Matthew Haggart

Being selected to help determine New Zealand's best-value wines has given a Wanaka wine judge a new appreciation of what it takes to evaluate the finest tipples.

Restaurants in Wanaka and Queenstown have out-cooked their Dunedin counterparts to be the only Otago eateries voted into the finals of the nationwide Monteith's Wild Food Challenge.

Top Wanaka snowboarders Juliane Bray and Will Jackways won the NZ Snowboarder banked slalom race at Treble Cone yesterday, storming to victory down the Saddle Basin's steep Superpipe run.

A Wanaka retirement village proposal stuck in legal planning limbo for the past seven months has been refused resource consent.

A pioneering alpine canine search rescue team is moving to expand its Southern Lakes skifield operations further afield, as Matthew Haggart reports.

Leaders of Wanaka's business, tourism, and civic sectors are rallying behind the vision of World Heli Challenge director Tony Harrington as he works to promote the event to international audiences.

Black ice continues to affect Central Otago highways and the treacherous winter driving conditions have again caught out tourists travelling on roads around Wanaka.

Former world triathlon champion Sam Warriner is returning to Wanaka in September, where she will hold a weekend training camp for aspiring multisport athletes.

A busy one-lane bridge across the Hawea River near Wanaka needs improvement to address traffic-safety concerns, a Hawea Flat resident says.

Two Wanaka men were lucky to avoid injury in a crash on a skifield road when their two-wheel-drive vehicle rolled off Cardrona Alpine Resort's access road yesterday, police said.

Southern Lakes skifields have had one of their busiest school holidays on record, resort operators in Queenstown and Wanaka say.

Hydro-electricity generation schemes on the Clutha River remain insulated from the affects of no rainfall and dropping catchment lake levels, Contact Energy says.

For avalanche dogs, a search and rescue mission to save lives is little more than a game.