Outer Edge | Page 49

New Zealand is one of the best off road driving destinations in the world and NZ Adventures provide first hand experience of this – with the azure blue alpine lakes, farmland, rainforests, river valleys and lakes – this is the New Zealand you didn’t know existed. The 6 tours currently on offer are of either 5 or 6 days duration with a range of highlights and destinations from the Marlborough hill country including Molesworth Station in the north to Queenstown in the south and a wide range of high country sheep stations ,conservation parks and back country roads and tracks in between. Popular with the people on the tours is the interaction with the landowners on the stations and the landscapes unfolding in the back country far off the established tourist routes. NZ Adventures 4x4 tours has regular access through more than 65 High Country Stations, several plantation forests and extensive DOC managed Conservation estates in Marlborough, West Coast, Canterbury Otago and Southland. The High Country Heritage Tour will take you from Marlborough through high country stations ; tiny mountain streams to great impossibly blue lakes. It is a 6 day tour, 1250 kilometres, from Blenheim south down the spine of the island to Cardrona near Queenstown. A 5 day tour, the Eastern Explorer heads South East through the Mountain Ranges of South Canterbury, and down to Alexandra in Central Otago. The Southern Ranges 5 day tour is the most diverse in terms of scenery and will astound you as you pass through the seemingly barren and high mountains of the Lindis Pass to the lush fertile Waimea Plains west of Gore. Experience the vast expanses of the MacKenzie Basin and surrounding areas (including amazing views of majestic Mt Cook and the flatlands between the Tekapo, Pukaki and Ohau rivers), with the 5 day MacKenzie Explorer Tour. Or the West Coast Explorer Tour which is 5 days and starts in Hanmer Springs travelling through the Western side of Molesworth Station where we leave the tawny brown tussocks of North Canterbury and plunge into the verdant Beech forests that are a feature of the journey. The newest tour is the 46 South Tour, loosely based along the 46th parallel, an imaginary line that crosses Southland. These trips are fully guided with people driving their own vehicles or hiring a vehicle. Radio Communication to all vehicles with a commentary along the way. www.nzadventures.co.nz