Clearly nobody bothered to tell the girls what to wear.
They file out of the bus pulling their jackets and cardigans tight, blowing their straightened hair from their sticky lips.
It is no more than 10degC and the Kapiti Coast wind bites.
This is Boomrock Station, a place where the land falls into the Tasman Sea and the South Island blinks in the distance.
Thirty-three long-legged ladies from all over the country are here to bond, supposedly.
New Zealand's Next Top Model judges Colin Mathura-Jeffree, Sara Tetro (right) and Chris Sisarich have not joined them on the windy, early-morning trip to the countryside.
But a row of production vehicles and producers scanning clipboards suggest this field trip might be as much of a chance to judge the contestants as their initial catwalk challenge.
This year's bunch is noticeably younger than the last and could easily be mistaken for pupils on a class trip.
Tetro later says that judges noticed a generally younger turnout at castings held in the main centres over the past few weeks.
She puts it down to the influence of the previous winner, Christobelle Grierson-Ryrie, who was just 16 when she won the modelling competition.
Lounging around the fireside in Boomrock's headquarters, the contestants seem to forget they are part of a competition.
They chirp away about last night's television - District 9 was on Sky - and eye up the producers' mobile phones, dreaming of the floods of text messages that must await them on theirs.
Contestants are under high security and won't be able to reconnect with the outside world until they are eliminated.
They sigh as they express the feelings of nakedness and vulnerability that come with not being able to access their phones, music, cameras or Facebook.
Still totally baffled as to what they are doing on a farm estate, they are split into three groups.
One heads to a bunker facing the ocean.
They swoop towards the hut's brazier, like midges to a torch in the bush.
Ah, so that's how you attract a model - heat.
Instructor Andre holds up a shotgun.
Today they will be shooting clay birds.
Cue excited faces.
"Can we wear cowboy hats?" Heidi* asks, pointing to the set hanging on the wall.
They sure can, right after they sign their lives away.
Meanwhile another group, resembling a McLeod's Daughters casting in Driza-Bone coats and Akubra hats are tossing big knives into a log.
"Did you see the anger in her face?" Gisele shrieks as one feisty girl flings her weapons.
The other group has been racing cars.
Back at base they devour plates of croissants and venison sausages - they are ravenous.
Network producer Andrew Szusterman says his team is very conscious about portraying the healthy side of modelling.
Yes the girls are young and tiny, but they are not skeletal.
Claudia says it has been the most amazing experience so far, especially eating such wonderful food.
Food, exercise, clothes, lack of technology - the conversation moves in circles as they nibble, down cans of V and Diet Coke and wait for their next instruction.
They are directed back outside into the bitter wind, huddling together, where they wait some more.
Finally the throbbing whirr of blades slicing cold air signals the arrival of Tetro.
There she is, waving down on her new flock from a fiery red helicopter.
This is her first appearance since the auditions, and in keeping with the United States format of the show, she's playing up her tyrant judge persona.
"The audition got you here but it's not enough to keep you here," she says as she strides over to the group.
The girls shift about, striking their best listening faces.
"You have to impress me every time you see me."
With that, Tetro, her stylist and her make-up man climb back in the helicopter and buzz back to base, and the girls chug behind on the bus.
Next up, parading about in a bikini ...
Back in the hotel the contestants' bubbly girl-power has made way for the focus of gymnasts chalking their hands before a competition.
They fix each other's hair, and give each other nods of approval, but there is no longer time for banal pleasantness.
One by one they are summoned next door to be scrutinised in their swimsuits by the full panel of judges.
As they will learn, a great body's only half the ticket to the next round.
"Hot legs are not the only thing that's important," Tetro tells a particularly bland specimen.
Tyra is from "Roh-ru", she repeats three times before the judges get it - oh, Rotorua.
She can't bring herself to scream and she can't string a sentence together - she's crumbling with nerves.
But when she gets down to her bikini, she comes alive.
Tetro is particularly excited about Claudia, a unique beauty, but it turns out she is so unconventionally pretty she doesn't know why she is there.
Her friends put her up to the competition, she mumbles, hands in her pockets.
She goes through the motions, bikini, pose, walk, with the understated flatness of a water cracker.
Milla on the other hand, has always wanted to be a model, and compliments herself on her unusual upturned nose.
Like most of the others from Auckland, she punctuates her sentences with a question mark and extends her "r"s like they do on E! channel.
She won't say who she thinks is her most dangerous rival - she thinks everyone is really beautiful - but when pushed admits the red-headed twins probably have the biggest competitive advantage as they have each other for support and a point of difference.
So Tetro brings them out.
Dunedin's tall, red-headed version of Mary-Kate and Ashley.
They finish each other's sentences, and compliment one another on everything - she's better at this, she's better at that.
What will they do if they are split by the competition?
They turn to one another - it seems that's a prospect they haven't considered.
It will make a great TV moment.
Three hours of lights, cameras and bikinis and 10 girls later, no contestant stands out as the next people's favourite Ruby, or as Christobelle's successor.
There's not even a clear Hosanna or Laura.
But that, Tetro says, is the point.
"This is an open slate."
* Note: Contestants' names have been changed. They are not all named after supermodels.
The second season of New Zealand's Next Top Model premieres Friday at 7.30pm on TV3.
