There have been some big changes since I last travelled this way about 12 years ago. Grape vines have made their way up the Awatere, seemingly occupying any available scrap of river terrace.

Livestock farmers are also growing a lot of lucerne in Marlborough these days, probably following the successful model of coping with the extreme dry summers established by Doug Avery and others down towards the coast.

The straight line of the Awatere Valley is controlled by the Awatere Fault. It is one of several major faults which the Alpine Fault splits into in the north of the South. These splay in a north easterly direction through North Canterbury and Marlborough and cross Cook Straight. They are all capable of producing magnitude 7+ earthquakes.

In 1848 the Awatere Fault moved, causing an estimate 7.5 magnitude earthquake which totally destroyed the new settlement of Wellington. The events of 1848 are well documented in a new book called Visitations by Rodney Grapes and published by Victoria University Press. Some of the eyewitness accounts from 1848 are uncannily similar to our experiences in Christchurch.

The convoy heads into the upper Awatere for lunch at Middlehurst Station where owners Willie and Sue Macdonald are putting on lunch. They bought the 5000ha freehold, 11,000ha pastoral lease property 13 years ago.

They have entered the fraught tenure review process, but say little has happened in two years. “We’ve got to be careful to do the right thing for the property, not for short term gain,” Willie says.

They run 4500 Merino breeding ewes 4000 hoggets and Angus beef cattle. An Icebreaker contract for their wool has been very good he says. The cattle mostly go to the feedlot near Ashburton.

Most of these Marlborough properties have serious weed and pest problems. Willie says they are getting on top of the broom with regular aerial spraying. His biggest fear is an invasion of wilding pines from Molesworth.

Back on the road after a superb lunch we pass through Muller Station before crossing over into Molesworth.

It’s been about six years since I’ve been here. Don Brash was then leader of the Nats and he was speaking together other politicians at a field day the last time I came.

The country is unbelievably green for this time of year, and that will be the case throughout our South Island trip. Vipers bugloss is everywhere giving a blue tinge to the valleys, and on some of the flats native gentians are putting on a spectacular show.

We stop at the Acheron accommodation house, built of cob in the 1860s and partially restored or at least protected from the elements in the 1990s. It was built as one of a chain of accommodation houses for horse drawn transport between Christchurch and Nelson. Around the house gooseberries, cherries and apples grow in thickets. They have obviously gone feral from the old garden.

From there it’s a short trip up the Clarence River, where we get good views of the wilding pine disaster that is occurring on Molesworth. Seeds have spread over the range from the Hanmer Forest.

This problem pre dates DOC’s involvement with Molesworth. Some recent attempts have been made at aerial spraying, but you get the feeling that the technique won’t be very efficient until there is full forest cover.

The weather deteriorates very quickly as we head up Jollies Pass. The cold snap that has been threatening all day finally arrives and near the top of the pass the temperature drops to 1 or 2 degrees and there is a touch of snow falling.

And on down into Hanmer Springs for the night. It’s very obvious the township has seen a lot of new development in the last five years or so.

DAY 2

A cool morning in Hanmer and brekky at Robbies Bistro and Bar which used to be the old post office.

Today our route which ends up in Methven will be a lot less off road than other days.

The day is clear with cotton wool clouds as we follow the Waiau River down towards Culverden. The North Canterbury hills are verdant. On to Hawarden and Masons Flat, and then to McDonald Downs Station for morning tea where Bill and Phil Paterson give us a run down on their 10,400ha plot.

This land was cut off the old Heathstock block and first occupied by the Rutherford family in 1908. In 1952 it was sold to the NZ Australian Land Company, made up of a group of Glasgow solicitors aiming to develop land in the colonies.

It was bought by the Paterson family in 1966 and Bill like his three brothers was set up with his own farm.

He says the farm work was all done on horseback at the time. He wanted to get it mechanised, so over the years has developed an extensive system of lanes across the largely hill country farm. They are wide and are kept in good nick by a contract grader. It is a system familiar to dairy farmers, but unusual for hill country livestock farmers.

With 12,000 Halfbred ewes, 2000 Perendale ewes and 700 cattle they produce a range of top end products. The Halfbred ewe wool goes to a Smartwool contract, the hogget wool to an Icebreaker contract and the Perendale wool to the carpet industry. All the beef is finished on the property for a supermarket contract.

A drive to the top of Blue Mountain (850m) on McDonald Downs gives us a 360 degree view of the North Canterbury hill country.

From there the convoy heads over Okuku Pass and into Lees Valley where another great lunch is put on by Rob and Julie Stokes on Richon Station. I visited them about 10 years ago for a story and it’s nice to see the photo I took of a younger version of them for The Press framed and sitting on the window sill.

Herefords are the mainstay of their large cattle operation, including a Hereford Stud, while Perendales are the sheep of choice these days.

The Stokes family have been in the valley for several generations, but the number of farms in the area has reduced from nine to three. They now have the threat of the valley being damned to create an enormous storage lake in the valley for Canterbury Plains irrigation.

It is only being mooted about at this stage, but these days in water hungry Canterbury everything is possible, especially if most of the water problems can be solved in one hit. Rob says if it went ahead it would sink them... maybe literally.

From there we head out of Lees Valley and follow the steep, bushed gorge of the Ashley River for about half an hour before emerging above the inland Canterbury Plains near the township of Oxford.

The rest of the day is on regular roads. Oxford to Springfield, then a climb up the slopes of the Torlesse Range to Porters Pass. From Lake Lyndon we take the back road through to the Rakaia Valley and out on to the Plains again to Methven.

Methven is a thriving wee town based on its agricultural service industries. It has a newish heritage centre, which is as fine a community centre as you will find in any small town.

At the hotel we find that a number of the guests are workers who, extraordinarily, commute the one and a half hours to Christchurch everyday for earthquake repair work. Like insurance it seems accommodation is going to be one of the holdups for Christchurch’s rebuild.

DAY 3

We leave Methven and aim to travel up the south side of the Rakaia River above the gorge. This is the longest day of our journey and we aim to be in Tekapo by about 6pm.

The weather quickly clears revealing the true splendour of this landscape. This day we traverse one of my favourite areas of the South Island.

The north side of Mount Hutt has traditionally been sheep and beef country, but the inevitable march of dairying has even reached this area with one farm on the river flats. Dairying in the high country would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

On the hillsides there seem to be far fewer woody weeds than we see in most other areas, no doubt a credit to the work done by the landowners.

There isn’t much flat land in this dynamic environment, but the farmers are now utilising most river terrace scraps and stable shingle fans for growing feed crops or cereals.

Leaving the main Rakaia valley we drive up Lake Stream on Glenfalloch Station. This will eventually take us into the Lake Heron basin that wonderful mountain-bordered open country that extends round to Erewhon Station and the Rangitata River. It is accessed by road from Mount Somers township.

The trip up Lake Stream provides some of the most spectacular views on the trip. Looking towards the upper Rakaia the glaciated landscape is breathtaking.

Along Lake Stream the convoy crosses a very active, large shingle fan and it’s a matter of vehicles creeping along slowly. However someone gets stuck from taking a corner too wide, and has to pulled out by my trusty driver and guide Donald McIntosh.

This route was carved out by an overspill from the large glacier that occupied the Rakaia valley during a number of glaciations in the Ice Age.

This overspill of ice into the Lake Heron area joined another overspill from the Rangitata Valley. Together they formed a large glacier which moved down the South Ashburton Valley towards Mount Somers and out on to the Canterbury Plains.

Because there is no major river flowing through this area the glaciated landforms on the valley sides are relatively unaffected by erosion, and are as good as you will find anywhere in the world.

When I first came to New Zealand from the UK over 40 years ago as a young geologist I was contracted by the NZ Geological Survey to map a lot of this area.

So with no cell phones, no radios this young pommy boy was let loose in these mountains with absolutely no mention of health and safety. If I’d have gone missing it would probably have been a few days before anyone realised. Different times, quite a contrast to what it would be like in 2012.

From Mount Somers we head south, cross the Rangitata where a massive water storage dam is being built on flat farm land. We then leave the main road, drive up Tripp Settlement Road and on to Orari Gorge Station.

This back country route will wind through the hills, missing out Geraldine and Fairlie and disgorge us onto the highway again near Kimbell on the way to Burkes Pass.

Charles Tripp and John Acland were two pioneer settlers of this higher country and between them too up around 300,000 acres. Tripp family members are still on Orari Gorge Station.

Today Orari Gorge runs sheep, cattle and deer, with Romney and Hereford Studs.

The hills are steep and the valleys narrow with quite a bit of bush. It is the toughest test yet for our novice 4WD drivers. After an hour or so’s driving we pass into Blue Mountain Station.

Here some quite steep pitches and mudholes prove a real test. One steep slope with loose angular shingle and a bend at the top causes a little consternation for some drivers, but some sage advice from our leaders about confidence and keeping the momentum of the vehicle going, means everyone gets through ok and starts to feel like competent drivers.

Further on someone has to be hauled out of a mud hole, but that is the only time on the whole trip that mud is a problem.

Blue Mountain Station is owned by Roddy and Jo Brown who run 15,000 sheep _ Merinos and Perendales _ and 400 beef cattle. Merino wool is contracted to Icebreaker.

Out of the hills, along the backside of Lake Opuha, we eventually join the highway again, shoot over Burkes Pass and arrive in Tekapo at 6pm on a very warm evening.

Tekapo. What can you say. It is a major tourist stopping off point. It is in one of the most beautiful locations in the country, yet its development has been a mess. Add to that wilding pine trees all over the place and all I usually want to do is buy an icecream and keep moving on.

DAY 4

It’s a fine day in the Mackenzie Basin as we head back towards Burke’s Pass to pick up Dog Kennel Corner and the road south to Haldon Station.

Low cloud, however has developed in the lower parts by this time and by the time we get some elevation the Mackenzie lakes are shrouded in grey.

Just past Grays Hills Station we leave the road and head onto the hills on Stony Creek Run, which has recently returned to Haldon Station. In the old days it was part of Haldon, but for many years it was owned by Black Forest Station. This was some of the last land in Canterbury taken up for farming in the late 1850s.

On the first part of the run we travel through country that looks pretty bleak from a farming point of view, with stony thin soils, little or no grass cover, quite a few rabbits hopping about, and forests of briars. Apparently Haldon manager has Paddy Boyd, a past winner of the supreme award in the Ballance Environment Awards for Canterbury, has retired it from grazing for five years.

On the way up the hill we stop to look at a boundary rider’s hut from the 1860s. Although it has seen better days the stone house still has a roof, door and windows. It is a lovely remnant of earliest era of farming in the area.

Above about 1000m the woody weeds drop out and good strong tussock growth gives the landscape a much cleaner natural look. However hieracium remains a vigorous ground cover up to high levels and judging by the scratchings rabbits are pretty active.

Today is a packed lunch in the middle of nowhere. Straight after lunch one of our party rips the sidewall of a tyre on a steepish rocky pitch. With plenty of help the wheel is quickly changed, but this couple is going to have to find a replacement or they won’t be able to continue with the safari.

When cellphone reception is eventually found they discover there doesn’t seem to be a tyre of that size for sale in the Mackenzie Basin, so it is suggested they try Cromwell or Oamaru. It turns out a kind tyre man in Cromwell is willing to come out after hours and fit one. That evening as we settle down in the hotel at Omarama, they will shoot off to Cromwell more than 100km away to get another tyre.

The convoy continues on through Black Forest Station and follows the DC electricity line we originally followed in the Awatere Valley in Marlborough as it heads towards the Benmore Dam. This was for a long time the longest DC line in the world, and it has the oldest switching gear.

Another puncture, but this time fortunately not a wrecked tyre. Lake Benmore is the most incredible blue as we make the long descent to its shores.

Somewhere along here we have passed onto the 11,600ha Te Akatarawa Station. One noticeable thing here is that all the wilding pines on the hillside have been culled recently before they got out of hand. Good to see.

We have a good look at the earth dam which holds in Lake Benmore before heading for Omarama.

DAY 5

From Omarama we are going to Cromwell. Although only 100km or so by main road, our windings through the hills will take all day.

In recent years several dairy farms have made their appearance around Omarama, creating swathes of green in an otherwise brown landscape.

Lenticular clouds indicate norwest conditions as we leave Omarama, but a cold airstream from the south is predicted later in the day.

We are soon on to Twinburn Station which was owned by the Patterson family who own a number of properties in the area. Under tenure review Twinburn and neighbouring Michael Peak Station became part of the DOC estate as the Oteake Conservation Park. Here 4WD driving, motorbikes and horse riding are allowed on a number of tracks.

Travelling between the Ewe and Wether ranges we climb a saddle at over 1300m and pass into Otago. The higher land here is in really good nick with native tussock as far as the eye can see and very few weeds. However it is a fairly uniform landscape compared to a lot we have travelled through.

This is the route which was taken in the early 1980s to move the heavy duty Ministry of Works equipment from Twizel to Clyde for construction of the dam.

Apparently this route was preferable to the main road over Lindis Pass which has lots of small bridges and the heavy machinery would have been a big inconvenience to the travelling public.

The machinery was trucked as far as the road over the saddle and then those machines that could, crawled up to the saddle and over into Manuherikia catchment.

We descend into the Manuherikia through tussock grasslands and then back into farmland.

Water races dating from the gold mining days of the 19th century can be seen running along the hills. Eventually we rumble into the time warp that is St Bathans.

St Bathans has a handful of very historic building and a big hole in the ground filled with water. It is a strange moonscape formed from high pressure sluicing of the white quartz sand and gravels which contained alluvial gold.

Around 16,000 ounces of gold a year were won from here for a number of years, which by my calculation at today’s values would be worth nearly $30 million a year. These sort of ventures paid for Dunedin’s magnificent 19th century buildings.

Lunch, provided at the historic Vulcan Hotel, is very good. We then continue following the Manuherikia. At Omakau the first dairy farm in this part of Otago has appeared, and the question of how Fonterra service it arises, because it is a long way from other dairy clusters.

Perhaps if other farms eventually develop into dairying they will establish a milk concentration plant like in the Culverden Basin in North Canterbury, another dairy farming area remote from milk processing factories.

We make another quick detour to another time warp _ Ophir _ with its wonderful cluster of historic buildings. The historic Daniel O’Connor suspension bridge across the Manuherikia is also worth a look.

And it’s on to the Clyde Dam where Malcolm Langley gives an excellent run down on the development of the national grid, how the Clyde Dam fits in, and its limitations because the planned Clutha system of dams has never been completed.

A few kilometres upstream from the dam we have to make a complicated right turn, close to a corner, and across the main road to get onto the Sonora Track which winds its way to the top of the southern Dunstan Range.

Malcolm and Nancye say it is the part of the trip that makes them the most anxious. So we leave a big gap between vehicles and everyone makes the turn safely.

On top of the Dunstans at about 1600m the norwester is blowing a gale, it’s freezing cold and the wind makes it virtually impossible to open a car door. However most of the group do get out and walk (nearly crawl) round leaning rock. People are grabbing on to each other to remain upright.

The conditions are so bad that we move off quickly and travel along the ridge for a way before making the descent to Northburn Station.

Here the windswept group are going to be tasting wine matched with food.

Northburn was bought by Tom and Jan Pinckney in 1993 and like others they have diversified from just farming. Somewhere on Northburn is supposed to be the driest place in New Zealand.

The property is 13,500ha, and runs a low stocking rate of 10,000 Merino stock units with the 17 micron wool contracted to Icebreaker.

They Pinckneys looking for diversification and by the mid 90s were approached about vineyards. They went ahead and the fact that Jan was a restrauteur made a good match.

The new winery and restaurant was opened in 2008 and the Northburn label launched. However it coincided with the global economic downturn. Sixty per cent of the wine is sold from the property.

We roll into Cromwell soon after 6pm.

DAY 6

The sharp southerly snap overnight has left the hills blanketed in snow down to below 1000m. The temperature in Cromwell first thing is about 4 degrees and our Auckland companions are out in the carpark making the most of the photo opportunity.

First up is visit to the Cromwell Chafer Beetle Reserve. These endangered critters have their own large grassy paddock as virtual protection against extinction. Malcolm told us about it last night and people weren’t sure whether to believe him. But here it is.

The next destination is Bendigo Station, the site of John Perriam’s Merino operation and now vineyard, not to mention Shrek the world famous hermit Merino.

This land however was the site of extensive 19th century hard rock gold mining, and up on the slopes there is plenty of evidence of this industry and the hard lifestyle that was part of it.

The last time I was here it was baking hot and golden, but today a beanie and gloves would be good.

At Welshtown on Bendigo some of the goldminers’ cottages made out of local schist still remain in various states of repair. This sparked discussion of what it must have actually been like for families up here in the heat of summer and depths of winter, because this area is both the hottest and coldest spot in the country.

At Tarras the golf course is adapted for country ways with a wee fence round the greens to keep livestock out. Presumably the golfers chip over the fences, or maybe they are removable.

We move on to Cruden Station and climb to the airstrip. We were supposed to take a different route, but the snow and wet tracks make it unsuitable. Still the views of the snowy tops are spectacular.

Coming back over Cruden Stream many of our group line up for photos of vehicles crossing the stream. For some it’s a challenge and one man, a senior executive in a very big company, decides to hoon it through the water, creating a bow wave over the bonnet of his European 4WD. Eyes roll among those in the know about four wheel driving as he emerges from the water with steam pouring from his vehicle.

Water has entered the air intake and the expert opinion is that his motor is likely to be write off. So he is towed to the top of the hill into cellphone range where he will call the AA. We believe that’s probably the last we will see of him on the trip. The convoy must move on.

Lunch is at Cruden Station homestead in Tarras, is provided by station owner Lesley Purvis. Since her husband, former All Black Neil Purvis died three years ago, her two sons have taken over the farm work, while she does the admin.

The 12,500ha station runs 11,000 Merinos, 450 cattle and a few deer.

One development to increase productivity on the flats has been the establishment of irrigation.

Wool produced is in the 18 micron range, but has been a little finer in recent years because of the harsh conditions.

Lesley says that they are trying to decide whether to renew their contract with Icebreaker at the moment.

She says the cold snap is a relief as temperatures have been hovering around 30 degrees since November.

After lunch the convoy is travelling towards Luggate when a message comes over the radio that our water loving senior manager has rejoined the convoy and that his vehicle is now going fine. The experts are amazed.

Just before Wanaka we turn up the Cardrona River for about 10km before starting the long climb on to the Pisa Range to the Snow Farm

This road is wide and graded as it continues up for about 12km to reach 1400m. It was on this road that rally legend Possum Bourne was killed about eight years ago. Half way up on the rocks there is a memorial statue of him.

At the top is the HQ for a range of activities including cross country skiing and a custom built snow board park.

It is also the centre for the South Hemisphere Proving Grounds, a large area of tracks where international car companies come in the winter to test out their vehicles in snow and ice. Companies have their own discrete facilities away from the prying eyes of competitors.

The whole complex was developed by landowners John and Mary Lee and has now been sold.

We drive off towards higher parts of the Pisa Range, but can’t get as far as planned because of the snow. So it’s back to the snow board lodge for an early finish.

That night is spent at the upmarket lodge before everyone heads off in their own direction in the morning.

On Saturday Donald McIntosh takes me back to Amberley where he has left his dog in kennels and where I have left my car.