Hassle Free ToursBy Chanelle, Kate and Tim

About Hassle Free ToursWhat is Hassle Free Tours?

Hassle Free Tours is a company based in Canterbury – Privately owned by Mark and Nikki Gilbert since 2003.

Hassle Free Tours is a company based in Christchurch that specialising in unique tours in the high country of Canterbury.

Hassle Free Tours Visits Lord Of The Rings Locations, 4WD Jet Boat Adventure which is the excitement of 4-wheel driving and Jet Boating, Alpine Safari Tour which includes a famous TranzAlphine Train, Discover Christchurch.

Hassle Free Tours are guides by a Kiwi with custom built vehicles.

Where did Hassle Free Tours come from?

What was inspired to create Hassle Free Tours was when Nikki and Mark were on their OE and realised that the best scenery was at home in New Zealand.

Sustainable Hassle Free Tours

Bio Diesel

Biodiesel is vegetable or animal fat based diesel fuel. It is made by chemically reacting lipids (vegetable or animal oil) with

an alcohol to produce fatty acid esters It can be used in standard diesel engines and does not need to be

used in a converted engine It can be used alone or blended with petrodiesel. Different blends are available ranging from 2% biodiesel (B2) up to

100% (B100) Blends of less than 20% can be used with no engine modifications Larger commercial vehicles like trucks, buses and vessels need a few

simple checks and alterations

Benefits Biodiesel clean the fuel systems within the engine Biodiesel is more lubricating, cleaner burning and more

biodegradable that ordinary fuel. Because it is more lubricating, biodiesel reduces fuel system wear Greenhouse gas is reduced by about 15-18% (based on B20 use) Fuel and maintenance costs are unchanged Time savings on refuelling

Mission StatementTo share with visitors our spectacular Canterbury high country in a sprit of friendliness and within an environment that places emphasis on safety and quality. In doing this we aim to provide high levels of satisfaction for the visitor, our staff and ourselves while imcorporating sustainability in all aspects of our business.

Their aim was to reduce their Carbon footprint on the environment as well help in conserve the Canterbury High Country. They starting looking at alternatives to Petroleum diesel and found that Bio diesel was the better solution for their company.

They made the move into Bio- diesel in late 2007 and over a year their vehicles ran on B60

This is a blend of bio- diesel and ordinary diesel at a proportion of 60/40 with Bio diesel making up the 60%

In 2009 they switched to a B20 a 20% Bio diesel blend as it was found to be more cost effective.

Benefits: It saw a reduction of 15-18% (based on use of B20) of Greenhouse

gases Good publicity about Hassle-free Tours’ business has been due to them

promoting their use of a cleaner efficient fuel. They found visitors have been impressed by their clean green operation

which will mean a boost to customer numbers The fleet is running reliably on it, because of higher engine lubrication

with, fuel and maintenance costs being unaffected by the change. Savings on timing have been achieved because of less time spent on

refuelling, this is through having on-site fuel storage tank, are an added bonus despite its cost of 5000 dollars.

What they hope to do in the future:

They hope to move to using pure biodiesel (B100) but for the mean time it is better financially for them to remain on B20, this is due to the blend supported by the Government’s Biodiesel Grants Scheme.

A move to B100, would have to be done during the summer months only, unfortunately if they changedto a biodiesel blend during winter the cold temperatures could cause the pure biodiesel to‘gel’, making it inadvisable in regions with very cold temperatures for example the Canterbury High country where the business is based.

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