By: Peter14th Feb 2023 11:36PMThat's an Avro 504K, one of the gift aircraft given to NZ by the UK in 1920.
A few of these were retained for NZ Government use, but most were leased out to private operators.

The registration under the starboard wing is just visible, and reads H524?
Thus it could be H5240 or H5241.

H5240 was used by the Walsh Brothers based in Auckland, and probably never went that far south.
H5241 was operated by Rudlph Wigley's NZ Aero Transport Company based at Timaru. (Wigley later went on to form the Mt Cook Tourist Co, which eventually spawned Mt Cook Airlines).

H5241 arrived in NZ in 1920, was operated by NZAT until early 1923 when it passed into the hads of Maurice Buckley who operated as Arrow Aviation. He took it by rail to the West Coast. In June 1924 Buckley flew H5241 from Greymouth to Christchurch, making the first ever flight across the Southern Alps.

The Avro was then retained at Wigram for use by the military, and was eventually written off after a crash there in February 1926.