39° 04S 175° 33E

Sunrise over the Central Plateau. ‘Stunning’ doesn’t seem like an adequate description when you are standing amongst the scrub at the side of State Highway 47. How can this dramatic, widescreen vista possibly be experienced in the same country as an alpine glacier field or a pōhutukawa-framed Northland beach? It’s otherworldly. The silence, save for the wind, rendering the date on the calendar inconsequential. The time? It’s right now o’clock.

This point, deep inside Tongariro National Park (New Zealand’s oldest and the world’s fourth oldest), is a long way from anywhere in particular. Next stop of any significance is National Park. And with all due respect to the 170-ish permanent residents of National Park, it isn’t particularly significant.

You have to get up in what feels like the middle of the night to be here by early dawn. But as the horizon turns burnt orange, you know it’s worth it.

Especially so when you use the perfect vehicle for the journey. The long-awaited, utterly reinvented Land Rover Defender 90 – the short wheelbase favourite child cleverly and deliberately released at some length from its kingmaker 110 sibling – is the ideal all-terrain transport for this majestic landscape.

Supremely comfortable on tarmac, effortlessly capable off: the Defender 90’s short footprint and sure-footedness, underscored by Land Rover’s Terrain Response system and twin-speed transfer box, make it a true ‘drive up a mountain in a straight line’ kind of machine. Not that we’ll be doing that here in this dual World Heritage area of course.

The Defender 90 at our disposal for this Kiwi take on a desert trek is also in the perfect state of dress. Pangea Green with Fuji White contrasting roof and 18” gloss white steel wheels? Of course we did. The side-mounted gear carrier and roof ladder – part of Land Rover’s extensive array of accessories – complete the picture. Canny on the part of the manufacturer, they probably know that many accessory pack-wearing Defenders won’t be taken into places like this. But that’s fine. A pristine Defender 90 wearing a snorkel air intake in the high street is still a marvellous thing.

Meanwhile, the sharp rays of morning sun are being crowded out. Angry clouds are forming against the lunar volcanic backdrop. So, it’s back into the modernist confines of the Defender, and let’s keep moving. In this thing we can go anywhere after all. Do they do coffee in National Park?