Hamish MacLean

How good could All Black captain Richie McCaw be if he was nearly 5m tall?

Sophia Leon de la Barra (38) came to Otago in 2008 from Sydney, New South Wales. She has been in Oamaru since January 2013. The Waitaki Community Gardens co-ordinator is a consulting statistician, and manager of Asta la Pasta, an Oamaru home-made pasta venture. Also, she has declared her intention to stand for the Waitaki District Council. North Otago reporter Hamish MacLean met the Aussie who has adopted North Otago as her home.

Authenticity has a lot of currency these days and Wanaka might just be New Zealand's reserve bank, as Hamish MacLean finds out. Whether it is skiing or world-class wines that you are after, it is the people who provide them that will make a visit worthwhile.  

Mental health awareness week hit the streets in South Otago this week.

Picton artist Pita Lagan will return to Oamaru this month to continue carving the steampunk playground's macrocarpas.

Up to eight patients visit the surgeons in the mobile surgical bus every time it stops at Oamaru Hospital.

Figures from Lawrence's rich past loom large on the town's main street.

One of the oldest buildings in Oamaru could have one of the town's freshest faces when the Victorian Heritage Celebrations begin in November, the Oamaru Repertory Society president Bob Avis says.

The Otago Regional Council is prosecuting for incidents that do not warrant a criminal conviction and a different approach is needed, a Clutha District Council councillor says in the wake of three prosecutions for effluent ponding on Clutha properties.

Balclutha Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Graeme Ferguson (left) takes the keys to the Balclutha brigade's new rural fire tanker from Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan.

West Otago Health will represent the Clutha district at the 2015 Trustpower National Community Awards, in Dunedin next March.

The search for two Owaka fishing friends missing since last Wednesday officially ended yesterday.

Rosebank School year 7 and 8 pupils (from left) Kyle Morado, Fyn Edwards, Jeremy Chaplin, Leo Koyama, and facilitator Jacob Martin experiment with light at the South Otago Museum in Balclutha yesterday.

A lifejacket found in Dunedin belongs to one of the two missing Owaka fishers, police say.

A ''not fully laden'' moving van which overturned on State Highway 1 just north of Balclutha yesterday was probably blown over, police say.

The sunny days of spring will bring large numbers of cyclists back to the Clutha Gold Trail, and the fine weather will allow contractors in to repair ''a major slip'' near Beaumont along the trail, Clutha Gold Trail chairman Rod Peirce says.