Sally Rae

As Kylie Wakelin was trekking towards the South Pole, she remarked on a website that she longed for Marmite and toast.

When Greg Hill played his alphorn on the steps of the Opera House yesterday, all that was missing was a herd of goats and a lonely goatherd.

Volunteer fire brigades are a key part of small, rural communities. Sally Rae talks to recently trained members of the Otematata Fire Brigade to find out what it means to be a firefighter.

"People just everywhere" in the Oamaru Harbour area at night are causing problems for the resident blue penguin population, environmentalist Lorraine Adams says.

The parliamentary commissioner for the environment has urged Environment Minister Nick Smith to call in the controversial dairy farm proposals in the Omarama-Ohau area.

"At the moment, all I want to do is go and hold everybody that was close to me."

An amusing tale about an oil-rig toilet mishap could hopefully encourage young men to take up reading again.

Education Minister Anne Tolley is satisfied Otepopo School should close.

Oamaru's very own calendar girl, Janice McPherson, laughingly says that she needs to "get a life".

Environment Minister Nick Smith has until next Friday to decide whether to call in resource consent applications of two companies with controversial plans to establish new dairy farms in the Omarama and Ohau area.

The Government is considering intervening in the controversial dairy-farm proposals for the Omarama-Ohau area. but it looks unlikely the resource consent applications will be "called in".

The weather might be wild and the lake choppy - but there's always Coronation Street.

Volunteers at Totara Estate south of Oamaru are helping bring the historic site alive each morning this summer.

It has been dubbed a walking tour with a difference.

The calling-in of resource consent applications "makes sense" because the issue of proposed large-scale dairy farm development in the Omarama and Ohau area was too big for Environment Canterbury to handle properly, Labour's water quality spokesman Brendon Burns said yesterday.

The redevelopment of Waitaki Valley School is on track for the start of the new school year.

When Oamaru accountant Tony Brady walks out of his office for the final time, he admits it will be a strange feeling.