Rebecca Fox

The mooring dolphin (at right) was broken when the Kakariki with a tug passed the moored Mount Owen (pictured) in strong southwest winds at Ravensbourne fertiliser wharf earlier this week.

Summer started with a blaze of sunshine in Otago yesterday with Dunedin airport recording the highest official temperature in New Zealand - 29degC at 4pm.

Barbara Blake, with her dog Rupert, looks out into the surf from John Wilson Ocean Dr, Dunedin, from where she and her husband saw a white shark yesterday morning.

The official first day of summer has arrived, and sunny weather has been enticing Dunedin residents out of winter woollies and into togs.

British zoologist, photographer and presenter Mark Carwardine rates New Zealand as one of the best places in the world to view wildlife calling the country a "wildlife hotspot".

There is good news and bad news for those keen to see a change in management of Dunedin's public transport system - delegating it to the Dunedin City Council is to be investigated, but the public will not get a say for a least a year.

Two reports detailing the vulnerability of parts of Dunedin and Otago's coastline to groundwater inundation, rising sea levels and tsunami will be considered by the Otago Regional Council today.

Dunedin artist Jasmine Middlebrook has won the City of Dunedin Art Awards for 2011.

A retired Taieri man is "taking the money and running" after winning a Lotto Father's Day promotion of a choice between a high-performance Ford or Holden car.

While the University of Otago's former Hocken building might "polarise" opinion, the award-winning modernist building has received category one registration with the Historic Places Trust - and becomes one of the youngest buildings to receive that registration.

A former Dunedin man who died in Bali while on a rugby trip may have drunk a potent local cocktail that has been linked to 29 deaths.

Mayor Dave Cull opened the first South Dunedin Farmers Market yesterday, held at the corner of Thomas St and Macandrew Rd, with an official ringing of the market bell and wished the venture every success.