Environmental artist Martin Hill says he tends to get more pleasure from personal experiences than from tangible objects.

Allowing brothels to operate near playgrounds, schools or churches in central Otago resort towns is "unacceptable", a lobby group says.

A helicopter pilot was sending and receiving text messages in the minutes prior to being killed in a crash, a report says.

A jetboat driver has been fined and ordered to pay reparation to the family of a British tourist killed in a river boat crash in December 2008.

Queenstown schools are closed with drivers urged to take extreme care on central South Island roads after heavy snow fell in the area, with more expected.

A teenager who feared for the safety of his sister and her friend took his drink-driving mother's keys and a bottle of gin, then called police.

Revellers celebrating New Year and the start of a new decade in New Zealand behaved themselves last night.

A leaked report recommends setting aside up to a fifth of Mount Aspiring National Park's 350,000ha for possible mining and exploration.

Today marks 100 years since the first ascent of Mt Aspiring, New Zealand's highest peak outside the Aoraki-Mt Cook region.

Police have named the man who died after falling during a climb at Chinaman's Bluff in Central Otago on Friday.

The survivor of a "freak accident" spent a night alone on a narrow ledge at an isolated cliff-face knowing his climbing companion had fallen to his death.