Finding South
Photographers and film makers - Joel McDowell, Andrew Lewthwaite and Jamie Rayel recently spent a good part of 3 weeks living on the road and calling their wagons home. The groups aim of the trip was to have no plan, chase the good weather and search the less explored landscapes of the South Island, all while spending as much time as possible off sealed roads. That meant travelling on gravel roads, public dirt tracks through private stations, over huge and narrow mountain passes taking them up and above 1800m and along braided river beds through valleys towered by the Southern Alps.
The group knew they were going to encounter some rough terrain so it was important for them to have the best tyres available to get them there and back again safely. Each truck was fitted with a set of Toyo Open Country tyres. Joel’s 90’s Landrover Discovery was fitted with the go-anywhere Open Country A/TII’s, Andrew’s Ford Ranger was fitted with the “hybrid” styled Open Country R/T’s and Jamie’s D-max was fitted with the durable and aggressive Open Country M/T’s.
The group were thrown plenty of curve balls with three medical incidents, an engagement and plenty more that left all of them not ready for the journey to be over. You can watch the full Finding South video here.