A trip that should have taken a few hours from Christchurch to Nelson, ended up taking one Australian couple a little longer than expected.
After flying into the Christchurch from Brisbane at midnight, Anthony Hoiberg and Clarinda Mojar entered Nelson into their rental car's GPS system and set off.
The couple were not looking to go off the beaten track, but that was what they got - an adventurous back country ordeal that finally ended in Nelson 10 hours later.
"We thought this would be an easy three hour trip and from then it went down hill" said Hoiberg.
The satellite navigation directed them to turn off at Hamner Springs onto a dirt track usually closed to the public. They then followed the Clarence River and then the Wairau River, opening several gates along the way and travelling over two rugged mountain ranges all at night, until they reached St Arnaud where they eventually turned back onto the main route.
"We realised we were in trouble. It was just too dark and too narrow and it was dangerous. We were looking down to the bottom of the cliff and at some points couldn't even see the bottom" said Hoiberg.
At one stage, the pair got so worried they wrote a note to leave with the car in case they had to abandon it.
Both Hoibery and Mojar were familiar with GPS and said they regularly used satellite navigation in Australia and have never been shown the wrong route.
So why did a potentially simple trip up main South Island roads take this couple into the back of beyond?
According to the GPS manufacturers, Navman, the satellite navigation unit had been set to the shortest route - programmed to avoid all urban roads.
Navman President Voyl Divljakovic expressed concern over the setting and said it would look at options to build new software which can not be altered.
But until that happens, it looks like this Australian couple may be using a good old fashioned map to get back to Christchurch.
