Santa arrives in style in Dannevirke

Father Christmas arrived at the Dannevirke Fantasy Cave on Sunday morning and he will be there every day until Christmas Eve.

Father Christmas arrived at the Dannevirke Fantasy Cave in style on Sunday morning.

He arrived in a well-decorated 1930 Ford Model A owned by Graham Cheer and was welcomed by excited children.

Father Christmas shakes hands with Aaryan Sethi, 6, who visited The Cave with his mother Amita.

Reese Lilo-Dawson, 2, held by her grandmother Donna Johnstone, and helped by mum Nikita Johnstone, takes a treat from Santa's bag.

The Cavedwellers are now into their busiest time of the year in the lead-up to Christmas.

The Cave will be open every day from 10am until 2pm through until December 15.

From then it will be open Monday to Friday from 10am until 4pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10am until 2pm.

The Ward family have visited Dannevirke's Fantasy Cave on December 1 every year for the last 18 years. They are, from left, Tania, Tony, Emma, Olivia and Jack.

The Cave was last month visited by the Tararua Tourism Networking Group.

The aim of the group is to keep tourism operators updated and to provide opportunities to share information.

The group has regular meetings and visits in order to build relationships.

Fantasy Cave Board chairman Grant Hurrell outlined the changes that had taken place over the governance of The Cave with the formation of a board and changes to the way The Cave was being promoted via Facebook, with a promotional video and the setting up of an 0800 number.

Tararua District Council economic development and communications manager Mark Maxwell said this was the first time some Tararua Tourism members had visited The Cave.

"You can now tell people all about it. We are Tararua District and we need to tell people who we are."

He said the council had approved new signs for the district and these would be revealed soon and a visitor guide had been produced.

He said there were many ways that visitor tourism operators could work together.

One suggestion was a train trip to Dannevirke that could include a visit to the Fantasy Cave and a Teddy Bears picnic.

"We have got things that work together but we haven't been good at that so we need to work on that.

"If people have ideas fire them at Tararua iSITE manager Carole Wilton and myself, but also talk to each other."

He thanked Hurrell and the team for opening up The Cave.

"We have just celebrated the district's 30 years and as we look to the future we have a lot to celebrate."