A tourist driving a rental car on the wrong side of the road is thought to have caused a serious crash near Queenstown this afternoon.
Four tourists were injured in the crash, two seriously.
Fire crews had to remove one car's roof and a rear door to extract two seriously injured British tourists, who were later taken to Lakes District Hospital.
Two Toyota Corolla rental cars collided about 12.30pm on State Highway 6, near the Kawarau Bridge.
Initial indications suggested a Corolla sedan with two people on board was travelling towards Cromwell from Queenstown and crossed the centre line, colliding with a Corolla hatchback coming from the opposite direction, Southern police Senior Sergeant Craig Brown said.
The 57-year-old male driver from the hatchback had to be cut from the vehicle.
All parties were transported to Queenstown Lakes hospital.
The driver of the hatchback and his 63-year-old female passenger were later flown to Dunedin Hospital with moderate to serious injuries.
The two occupants from the sedan sustained minor injuries.
Both vehicles suffered extensive damage, Snr Sgt Brown said.
The crash occurred on a straight section of road and the weather was fine at the time.
Earlier, Sergeant Blair Duffy, of Queenstown, said two Chinese tourists travelling in one car were moderately injured, while two British tourists travelling in the other had serious injuries.
"One of these vehicles has certainly crossed the centre-line," he said.
"It's straight, it's flat - optimum conditions. There's no real excuse for it, to be honest."
Before attending the State Highway 6 crash, Sgt Duffy had attended a non-injury crash at Arrowtown in which a tourist driver failed to give way.
The highway was closed for about 45 minutes as fire and ambulance crews worked to extract the two injured Britons from their rental, which had careered off the road and into a fence on the grass verge.
Among the line of cars, which stretched back more than a kilometre towards Queenstown, was a couple about to be married in Gibbston Valley.
- david.williams@odt.co.nz/additional reporting NZME. News Service
