Heli-tours, Like Never Before

From farm musterer and manager to owner of Queenstown helicopter company Heli Tours – Paul Mitchell is a fifth-generation real-life Southern Man.

As the sole owner of Heli Tours, a company he launched just 18 months ago, he is approaching his second winter with new packages on offer and a number of successes already under his belt.

After leaving school in his mid-teens and working in outback Australia followed by 17 high-country stations around Queenstown and Central Otago, he’s finally living his boyhood dream.

“I wanted to fly ever since I was a boy and I started in 2004, by which time I was managing Halfway Bay Station near Queenstown,” he said.

“Soon I was working part-time for two scenic helicopter companies and I could see an opportunity to start up a company with some real points of difference.”

At Christmas 2010, after two-and-a-half years spent planning and gaining his NZ CAA Air Operating Certificate, he launched Heli Tours.

With a ‘nose’ for a gap in the market he has launched wine heli-tours, taking people on the ultimate wine tasting experience.

“Wine tourism is still very young in this district and that’s why I’ve also sponsored the international Pinot Noir Celebration here for the past two years,” he said.

He has also forged new and different Heli combo relationships with Queenstown businesses such as Glenorchy High Country Horses, Break One clay target shooting, Onsen Hot Pools, Thunderjet and Real Journeys.

“Other helicopter companies largely fly the same routes but I made a conscious decision to break away from that by forging some interesting business relationships and offering a high degree of flexibility with customized and personalized flights, able to offer guests whatever they need,” he said.

With his background in mustering and farm management he flies guests in to high country stations where he’s one of a privileged few to gain access and know every rock, nook and cranny when he gets there – as well as ‘special’ waterfalls, back of beyond picnic spots and photo shoot opportunities on land largely untouched by man.

Like himself, he employs proudly local pilots with a relationship with the land -- another company pilot manages Cecil Peak station when he’s not flying part-time with Heli Tours.

“My family farm has been handed down through the generations so I know what it means to have that relationship with the land and how very special it is,” said Paul.

This winter Heli Tours will operate Heli Snow-Shoeing in conjunction with Guided Walks New Zealand. High above the valley floors and glacier-blue lakes there’s a whole new world to explore which most people never imagine they could visit, especially in winter.

Heli Tours’ skilled and experienced pilots assess snow and weather conditions daily to land in remote mountain locations surrounded by jagged peaks, so guests can enjoy a high altitude guided snow shoeing walk without another soul around.

Using high-tech slimline snow shoes, only a moderate level of fitness is required for guests to hike and explore at leisure while ‘floating’ across the surface of the snow.

Starting in May (depending on snow conditions) and running through to October or November, snow shoeing is just one winter option on offer from Heli Tours as well as heli skiing, skifield transfers and ice climbing at one of Paul’s ‘secret spots’.

Heli Tours also offers corporate/private and group packages to Glenfalloch Station at the head of the Rakaia River in Canterbury, which is a gateway to the glaciers, Mt Cook and the Southern Alps.