With Christchurch's massive earthquake, devastating Southland snowstorms and then the Pike River Coal mine disaster with the loss of 29 lives, mainlanders could not be blamed for thinking the 2010 year was jinxed.
Early on the morning of September 4 Christchurch was jolted awake by the fifth-most expensive earthquake in global history, caused by a shifting fault line no one knew was there.
The destruction was widespread and the aftershocks rattled the nerves of Cantabrians for months afterwards.
Thankfully the 7.1 magnitude quake put just one man in intensive care. Fifty-five-year-old Simon Robinson came closest to be killed after a falling chimney crushed him as he lay in bed. He suffered broken bones and had part of a foot and some toes amputated.
But the south was not to escape fatal tragedy and on November 19 reports began trickling in about an explosion at the Pike River Coal mine on the West Coast.
Two men escaped from the mine. Initially rescuers were waiting to get in and recover alive the 29 trapped men, but as the rescue crews waited more explosions and then an intense fire dashed any faint hope they were alive.
It was the worst mining disaster in New Zealand's history since 43 were killed in an explosion at Ralph's mine at Huntly in 1914, and eclipsed the death toll of 19 from the Strongman mine explosion, not far from Pike River, in 1967.
The Australian chief executive of the Pike River company, Peter Whittall, and to a lesser extent Superintendent Gary Knowles, the policeman in charge of the recovery operation, became the most watched men in the country.
The families and loved ones of the dead men found themselves at the centre of a story they did not want to unfold. The eyes of the world turned to the small town of Greymouth, and Greymouth blinked tearfully back.
In September Southland was lashed by a bitter late snowstorm, which collapsed the roof of Invercargill's treasured Southland Stadium, rendering netball's Southern Sting homeless.
Hundreds of thousands of lambs were killed by the combination of snow, icy rain and chilling winds, and farmers lost pregnant or lactating ewes as they ran short of feed.
Those hammerings came a month after South Canterbury Finance was put into receivership, stunning Timaru where company founder Allan Hubbard is a revered figure.
In June Mr Hubbard, his wife Jean, his companies Aorangi Securities and Hubbard Management Funds and seven charitable trusts were placed in statutory management by the Government, prompting people to march in the streets of Timaru in support of him.
Analysts said that medium-sized South Island businesses are worth much less given the earthquake and the failure of South Canterbury Finance, while the snow slashed income for farmers.
But we were desperate to keep some of our money, and even protested in the streets for it.
In October, the world observed New Zealand -- possibly with one raised eyebrow -- when the uproar unfolded about whether The Hobbit would be filmed here.
The Actors' Equity union had tried to get in on the act, threatening to boycott filming. Sir (or should that be Saint?) Peter Jackson warned production of the movie -- costing about $NZ663 million, the most expensive movie project ever made -- could be taken overseas.
Thousands marched, castigating the union, ironically on Labour Day, demanding that The Hobbit, a story written by an English academic and based on old Norse poems, belonged here in New Zealand.
Minister for Economic Development Gerry Brownlee huffed and puffed and blew a nearly $100m sweetener towards the studio Warner Bros.
Parliament also changed labour laws -- clarifying that film industry workers are independent contractors rather than employees -- as part of a deal with the company to retain the project. Phew, a happy ending for Hobbiton.
We got The Hobbit and we got back our pavlova.
In the long running battle with Australia over who invented the pavlova, the heavy weight Oxford English Dictionary came out in our corner, with its online edition saying the first recorded pavlova recipe appeared in New Zealand in 1927.
Hooray. We can have our pavlova and eat it -- unlike the many white collar criminals who found themselves in the courts in 2010.
Former MP Roger McClay was sentenced to 300 hours' community work over a $25,000 double-dipping rort of cash-strapped charities and the public purse.
Blue Chip's Mark Bryers was sentenced to 75 hours' community work and a fine of $37,490, plus court costs after he admitted 34 charges relating to book-keeping and record-keeping failures.
But the most remarkable case was that of former ASB banker Stephen Versalko, who was sentenced to six years' jail for stealing almost $18m from investors over nine years and spending. The mole-like man who peered out from the dock blew an estimated $3.4m on prostitutes alone, and brought properties in Remuera and the Coromandel.
Meanwhile, other high profile crimes -- namely killings -- were always going to hog the headlines.
At the end of September the dismembered remains of Auckland escort Carmen Thomas, 32, were found in the Waitakere Ranges, nearly three months after she went missing, and her ex-partner Brad Callaghan was charged with her murder.
In Porirua former gang member Ainsley Anderson admitted murdering Kapiti's Raymond Piper in a working over gone wrong.
Joseph Martin Reekers, 51, was jailed for life with a 15-year non-parole period for the 2001 murder of 23-year-old Marie Jamieson.
John Skinner was jailed for 15 years for the murder of policeman Don Wilkinson, shot with a high-powered air rifle after he tried to plant a tracking device on Skinner's car in 2008.
A coroner's inquest revisited the 2006 deaths of three-month-old twins Chris and Cru Kahui. Four years later we are still none the wiser about who killed them.
Not quite murder, but the Government felt three protesters got away with it. In March teacher Adrian Leason, 45, Dominican friar Peter Murnane, 69, and farmer Sam Land, 26, were acquitted of burglary and wilful damage for deflating a radar dome at the Government Communications Security Bureau base in Marlborough's Waihopai Valley in 2008.
Despite admitting their actions they argued they had "claim of right" to attack the base and believed they were acting lawfully.
The Government again showed that if you don't like the law you can change it. It immediately went about removing the claim of right defence and is also looking to sue the three men for $1.1 million.
Our defence intelligence had more egg white on its face when a senior defence scientist, and serial bragger, Stephen Wilce, was uncovered by TV3's 60 Minutes programme.
Wilce, who headed a staff of 80 for five years at the Defence Technology Agency, boldly claimed he was an ex-British commando and perhaps even more fantastical, that as a member of the British bobsleigh team he had raced against the Jamaican team which inspired the 1993 film hit Cool Runnings.
The only problem was that no one had any record, or even heard of him, in either the Royal Marines or the bobsleigh team.
When he was revealed, Wilce went to ground quicker than a Jamaican snowflake.
Also going to ground was broadcaster Paul Henry, who, not long after questioning whether Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand was a New Zealander, sparked a diplomatic "please explain" from India when he giggled like Basil Brush at the surname of the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
TVNZ received a record number of complaints and Henry quit Breakfast, but it is widely predicted he will return to a screen near you soon.
Henry is something of a pet for New Zealanders, and in 2010 we continued our love affair with animals.
We mourned police dog Gage, shot dead in Christchurch in July.
Moko the overly-friendly dolphin played with swimmers and became a celebrity on the East Coast. Someone attacked him with an oar in frustration and in July he was found dead and there were arguments about where he should be buried. A memorial was erected.
Activist Pete Bethune tackled Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, was arrested when he boarded one of the ships after his own boat was sunk. He was jailed for two months in Japan.
A Christchurch youth committed bestiality with a donkey and four South Auckland boys repeatedly kicked and punched a puppy and threw it through a basketball hoop.
A Pukekohe man tore the head off a kitten in front of his family, a Southland dog was found burnt, bloodied and peeling after being doused in solvent, a red bill gull was tortured in a Dunedin supermarket trolley and a rabbit was swung by its ears in central Auckland.
In December Korey Waho, 23, was jailed for six months for butchering a cow as it stood in a field south of Gisborne in 2009, while 25 protected fur seals, including eight pups, were clubbed to death over a number of days at the Ohau Point seal colony near Kaikoura.
In November, more than 100 black-billed gulls were massacred as they nested near Wreys Bush in Southland. Most died from bullet wounds, but others had broken bones and some chicks were found starving to death beside their dead parents.
It's hard to call 2010 a good year for animals, although things should hopefully improve, especially for pigs, with new rules introducing restrictions on sow stalls.
It's a clumsy segue, but the housing market was also a pig, so it's a bit tough when you try to put an entire town on the market -- and a South Island one at that.
In June offers flooded in when Bill and Christine Hennah put the Southern Alps town of Otira, population 40, up for sale, after they bought it for $80,000 in 1998.
However, their $1m asking price was a bit too steep and despite hundreds of interested buyers, the town is still on the market.
Otira, lonely and unwanted, just two hours' drive from earthquaked-out Christchurch and one hour from Pike River, is waiting for a better 2011.
