights which are most renowned, showing off wind in all its true colours.

(wind blowing) (mechanical whirring) (animation swooshes) (gentle music) Wind has stirred the imagination for aeons and has greatly influenced human culture.

For thousands of years, civilizations have harnessed it for transport and industry.

Windmills have been in use since 2000 BC.

And today, wind energy is one of the fastest growing sources of renewable power.

(waves crashing) (upbeat instrumental music) An iconic place renowned for its wind power is the Bass Strait.

This treacherous body of water is approximately 250 kilometres wide and 500 kilometres long, and separates the Australian mainland from Tasmania.

(waves crashing) (dramatic music) A land bridge once existed here, enabling indigenous Australians to colonise Tasmania.

But after the last glacial period ended around 12,000 years ago, rising sea levels formed the strait.

It remains dangerously shallow, with an average depth of just 60 metres.

(waves crashing) (quirky music) The combination of this shallow bottom with strong currents, tidal flow and wind pushes up tall steep waves that crash in old directions.

The prevailing wind is westerly, but without warning, it can switch to the Southeast.

Temperature drops, severe weather is triggered and a notorious southerly buster takes hold.

(horn blaring) This volatility of weather has been the undoing of many a seaward adventure.

Countless ships, big and small, have sunk here.

(suspenseful music) Bass Strait has been likened to the Bermuda Triangle, with many vessels disappearing without a trace.

(waves crashing) Although the best Strait is treacherous, it became a major shipping route.

The passage was a shortcut and supply ships took their chances; most famously, a bulk carrier called, the Falls of Halladale.

On the night of November 14th, 1908, she was engulfed in fog and swept up on rocks.

The crew abandoned ship, leaving her sails fully set.

It took weeks for her to founder, and crowds gathered to watch.

It was certainly an eerie spectacle to see a sinking ship still trying to catch the breeze.

Despite it's notoriety, ships continue to crisscross Bass Strait to this day; mostly, it's out of need, rarely is it out of choice.

(fast-paced rock music) Every year, that choice is bravely made by a whole lot of sailors all at once in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

It starts in Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day and ends in Hobart, Tasmania.

The distance is approximately 1,170 kilometres, and the holy grail is to complete it in less than two days.

It's considered one of the most difficult sailing races in the world.

Winning is all about taming the wind.

(waves crashing) (helicopter blades slapping) To fail can be catastrophic, even deadly.

(waves crashing) (mechanical whirring) (dramatic music) Although the winds of Bass Strait have earned a bad reputation for breaking boats and drowning sailors, they are also responsible for beauty.

On Victoria's aptly named Shipwreck Coast, the famous 12 Apostles weather every storm.

(waves crashing) These limestone pillars were once part of the cliffs.

But over millions of years, wind and wave action eroded away caves, which became arches, which then collapsed to leave these columns.

Every day, the forces of the Southern ocean continue wearing them down.

Every year, they are slightly diminished.

Scientists have found so-called "Drowned Apostles" already beneath the waves, it's the destiny of all of them, given time.

The winds of Bass Strait spare nothing and no one.

(waves crashing) (wind roaring) (upbeat music) Another wind icon that fuses reality with spirituality is Kata Tjuta.

Formerly known as The Olga's, these large dome formations lie 40 kilometres west of Uluru in Australia's Red Centre.

For the Aboriginal people, the name Kata Tjuta means "Many Heads", so named for the 36 rounded domes that make up this icon.

Many spots at Kata Tjuta reference the wind.

There's The Valley of the Winds, and Walpa Gorge walk; with "Walpa" translating to "Windy".

(upbeat music) (birds chirping) Springtime is the windiest time for Kata Tjuta, over September, October and November.

(wind blowing) The winds whistle in from the Southeast, reaching speeds of up to 90 kilometres an hour.

The general flow of weather is west to east, but storms can arrive from any direction.

(thunder crackling) Puffy clouds are a full warning, quickly covering the sky.

Minutes before the storm hits, the temperature drops and the winds pick up.

(rain pouring) Storms are most frequent over summer, accompanied by dry, dusty winds.

This ancient isolated place has certainly experienced the wind element in all its moods and has been altered each time.

Kata Tjuta's formation began around 500 million years ago.

At that time, the region was covered in sea.

Sand and mud created fans on the seabed which compressed into rock.

When the sea receded 400 million years ago, these fans were pushed upwards and tilted, then the wind began its work.

(dramatic music) Laden with desert grit, the wind sand blasted the rock and loosened the crests.

(wind blowing) (leaves rustling) In partnership with rain, it eroded away the softer sandstone and left behind the spectacular granite, basalt and boulder formations of Kata Tjuta.

Throughout history, desert animals have been kept on their toes as the winds slacken or strengthened.

(gentle guitar music) From natives like lizards, to ferals like these camels.

Alongside its sister formation, Uluru, Kata Tjuta is a major landmark down under and recognisable worldwide; a testimony to the artistry of wind.

(flag flapping) Unlike other elements, wind itself is invisible.

(gentle music) It's simply the movement of air altered by air pressure.

Air rushes from high to low pressure areas with differing force.

Depending on its strength, wind is known as a breeze, gust, gale, storm, or hurricane.

(object whirring) (mechanical whirring) (animation swooshes) (upbeat music) The only way to admire wind is to observe how it animates or impacts other things.

On the Utah-Arizona border in the Western United States, this observation is intense.

This is one of the most photographed natural icons in the world.

Monument valley, the defining symbol of the American West.

(eagle cries) (gentle music) Monument Valley is located in arid desert and characterised by vast sandstone formations called, "Buttes".

These are essentially isolated hills with steep sides and fragile tops rising up to 300 metres.

The most famous panorama includes two buttes shaped like gloved hands called, East and West Mitten.

Between their thumbs is the rounded Merrick Butte.

(dramatic music) The mittens are remnants of a very ancient landscape that has changed radically over time.

At first, the area lay under an ancient sea.

Next, it was a lowland basin slowly filled with sediment as the early rocky mountains eroded.

This sediment, composed of both rock and sandstone, cemented into a vast plateau.

Tectonic uplift pushed earth upwards while meandering rivers carved through it.

Over tens of millions of years, water and wind eroded the earth; the erosion was erratic.

Billions of tonnes of substrate were removed, and yet the most delicate sculptures endured.

(vehicle rumbling) (gravel crunching) (gentle music) The buttes are layered, recording distinct geological eras.

The lowest strata is Organ Rock Shale, carried by water from the ancestral Rocky Mountains; it's the oldest layer and easily eroded.

The next two layers are different sandstones laid down by different rivers riddled with the fossils of extinct fish and amphibians.

Hard conglomerate rock caps the very top.

It protects the structure from erosion from the top down, often resulting in sheer vertical sides.

Windblown sand adds to and hardens the sandstone layers.

At the same time, wind continues to erode, often with such gusto it kicks up a dust storm.

(wind blowing) In this strange interplay of building and stripping back, the wind works solo.

(sombre music) This desert is arid and dry with an average rainfall of barely 170 millimetres.

Without water, erosion is very slow.

So for the wind, Monument Valley is a long-term project.

(wind blowing) (sombre music) Wind certainly took its time crafting this wonder.

The arch is befittingly called, "Ear of the Wind", and perfectly frames the hot sky.

It's one of countless urban masterpieces that fill the greater Monument Valley Tribal Park, which spends over 91,000 acres.

(wind blowing) (flag flapping) The park is managed by the Navajo Nation who have complex and central legends tied to the valley.

One includes a fourth world inhabited by monsters, which were killed by heroes.

The carcasses turned to stone and other formations now littering the desert floor.

Some are called totem poles, which perfectly honours both spirituality and shape.

(horse galloping) (maestoso music) The magic of this place drew the attention of movie makers.

John Ford made seven films in Monument Valley, including "Stagecoach", which shot John Wayne to stardom.

The spirit of the old Hollywood Western endures here still, cowboy hats tipped to the breeze.

(mechanical whirring) (animation swooshing) (birds chirping) (dramatic music) Sometimes wind goes out of its way to alter the planet and play havoc with history.

In the Southern Hemisphere, these winds have earned colourful names: the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties and the Screaming Sixties.

(waves crashing) They occur between latitude 40 to 60 degrees south fueled by the mighty Southern Ocean.

Their dramatic names were given by sailors who first entered these latitudes as they attempted to describe each wind by its deafening noise.

These winds are as terrifying as their names suggest.

Feeling the brunt of the Furious Fifties is Tierra del Fuego.

(mechanical whirring) (dramatic music) This is an archipelago at the Southern most tip of South America, shared by Chile and Argentina.

It's a place encircled by ocean and defined by wind.

(wind blowing) (dramatic music) The Furious Fifties blow relentlessly here, denuding the landscape.

These strong westerly winds are caused by the Earth's rotation and the displacement of air between the equator and South Pole.

Few land masses act as windbreak as the wind builds in the Southern Ocean and rules northward, gaining strength and speed.

At Tierra Del Fuego, it runs amok.

(wind blowing) Sometimes, the wind's strong enough to blow you over, and it whips up the weather, making it common to experience all four seasons in one day.

(soft flute music) Tierra Del Fuego lies in the Patagonia region where wind is the main driver of climate.

Rather than being dissuaded by the force of these winds, early sailors made the most of them.

The reliability and strength of the wind was an asset for crossing treacherous oceans and enabled the expansion of trade and commerce.

From the 1500s, the Spanish and Portuguese colonisers blew in, claiming much of Patagonia as their own.

They were led by Ferdinand Magellan.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) The seafaring spirit is still alive and well in Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego.

Ushuaia is famously referred to as, "The town at the end of the earth."

(upbeat music) Ushuaia is also the gateway to Antarctica, and most ships at the dock have their bows pointed in that direction.

Spring and summer are the peak seasons to sail south, they also happen to be the windiest months.

(metal creaking) Like a feisty tour guide, the wind ushers the ships out of Ushuaia and down the Beagle Channel, the access route to the deep south.

(upbeat music) To sail down this 240 kilometre long waterway is to retrace the passage of naturalists, Charles Darwin, in the 1830s.

(upbeat music) He sailed here aboard HMS Beagle, after which the channel is named, and reportedly fell in love with the glaciers and wildlife of South America.

(upbeat music) One unusual animal that no doubt caught his eye was the Magallenic Penguin.

These shy birds colonise the shores of the Beagle Channel and escape the Furious Fifties by digging their nests underground.

(penguin cawing) (quirky music) Darwin's passion for botany was also satisfied in Tierra del Fuego.

And in this windblown place, the greatest botanical wonder is this, beach trees, shaped by the prevailing wind.

(upbeat music) At the end of the Beagle Channel, the winds bid farewell to the iconic Tierra del Fuego and blast across the Drake Passage.

The wind chill increases as the frozen continent draws near.

At 50 degrees south, the Roaring Forties give way to the Furious Fifties, which then, at 60 degrees south, morph into the Screaming Sixties.

(water crashing) (dramatic music) The Antarctic circle lies at 66.5 degrees south, and what the wind does here is legendary.

Cold, dense air moves from the highest regions of the polar plateau towards the coast.

Gravity sucks it downwards at speed.

Where a valley or contour constricts the wind, it can blow at hurricane force.

This is called a katabatic wind, and the only thing to do is sit tight.

(wind blowing) The Guinness Book of Records lists Antarctica as the windiest place on the planet.

The highest wind speed was recorded in Commonwealth Bay in 1972; a staggering 307 kilometres an hour.

If ever a penguin desired to be airborne again, this would be their chance.

(wind blowing) (mechanical whirring) (animation swooshing) (waves crashing) (maestoso music) Wind infuses the planet with immeasurable energy.

It turns solid earth into airborne sand, fills our lungs and sails, connects us to outer space and to the ends of the earth, and is the greatest ally of flight.

Wind is an omnipotent force of nature, forging icons out of thin air.

(wind blowing) (maestoso music) (maestoso music ends)