Carla Green

Looking out over a newly rocky coast, several people at St Clair Beach yesterday commented the erosion was the most dramatic they had seen.

Along with almost 200 scientists from around the world, University of Otago researchers headed out to take marine samples as part of the second Ocean Sampling Day yesterday.

Prof Helen Nicholson move into a new office in the University of Otago's Clocktower building - ''as soon as they have decided where the new office will be'', she says.

''The DCC is turning an iconic beach into a rock garden,'' long-time St Clair resident Peter Haslemore says. 

A Jack Russell terrier swept under big waves near St Clair was a victim of rising tides and climate change, her owner says.

Advocates are ''over the moon'' that the Aramoana wharf restoration project has been approved, but now they will have to figure out how to raise its $100,000 price tag.

About 20 people last night attended a seminar on marine protection, part of the Puaka Matariki Festival.

Popular student bars Capone and Boogie Nites will reopen tomorrow under new management, operator Sheldon Lye confirmed yesterday.

This week, for the first time in more than two decades, the New Zealand Machine Knitters' Society has come to Otago.

Maggie Fea, newly crowned New Zealand Rose of Tralee, says her grandmother had been on her case for years about entering the pageant.

The University of Otago will have to examine its reputation as a ''party school'' if it wants the student drinking culture to change, the national student association union says.

Otago Polytechnic is considering drug and alcohol testing for most students and staff, after almost 100 engineering students were tested for drugs earlier this year.

''Last year, I would've been in the court pages of the Otago Daily Times,'' Eru Karetai said.

A severe rain warning for Clutha and Dunedin may culminate in heavy snow falling to 500m in Otago today, a MetService meteorologist says.