Mark Price

Te Anau helicopter operator Richard Hayes has won the contract to provide airborne emergency search and rescue and medical services for the Southern Lakes region.

The Westland District Council may have set a precedent other councils will follow in the way it is restricting development along the Alpine fault line, running through the heart of Franz Josef.

Franz Josef residents are concerned the Westland District Council will create a ''ghetto-like'' area in the town by rezoning land along the Alpine fault line to stop any new development there.

American, French and Japanese skiers claimed the major placings at the World Cup freeski halfpipe events at Cardrona Alpine Resort yesterday.

The Wanaka Residents Association believes the public is being given too little say and too little control over possible activities on the site proposed for a multimillion-dollar Wanaka sports and events facility.

Back for the fourth time on Southern snow this week was Gus Kenworthy of Telluride, Colorado.

Two Wanaka mountain guides held for ransom for four hours by tribesmen in Indonesian West Papua nine days ago returned home yesterday relieved to have escaped harm.

Seven years ago, Polish cross-country skier Justyna Kowalezyk was labelled a "drug cheat".

Top honours in the World Heli Challenge, held in the mountains west of Wanaka last week, have gone to snowboarder Will Jackways, of Wanaka, and skier Jacqui Edgerly, of Alaska.

People contemplating solar electricity and hot water systems for their roofs and composting systems for their toilets might get an easier ride from the Queenstown Lakes District Council in future.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council is setting up a new office to attract and retain more commercial events in the district.

While many New Zealand athletes will now be turning their attention to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Oska Inkster-Baynes, of Wanaka, is taking more of a long-term view.

Twelve tonnes of New Zealand's aviation history arrived safely at Wanaka Airport yesterday morning after a long night on the road.

The Department of Conservation has headed off "unrest" in the Otago Chinese community by offering a compromise over new signboards at the old Chinese gold-mining settlement at Arrowtown.

Wanaka police are advising blacksmiths, farmers and farriers to lock up their anvils.