NZ ADVENTURES
Looking for adventure? The you have come to the right place. NZ Adventures can offer 4WD Ute owners all sorts of different guided, self-drive options through the South Island’s incomparable High Country.
This company offers five different tag-a-long tours across the South Island. Owned since 2013 by Robbie and Connie Crickett NZ Adventures has been operating since 1999.
The most popular and longest established tour continues to be the High Country Heritage which NZ Adventures offers in December, February, March and April each season.
In each of those months except March the tour runs to a six-day format. In March it is run as a seven-day with day three slightly shorter and with Geraldine as the overnight accommodation and then day four has a slightly different content and Tekapo as the overnight.
Generally the overnights along the route from the Blenheim start point are in Hanmer Springs, Methven, Fairlie, Omarama and Cromwell before the tour finishes in Cardrona.
Best accommodation & food
All overnight stays are in the best suitable accommodation in the towns mentioned along the route. Breakfasts and evening meals are in restaurants either part of the accommodations or close by. Lunches are a mixture of station lunches, cafe prepared picnic lunches or in at least one instance at an isolated hotel dining room.
Highlights of the tour are the interaction with the station owners, the scenery with an emphasis on the high country farming with mountain backdrops and the driving of normal un modified four wheel drive vehicles in that environment.
Vehicle requirements
Vehicles on NZ Adventures tours must be genuine fourwheel-drives with a low-range transmission fitted and with at least A/ T (All Terrain) tyres in good condition. That is basically the extent of the vehicle requirements.
As in all the NZ Adventures tours customers are provided with a handheld radio for each vehicle and Robbie Crickett who has now achieved twenty years of guiding motor vehicle tours along the back country tracks of the South Island, offers an informative commentary along the way about the farming and the scenery and points of interest.
Fine overview
The High Country Heritage tour in either format is a fine overview of the South Island backcountry covering as it does such a large swath of the country.
These trips and indeed all NZ Adventures tours are close to all-inclusive with the only costs for customers other than the entry fee being fuel and vehicle expenses and any drinks with the evening meals. An average day on the High Country Heritage in a typical diesel ute or SUV should see a fuel cost of about forty five dollars.
Proving popular
Another tour the company offers which is proving to be very popular is the five-day Eastern Explorer. Similar in presentation to the other tours but very different in the regions covered the Eastern Explorer starts in Geraldine and goes to Ranfurly for a couple of nights, then Mosgiel and Lawrence before finishing in Alexandra.
Highlights of the tour are the amazing tracks inland of Geraldine and south of Fairlie, The Oteake Conservation Park, Macraes Flat and the tracks of the Strath Taieri area,
Te Papanui Conservation Park near Lawrence and the old tracks that once were the transport lifelines of Central Otago.
To find out more contact Robbie and Connie at www.nzadventures.co.nz for further details.