Every year the people of Tāupo Bay pay tribute to the tractor, converting their usually humble workhorses into colourful and creative parade machines.
Once a year residents and bach owners spend days pimping their tractors in preparation for the annual Tractor Spectacular, with the resulting parade on December 30 invariably deteriorating into a giant water fight. The tractors themselves range from lovingly restored classics to relics held together by rust and No 8 wire.
And while the display ends with a water fight at Tāupo Bay, 20km east of Mangonui, organisers say as it's a family event it wants people to not throw water bombs, as they could harm children, and instead stick to water guns. The fun starts at 5pm.
Big prize in Kaitaia
A Lotto ticket sold at Kaitaia Pak N Save won its holder a $700,000 Christmas bonus after it won Strike First Division on Saturday night.
Two other Lotto players - from Auckland and Whitianga - will be starting their Christmas festivities early after winning $500,000 with Lotto First Division in Saturday's draw.
The winning Lotto numbers were 5, 16, 31, 37, 39 and 40 with the bonus number 7 and Powerball number 8. The Strike numbers were 40, 5, 37 and 31.
Powerball was not struck and has rolled over to Wednesday night, where the jackpot will be $16 million.
Trees damaged during fire
Pōhutukawa trees were damaged in a fire at Langs Beach on Saturday which is being treated as suspicious. Four fire crews from Waipū and Mangawhai attended the 20-metre by 20-metre blaze on Hector Lang Drive just before 6pm. No houses were near the fire which largely affected nearby pōhutukawa trees and grass. Fire crews extinguished the fire just after 7.30pm.
Gorge opened for holidays
The first vehicles in five months have driven safely through the Mangamuka Gorge on State Highway 1, five months after it was closed by slips from the massive storm in July.
The road opened just after midday on Friday, and will be open for just over three weeks over Christmas to allow the local community and holidaymakers to take the shortest route to Kaitaia and the Far North.
"Opening the road is a great achievement for our road repair crews. They've worked double shifts to a tight deadline in trying conditions to make this happen. Now they can take a rest while the people of the Far North and holidaymakers from further south take advantage of their work," Waka Kotahi Northland system manager Jacqui Hori-Hoult said.
"We know how important this holiday period is to the local economy and we thank the local community for their understanding and patience while we worked as quickly as possible to fix the road. Now we can all enjoy Christmas."
Strong economic performance
A strong performance from Northland this quarter has seen the region shoot up seven spots to take the lead in ASB's quarterly Regional Economic Scoreboard.
ASB senior economist Chris Tennent-Brown says, "It's an impressive performance given the region would have been more exposed than most to Auckland's move to Covid alert level 3 in August." As well the figures reflect year-on-year growth and the recovery from a tough 2019 will be helping boost Northland's rankings.
The ASB Regional Economic Scoreboard shows solid population growth, employment, retail and new car sales figures for Northland this quarter, with ASB highlighting the forestry sector as one of the standouts of the post-pandemic economy.
