NZ Adventures is a long-established back country tour company owned by Robbie and Connie Crickett of Invercargill.
The pair offer five different tours throughout the South Island over the summer months as well as a sixth (winter-time) trip in the North Island.
For Robbie the 2020/21 season will be his 22nd guiding motor vehicle trips along the tracks and back roads of the South Island.
Robbie and Connie are very proud of the NZ Adventures’ culture of close involvement with the farmers and rural communities that they travel through with their tours being significant fundraisers for schools, aged care facilities and local ambulance organisations to mention but a few in the area they travel through.
The rural way of life
"As retired farmers ourselves, Connie and I are passionate about farming and the rural New Zealand way of life and wish to both support that and show it off to our guests as much as we can," says Robbie.
The tours are all in some ways different as the South Island is a large area with a lot of contrasting landscapes.
Nowhere is the contrast more marked than on the West Coast Explorer trip where on the first day the tour route transitions quite suddenly from the open dry grasslands of North Canterbury to the beech forests of the Southern Alps and West Coast.
Another massive contrast can be seen on the extremely popular 46 South tour across Southland where the hilly coastal landscapes of the Catlins are quite different from the Southland Plains and the towering Takitimus in far Western Southland and mountains of Fiordland.
The most popular and longest established of the NZ Adventures’ tours is the High Country Heritage trek from Blenheim down to Cardrona along the eastern slopes of the alpine divide. This trip offers a mix of extensive and intensive farming systems punctuated by lengths of wilderness tracks over mountain foothill ranges.
NZ Adventures offers the High Country Heritage trip four times each season; in December, February, March and April. In March the trip is of seven days duration compared with six days on the other three occasions.
Overnights along that route are in Hanmer Springs, Methven, Fairlie, Omarama and Cromwell. While with the seven-day format in March, Fairlie gets missed out and Geraldine and Twizel are included along with a slight route change.
Overnights on all the tours are accommodated in Hotels or Motels in towns along the route with evening meals and breakfasts in the associated restaurants. Lunches are more varied in their format ranging from long sumptuous stops at station homesteads through to packed picnic lunches to be enjoyed out on the trail.
There is always time for a morning tea stop along the track as well.
Another popular trip that has been more recently added to the NZ Adventures’ line-up in the Eastern Explorer. Robbie considers that travelling down the Southern Alps along the foothills is a fairly obvious and very popular route but the South Island is so much more than just the alpine divide.
The Island is also at its widest across Otago and the Eastern Explorer takes in a large swath of little known countryside almost always in sight of the Pacific Ocean. The Four Peaks Range, Hunter Hills, Oteake and Te Papanui Conservation areas are amongst highlights of the tour.
There are also the beautiful areas of the Strath Taieri and the Maniototo and Ida Valley.
The Eastern Explorer also touches on the gold mining which is so important in Otago. The tour takes in the Oceania Gold mine at Macraes Flat and numerous historic mining areas including Gabriels Gully at Lawrence. The tour finishes in the Central Otago town of Alexandra.
Overnights on the five-day Eastern Explorer include Ranfurly (two nights), Mosgiel and Lawrence while the lunch venues include a station farmhouse, a school fundraiser in a woolshed and three picnics.
So, if you think it’s about time you ‘got out into the New Zealand back country and had a good look around,’ get in touch with Robbie or Connie Crickett (contact details are in the ad below You won’t be disappointed!
