BENEATH THE BIG SKY
It takes less than four hours to drive from Geraldine to Alexandra on the conventional route. But having had two thoroughly enjoyable four-wheel-drive tours with Robbie and Connie Crickett of NZ Adventures Ltd last year, we booked early for the 2019 Big Sky trip, a mostly mountainous excursion through Otago, Canterbury and a little bit of Southland.
At the briefing in Geraldine the evening before the trip, we met up with two other couples that we travelled with last year and learnt that most of our fellow travellers on these well-organised tours are previous clients. Robbie warned that dust was likely to be an issue due to the recent prolonged dry spell, and suggested that when on the dusty roads our convoy spread out a bit to minimise any nuisance.
Next morning it’s no time before we’re up into the mountains through Orari Gorge Station, past some of the oldest farm buildings in the country and the first of many musterers’ huts that we see during the trip. To our right, Mt Peel at 1743 metres soars above us as we head towards Blue Mountain Station, and we start to get an idea of just how much largely unseen land there is in these mountains. Robbie keeps us informed with facts and figures as we drive, mentioning that recently the market for ultra-fine (sub-17 micron) wool has dropped, as apparently the leisure garment market prefers 22–23 micron wool for its products; top merino store lambs fetched $160 in the sale at the beginning of March, and even the poorest fetched $94. He
