Investors are still being ''wooed'' for a $4 million heritage farm show and museum at the Cromwell racecourse nearly three years after resource consents were granted but the man behind the venture is confident it will be realised.
A fire which burnt 2ha of wheat stubble at Patearoa yesterday was the third within a week in the Maniototo started by sparks from machinery hitting stones.
Roxburgh will host ''the cream'' of young brass players tonight as the National Youth Brass Band performs the first of three Southern concerts. The band is made up of 34 musicians under the age of 23, and they have spent nine days based in Pukerau, receiving tuition from some of the country's best brass educators, before demonstrating their prowess.
The Omakau Fire Brigade, which is short of firefighters, has been eyeing up 80-year-old cyclist Iain Hickey as a potential recruit. Mr Hickey completed the 150km Otago Central Rail Trail in one day earlier this month, in the process raising $700 which he donated to the brigade's first response unit this week.
Preston Wheeler has another 14 years to wait before he can get his driver's licence, but he is already up to speed in his own Ford XE Coupe - a scaled-down replica of his father's car.
''Not ever go your Mum's room never again.''
Eighty-year-old Iain Hickey has joined what operators say is an increasing number of people cycling the Otago Central Rail Trail this season - the only difference is, he biked the whole length in a day. The spritely Omakau senior citizen took nine hours and 10 minutes to bike the 150km from Clyde to Middlemarch, two days after his 80th birthday.
The opportunity to have afternoon tea with all the trimmings had a group of 14 Alexandra children on their best behaviour this week. Good manners were to the fore for the ''posh'' event which was part of the Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery school holiday programme called ''Life in the Victorian Era''. Zoe Rendall (9, above), of Alexandra, enjoys ''high tea''.
Dunstan Creek 150 celebrations in early March take in everything from an old-fashioned sports day to a shepherds' shemozzle, celebrating the founding of Cambrian, St Bathans and Becks townships.
China's ambassador to New Zealand, Xu Jianguo (centre), was interested in a close look at New Zealand's mining history, touring the Chinese miners' village in the Kawarau Gorge yesterday in the company of Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean and Auckland MP Jian Yang.
Tenants are moving into the new $2.6 million Alexandra Community House this week and the facility is already getting rave reviews. The building, in the grounds of St Enoch's Church in the centre of Alexandra, is the base for social service agencies, along with education and arts and crafts groups.
They met when they were just 17 and ''quite liked the look of each other''. Seventy years on, Sid and Judith Wormald (both 87) are still together and tomorrow they will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary.
The second wave of cyclists competing in the Lake Dunstan Cycle Challenge heads over Deadman's Point bridge at Cromwell, at the start of the 96km race.
The electronic scoreboard at Anderson Park in Cromwell - a $25,000 centennial project funded by the Cromwell Rugby Club - has been damaged beyond repair.
A feasibility study estimated to cost roughly $1.5 million is the next stage of developing and safeguarding irrigation supplies in the Manuherikia catchment.
The Roxburgh Gorge Cycle Trail has received a welcome Christmas present - $100,000 worth of gravel for the new cycle and walking track. The donation was announced by the Otago Community Trust this week - the biggest in the trust's November-December round of funding.
It is not often that ''tidying up an old fence'' translates into a work of art.
Musician Russell Scoones is on holiday in Central Otago but plans to dust off his harmonica and guitar to ''shake, rattle and roll'' in the Earnscleugh Hall tonight, raising funds for a young family member who is battling cancer.
Central Otago orchardists say the weather has made it a ''frustrating '' season so far, but they are hopeful the latest soaking of rain has caused little damage to ripening cherry and apricot crops. Helicopters were out in force in the fruit-growing areas at dawn yesterday morning.
One visitor to the Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery yesterday was around before the dinosaurs and another was on the menu of feral cats.
