Tracey Roxburgh

Fashion parades, an auction, raffles and a special performance by one of New Zealand's most successful singer-songwriters helped to raise $9100 for the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation in Queenstown yesterday.

Winter is on the way. Late on Monday night, NZSki fired up its 217 snow guns at Coronet Peak for the first time this year when temperatures dropped to -7degC in the Wakatipu.

A Queenstown teenager is one of five New Zealand high school pupils selected to explore the final frontier as they take part in the international Space Camp in the United States in July.

A Queenstown resident has urged the Queenstown Lakes District Council to rezone rural land to rural lifestyle so future generations have a chance of staying in the district.

The Minister of Building and Housing says he will not rule out government intervention if the Queenstown Lakes District Council cannot fix deficiencies in its building consent department.

Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith says he is "open-minded'' about further initiatives the Government needs to make to address an "acute'' shortage of housing in the Queenstown Lakes.

Despite fairly miserable conditions, the New Zealand Mountain Running Championships, held on Ben Lomond in Queenstown on Saturday, have been hailed a success.

It is the stuff dreams are made of.

Several Queenstown Lakes district councillors seem to have been left in the dark about an unfavourable audit of the council's building and consent department.

The Queenstown Airport Corporation has appointed United States-born aviation and transport infrastructure specialist Colin Keel as its new chief executive.

There are "substantial issues'' within the Queenstown Lakes District Council's building control department and the Crown entity responsible for building control authority accreditation has "significant concerns''.

Parking at Queenstown Airport and the airport's ongoing battle to acquire an area of land known as "Lot 6'' were two issues raised by the public during an information session about evening flights last night.

Fiona Stephenson (left), as Lily St Regis, with Justin Abbiss ("Rooster'' Hannigan) and Tiffany Mitchell (Miss Hannigan) in Showbiz Queenstown's production of Annie, which opens in the resort on Thursday night.

A Queenstown man says the town's first set of traffic lights has made it difficult for him to cross the street independently.

I've just been hoisted on to the back of a horse, the name of which I don't know.