A pair of US tourists had to be rescued by a police search and rescue team after becoming stranded on the banks of the Haast River yesterday afternoon.

Elisabeth Easther pays our winter wonderland a visit.

The body of a local politician has been found in Lake Wanaka, after his family raised the alarm when he failed to return from a fly-fishing trip at the Makarora River mouth.

Danielle Wright experiences cross-country skiing at Wanaka.

A pest control programme on land near Lake Wanaka has eradicated almost 700 pests - including a cat compared in size to a panther - in little more than a year.

A couple have appeared in court after their child was removed from school last April and apparently didn't return for the rest of the year.

Residents around Lakes Wanaka and Wakatipu appear to have come through heavy rain over the last two days unscathed. However, with peak levels now due around noon today, the threat of possible flooding remains.

A 10-year-old girl thought to have received an electrical shock during a lightning strike at the Wanaka swimming pool has resumed her holiday.

Snow stopped tourists in their tracks on the Crown Range between Wanaka and Queenstown yesterday morning.

On a clear, calm day, there is just one place 85-year-old Wanaka woman Pat Stuart wants to be - tearing around the lake behind a jet boat on a single water ski.

It was a less than festive Christmas for some yesterday, as many younger family members itched and scratched their way through the celebrations.

The 38-year-old Italian man who died in a skydiving accident while filming a tandem jump in Wanaka yesterday has been named.

An Italian man is dead after his parachute failed to open on a skydiving flight and he crashed to his death in front of a horrified Wanaka man.

A skydiver has been killed near Wanaka today after falling to his death near the town's airport and landing in a local golf course.

Herbicide leaked from spilled containers after a heavy truck carrying freight crashed on State Highway 8 near Tarras, near Wanaka, early yesterday.

An Australian tramper with a serious lower leg injury was lifted off the Motatapu Track near Wanaka late on Tuesday afternoon.

About 40 firefighters have managed to contain a large bush fire beneath the summit of Roy's Peak, Wanaka.

Danielle Wright hits the South Island ski fields, on a sled pulled by huskies.

A strong magnitude 5.3 earthquake has rocked much of the West Coast and Otago this morning.

Danielle Wright finally graduates off the bunny slope, with the help of a bicycle on three skis.

Abby Gillies laps up the idyllic sights and flavours of Wanaka.

Heading down south by motorhome to the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow is a nostalgic, and pie-filled, journey for pilot Michael Walsh.