Marjorie Cook

Tarras was founded on gold and sheep. Now, like much of the South Island high country, its future depends on water.

Wanaka Wastebusters was dealt a serious blow by the Queenstown Lakes District Council yesterday, when the plug was pulled on its kerbside recycling contract in favour of Auckland-owned company Smart Environmental Ltd, which significantly undercut its competition.

The Southern Lakes Arts Festival Trust made a modest net operating profit of $66,459 from this year's biennial Wanaka event, allowing it to begin planning the 2013 Festival of Colour with confidence, trust chairman Nick Brown said yesterday.

The furore over Wanaka Wastebusters' lost recycling contract has spilled into its second week, with the mild-mannered Wanaka Community Board chairman, Lyal Cocks, embroiled in petitions of no-confidence and talk of conflicts of interest along with allegations of a "veiled" threat against him.

After an absence of 55 years, the Cardrona School's bronze bell has finally returned to its rightful place, with the permission of Hawea Flat School, which acquired the bell about 1956.

Two new Wanaka cycling events are drawing strong entries, as people trade skis for wheels.

About 300 people marched in support of Wanaka Wastebusters yesterday afternoon, after the organisation's loss of a recycling contract with the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

A controversial Wanaka recycling contract decision is a "done deal" because letters of acceptance have already been forwarded to the successful tenderer, Smart Environmental Ltd, Queenstown Lakes Mayor Vanessa van Uden said yesterday.

The Upper Clutha Environmental Society lacks the resources to appeal a decision granting Aucklander Ted Hewetson resource consent for a building platform at Dublin Bay but intends to continue working on three other high-profile cases.

Wastebusters staff and supporters in Wanaka were yesterday calculating the financial and social costs of losing their kerbside recycling collection and processing contract to Auckland-owned Smart Environmental Ltd.

Wanaka businesswoman Anna Thomas has taken over the town's largest dance studio, Dance Wanaka, and more than 150 dance students could not be happier.

Hawea Flat ski patroller Jon Mactaggart's back-to-back career in the ice business is not the usual kind - he's planning winters on snow and summers making ice creams and sorbets.

Snowboard instructor Richie Johnston (29) says the decision to donate a kidney to his father, Rob Johnston, next month was an easy one to make.

Hunters, anglers and Kidds Bush campers are being reminded the High Court has ruled Hunter Valley Station, at the northwest end of Lake Hawea, can control the opening and closing of Mead Rd during lambing season, until November 18.

John and Mary Lee developed the Cardrona skifield and have spent most of their lives fulfilling their vision of snow sport destinations on Central Otago's Pisa Range, but now it is time to move on. Marjorie Cook reports.