Guy Williams

The Wakatipu's annual celebration of its rural roots pulled in the crowds on Saturday after getting a lucky break with the weather.

Preliminary work for sealing the Remarkables access road to the 10km mark will resume today after a holiday break.

Australian tourist Matthew Varghese (18) stands on a spike on a ridge during a traverse of the Remarkables range during a guided climb earlier this week.

An Australian kayaker with no life jacket plucked from a stormy Lake Wakatipu on Wednesday is lucky to be alive, Queenstown's harbourmaster says.

Former prime minister Helen Clark is not ruling out putting her hand up for the United Nations' top job, and says whoever gets it has some ‘‘pretty tough challenges''.

If you're reading this somewhere in the Wakatipu Basin - or just about anywhere in Otago for that matter - look out the window and check out those hills. You're living in a hunting paradise, writes Guy Williams, who goes on the trail of some words of wisdom ...

The forecast is bleak for farmers and firefighters in the Wakatipu Basin as the summer shapes up as one of the driest in years.

A huge and good-natured crowd packed Queenstown's waterfront to the gunnels to watch a massive New Year's Eve fireworks display.

The final pieces in a fundraising puzzle for a new Coastguard base in Queenstown could fall into place early next year.

Queenstown residents will have a second chance to provide feedback on a plan to encourage the development of six-storey apartment buildings in Gorge Rd.

Vehicles will be banned from part of a downtown Queenstown street during an eight-month trial that could usher in further pedestrianisation.

Strange lights on Lake Hayes in the middle of the night may have locals wondering about aliens, but they are shining in the name of science, not science fiction.

Rain could not dampen the spirits of 1000 hardy souls at the Shotover Jet Christmas Cracker concert in Queenstown on Saturday night.

A prominent Queenstown businessman and multisport athlete says he drank only two glasses of wine at a dinner party before crashing his car on the way home.

The failure of tramping parties to stay together was the main factor in the deaths of two people in separate incidents in Mt Aspiring National Park earlier this year, a coroner has found.

The behaviour of a young American tourist on Queenstown's waterfront yesterday prompted four complaints to the police from members of the public.

Queenstown Airport will move another step closer to night flights, when work on a $17 million runway and lighting upgrade begins this week.

High winds cut power to thousands of homes, brought down power lines and sparked fires across the Queenstown Lakes area yesterday and Thursday.