An unexpected inheritance changed the plans of an airline pilot and a city girl. Now they share their back-country farm and its handsome old homestead by way of horse-trekking adventures.

"My children are my garden," says Ashleigh Ogilvie-Lee of her six, but that’s not the half of it.

"Away from it all" takes on new meaning for a couple whose organic orchard and self-sufficient accommodation business are hidden on the river-bank with their only access by flying fox.

A reluctance to part with his money inspired a Dunedin inventor to build his own eco-friendly hot tub. It’s been so successful he’s now testing the water for supplying the world.

The tiny Northland town of Kohukohu has more than its share of residents who are talented, creative, enterprising and sometimes just plain eccentric.

When hunting, rafting and rallying lost their thrill, an Auckland high-flyer turned his attention to restoring and preserving his piece of wilderness.

The Roberts family came to New Zealand never imagining that 18 years later their roots would be as deeply sunk into the soil as those of the native trees surrounding their Auckland home.