ByVeronika Vermeulen
Hours
December 19, 2025December 19, 2025
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Experience New Zealand in the most exclusive way possible, with a private helicopter experience booked through Aroha Luxury New Zealand Tours. There is something incredibly special about that silence you experience standing on a glacier carved out by time, with no one else in sight for kilometers. Those are the moments when the vastness of the world really hits you… and just how privileged you feel to be seeing it. This is what Main Divide Helicopters offers, helicopter safaris that promise to render guests truly speechless.
Beyond the heli window
The team at Main Divide Helicopters sets the scene for that particular moment guests first take in New Zealand’s South Island from above, they say that “often they’re speechless with the scenery being so beautiful“. What begins as excitement at the unexpectedly smooth takeoff of a helicopter, quickly transforms into an all-encompassing feeling of awe.
It’s remote. It’s jaw-dropping. Sometimes, silence really is the best response to beauty.
The world unfolds beneath you, golden beaches, snaking rivers, and massive glaciers, all within the same flight. You drop down into deep gorges, then rise up onto mountain peaks, simultaneously feeling on top of the world yet humbled by the scale of the NZ nature that surrounds you.
More than just a flight
Main Divide Helicopters specialises in multi-day helicopter safaris, and think about it like this, a private helicopter is a key to New Zealand’s most extraordinary and hidden places. Main Divide Helicopters has exclusive landing permissions throughout a network of private properties, wilderness locations, and hidden gems that you’ll have all to yourselves.
But what really sets them apart is how they turn the journey into something deeply personal.
This story, in particular, is really quite inspiring, a client of theirs had recently lost one of the most important people in their lives and wanted to get right up high into the mountains, believing that the higher they could climb, the closer they could be with the one they’d lost. For theMain Divide Helicopters team, supporting this emotional journey provided a powerful reminder that they’re facilitating deep human experiences. With this, they reflect, “It reminds us of why we do what we do every day.“
Meet Chris: Your pilot and guide
Flying with Main Divide Helicopters puts you in the capable hands of Chris, who has near to a decade of experience flying across continents and conditions. He has flown tourist routes around Western Australia‘s Bungle Bungles, taught others to fly helicopters in Auckland, helped get a flight school up and running in Whanganui, fought wildfires across more than a million hectares in Canada, and moved diamond drills in -30-degree temperatures.
What guests remember, though, is this: Chris treats every flight and customer as if they’re special, even when the destination is unglamorous or short. He knows for his clients all flights are special, and he shows up accordingly.
Chris loves flying, but even more, he loves meeting new people and sharing great experiences with them. He is that kind of pilot who right in the middle of a flight suddenly will spot a glacier and change course because that is what catches your eye; this is your adventure, and flexibility is built into every moment. No flight is the same.
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Your journey, your way
No two Main Divide Helicopters experiences will ever be the same. Before you take off, the team takes the time to get to know you, your interests, what’s brought you to New Zealand, and what matters most about this journey to you.
“We create once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” they say. “We don’t want to provide cookie cutter trips.”
Chris and Emily are a dynamic duo
Emily handles the pre-flight relationship-building and detail coordination, then they both design your adventure. The result is an itinerary that feels entirely yours, whether you’re interested in fly fishing remote alpine rivers, sipping world-class wines at exclusive vineyards, hiking glacier valleys, or simply unwinding in style in luxury lodges between flights.
Want to land on a private beach for a crayfish feast prepared fresh on the sand? Done. Interested in a vineyard hopping tour through Marlborough and Central Otago? Absolutely. Want a helicopter at your beck and call during your stay at a high-country lodge so you can take spontaneous tours onto glaciers? That’s what they’re here for.
The classic South Island safari
While each experience is customised, Main Divide Helicopters seven-day Classic Highlights safari gives an idea of what is possible. This adventure from Christchurch to Queenstown weaves in whale watching off Kaikōura, explorations of the Marlborough Sounds, glacier experiences near Mt. Cook, and dramatic fjord flights to Milford Sound.
If you can think it, they can deliver it
Main Divide Helicopters has a few specialised variations on their safari experience. ‘Tastes of the South’ is about taking it up a notch on your flight, collecting fresh produce and wines en route, perhaps high-country lamb or fresh Kaikōura crayfish, then working side by side with a private chef at remote alpine landing sites to create bespoke meals in complete seclusion.
‘Wild Pursuits’ specialises in taking anglers and hunters deep into some of the most remote landscapes in the world in search of wild game and the clearest fly-fishing waters with specialist guides who know where the secrets are kept.
You can also upgrade any safari with additions like a private photographer who will capture every moment so that you don’t need to reach for your phone… or a private chef who travels with you, creating customised menus from the freshest local ingredients.
Three words
When asked to summerise, the Main Divide Helicopters experience in three words, the team chose unforgettable, unique and untouched, and we whole heartedly agree. Experience natural beauty, as nature intended it, but from above!
Veronika Vermeulen
Veronika Vermeulen is Director of Aroha New Zealand Tours Ltd. Aroha New Zealand Tours Ltd. has been offering 100% tailored journeys and private guided luxury experiences in New Zealand since 2000.
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