Off-road motorcycle rides in New Zealand’s wild south had whetted my appetite to visit more of this fascinating region. But solo off-road travel can be difficult down there - not least because of the need to get permission to cross private land. Then there’s finding your way; our bleaker uplands aren’t richly supplied with signposts and landmarks. So I instantly accepted Malcolm Langley’s invitation to join him on a High Country Heritage Safari. It’s one of a number his company, NZ Adventures, organises each year, and it takes in some 22 high country stations and numerous stretches of private and DoC land. We’d spend six days meandering from Blenheim to the Wairau Snow farm, just outside Queenstown. Choice of vehicle was easy. Holden had just launched the Hummer H3. Would it hack the pace? Initially concerned about its size, Malcolm was mollified when discovering its dimensions are less extravagant than he’d expected. It’s wide, at 1,989 mm a full 49 mm wider than a Nissan Patrol with a wide track to go with it, but it’s not so wide it wouldn’t make the tracks he planned without a bit of care, and the 11.3metre turning circle - tighter than Patrol’s - should pay off. Certainly it looks the part, with the narrow windows and aggressive grille. Malcolm had suggested an extra spare wheel, which rather filled the boot, with just enough space for the suitcase, laptop bag, fire extinguisher, shovel and gumboots. The brisk cruise from Christchurch to Blenheim revealed decent performance from the 3.7-litre five-cylinder engine, with its 180 kW and 328 Nm; it also underlined this thing’s appeal. Filling up at Blenheim I was stopped by a car-load of youngsters wanting to take photos... Malcolm’s events start with an evening briefing. Gate protocols, radio, tail-end Charlie, care of your vehicle, maps, breakfast times and that most important of trip accessories - the wooden spoon, to be awarded at any time for any silliness the current holder feels deserves the accolade. That wooden spoon soon broke the ice next day when one of the 13 SUVs turned up late; passing quickly to me - for not smiling while holding a gate - then on. It certainly ensured we got to know each other fairly quickly! We headed bush almost immediately, into Blairich and Tyntesfield stations and on into the Awatere Valley. This is usually dry country, with among the highest recorded sunshine hours in NZ. Today it was dull and overcast - imparting greater impact to the views when they appeared. We halted at a sod hut and the first of many welcome morning teas, this one courtesy of our thermos flasks. That was a chance to meet our fellow adventurers, a motley mix of farmers from as far afield as Winton and the Coromandel, plus a sprinkling of Auckland accountants, holidaying geologists and retired air force officers. Some had extensive off-road experience on their own farms; others had never left the seal before, and were driving rented SUVs - or vehicles borrowed from nephews and sons. Thermos packed we were off again, winding further into the backblocks along the Awatere River to Middlehurst station, where we ate a home-cooked lunch perched on our knees on the deck of the recently-built modern farmhouse. Willy and Sue McDonald farm here together, their older children in boarding school, the younger - along with a couple of neighbouring kids - correspondence schooled in a building down by the woolshed, assisted two days a week by a visiting teacher and partly paid for by our lunch. They get the mail once a week - along with the supermarket delivery - and run 5,000 merino sheep and 400 cross-breed cattle on their 18,000 hectares, mustering on horseback and by foot. It’s a hard life - this year’s dry meant a growing season only a couple of weeks long - but clearly they love it. Sue and today’s helpers, Tracey from Molesworth Station and Mary from Mueller, are wonderful ads for the rural lifestyle, with their ruddy good looks, and golden hair scraped back from high cheekbones. How do women manage interests off farm? “Our main interest is farming,” Sue says, “it has to be.” From here we wound our way onto the Molesworth road, closed to general traffic at this time of year so impressively bleak. Rainfall varies from 700 mm to 1,800 mm, and the 10,000 cattle are widely spread over the 180,000 hectares of the station. It was tempting to get up a bit of speed here, but there are still vehicles about - not to mention unexpected bends and the odd savage drop-off. Dropping back enough to lose the lifting dust as the road dried, we maintained a steady pace bar the odd stop for photos, or for Malcolm to tell us a bit about the area through which we drove. We paused at the old Acheron accommodation house, which once housed drovers taking their beasts along this old stock route. Built in 1862 of sod, and originally thatched with tussock now covered in the ubiquitous corrugated iron, it provided bed and board for men and horses at 25 cents a night.

Tussock grass is regenerating over Molesworth, tawny gold in the late afternoon light, so our switchback descent via Jollies Pass came as a shock, with its thick weed cover of deep green broom and rampant pines spreading out into the wilder landscape. We woke at Hanmer to rain; a jaunt down Route 7, then into McDonald Downs Station for morning tea in the woolshed. Owner Bill Patterson has developed the property since 1966 - trebling the stock and adding over 250 km of internal roads. He runs sheep and breeding cows on his 11,000 hectares, mustering by ute and on foot. By now it was raining pretty steadily and our loop up Blue Mountain was cancelled - the greasy clay surface not worth tackling without a view to reward us; “half will get through, the rest will wish they’d never been born,” Malcolm said. With some of us so new to off-roading, we instead drove off through the farm tracks of Happy Valley, then popped out at Richon Station for lunch. Richon may not have Middlehurst’s fashionable new building, but our reception from Rob and Sue Stokes was as warm despite the wet, and the home-cooked food as welcome. The couple run 15,000 stock along with three staff, their kids travelling 40 minutes to Oxford for school. Snow lies for three months in a reasonable winter, and this must be a harsh life, despite the relative proximity to town. From there we wound along the remote Lees Valley, the narrow gravel roads clinging to hillsides as we threaded through the Ashley Gorge - via our group’s only puncture - to chilly Methven and a warm welcome at the Lodge. The Hummer had taken it all in its stride, the low range not really needed yet, the four-paw system working well and the suspension proving effective on the open stretches, absorbing bumps and rolling less than expected. Dirt was starting to stick though - especially round the rear door opening, where it proved difficult to avoid when accessing the back seats. I’d have liked a better view out as well, the narrow windows mandated by the Hummer’s style cutting vision more than I’d like. Still, so far so good. By now we’d all bedded in. Those in borrowed or rental vehicles had got the hang of them; we all knew who the characters were; and that the Winton farmers carried lollies in the ute. We were ready for the dryer forecast, and the steeper, tougher days ahead.