New Zealand South Island for adventure

Description

New Zealand – South Island is a wild southern land of stunning scenery, dramatic mountain ranges, quaint villages and great four-wheel driving

This was a tour of New Zealand’s South Island organised jointly by Steve Beston of NZ 4X4 Treks and Vic Widman of Great Divide Tours and a group of Australians were ready for adventure.

From Omarama, the gliding capital of New Zealand, the convoy zig-zagged across the steep-sided mountains. We traversed along the mountain tops with great views in all directions. Then we carefully made our way down into the valleys below.

This tour accessed many of the heights of the South Island, such as driving along the top of the Pisa Range (6000 feet). We drove among the schist tors and stopped for lunch beside a pretty tarn. We also crossed the St Bathans Range and the Hector Mountains (5000 feet) for more 4-wheel drive adventure.

It is not all mountain tops in New Zealand. There are river valleys, and we crossed the Nevis River multiple times. The road led through pristine Beech Forest to reach Mavora Lakes and a drive along the lake shore.

The historic gold mining township of St Bathans provided accommodation for one night with a home cooked meal for dinner. Cardrona was another historic township where we stayed in the delightful hotel.

Once the 4-wheel driving was complete there was time to relax in Queenstown, Cromwell and Wanaka. But all too soon we returned to Christchurch via the beautiful Lakes Pukaki and Tekapo.

New Zealand is a land of stunning scenery, dramatic mountain ranges, quaint villages and great 4-wheel driving and you can see it all in our latest video Wild Southern Land: New Zealand’s South Island.

For more South Island 4 wheel drive adventure see our video New Zealand: Down South.