Burglar takes young documentary makers' hard work 

They travelled to some of the world's most dangerous places, slept in squats and hitch-hiked.

But the three young Kiwi women who spent nine months abroad filming for a documentary in 32 countries never once had their valuables stolen - until they reached New Zealand.

Kate Logan, 24, Emily Bailey, 27, and Marama Mayrick, 21, had been back from their documentary-making trip for less than five hours when vital audio for their film was stolen in a burglary.

Kate Logan said Mayrick had been staying at an Auckland motel with her parents on Sunday night. At 3am, a burglar climbed through the back window of the room and stole the 15 disks for the film along with cellphones and laptops.

"I just could not believe it. We have travelled to some of the most dangerous countries in the world and some of the most crime-ridden. We are not in the country for five hours and it is all gone - three months of hard work."

Logan, a graduate from Wellington Design School who has made videos and short films, said some of that work was irreplaceable "moments in history".

A $200 reward has been offered for their return.

The film project was called Kotahi Ao, which means 'There is one world', and was started by the Wellington Rainforest Action Group. It was an attempt to show people positive things they could do to help the environment.

Work for the film involved living cheaply - sometimes hitch-hiking and staying in squats - and would feature things like the world's biggest dam in China and interviews with some of the world's leading scientists.

She said that the disks were an orange or brown colour with stickers on them and they were in a red cosmetics bag with a black strap.

Anyone who knew where the trio's tapes were could contact them by email: info@kotahiao.org