Mid and South Canterbury is the heart of the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand's South Island. This is wide open country: long straight roads, broad braided rivers with bridges that seem a mile long. The plains look like a giant's patchwork quilt, whilst the high country gives one a sense of deja vu.
The region is where the Canterbury Plains rise up into the highest parts of the Southern Alps. It is bounded by the Ashley River in the north, the Waitaki River in the south, the Mackenzie Country to the west and the Southern Alps in the northwest.