Ahipara turned on picture postcard autumn conditions for the Te Houtaewa Challenge Run Walk Cycle for Life.

Graduating with a Bachelor's degree in nursing was enough of an achievement to make Blanche Frost happy, but winning the 2013 New Zealand Nurses' Organisation Whakawatea Taonga was the icing on the cake.

Inquiry needed

Kaitaia vet nurse Donna Badorek will be having a week off in October, but while she'll be bound for the tropics she won't be lying on a beach drinking pina coladas.

Kaitaia's Pirates Rugby Football Club has had some ups and downs over the last 60 years and more, but the good times seem a long time ago as the club battles an on-going spate of vandalism.

Northland Coroner Brandt Shortland has welcomed a series of recommendations from Surf Life Saving New Zealand at the inquest into the death of 40-year-old Auckland man Ieremia Denis Galuvao at Ahipara in January 2010.

Colin Dale strolls into the room in the Far North District Council offices looking far more like everyone's grandfather than the council's newly-appointed acting chief executive officer.

Kerikeri has more lawyers per capita than all but three other places in New Zealand. Who knew?

This year the Country Rock Festival in Paihia celebrates 25 years of bringing music to the Bay.

Dr Simon Leith and Dr Andrew McNaughton from the Kerikeri Dental Centre strongly recommend early assessment.

Mangonui seniors

At the time of this edition going to print, a number of Northland's top sheepdogs and their handlers were getting their North Island Championship campaigns under way in Taumaranui.

Five years' work went into the proposal to establish two marine reserves in the Bay of Islands and now Fish Forever, Bay of Islands Maritime Park Inc., wants the community to decide if it has got it right.

The Environment Court reserved their decision of an appeal against the Ministry of Education's notice of requirement to designate land on Koutu Point Road as the site of a new school.

Something wonderful

Or fishless forever?

Kaitaia farmer Victor Rakich admits it. His farming instincts are on the wane. And it's all thanks to his 18-year-old granddaughter Chanelle Cooper.

Seven Kaitaia College students represented a Kaitaia gym when they competed at Teen Gauntlet Crossfit Competition in Auckland on April 12 with the following achieved.

So there he was, The Offsider, feeling winter start to creep across the Far North in near nonchalant fashion.

The horrific, doomed campaign at Gallipoli did more than forge a bond between the New Zealanders and Australians who fought, were wounded and died there.

A former curator/manager of Kaitaia's Far North Regional Museum has accused its successor, the Te Ahu Heritage Museum, of cultural vandalism.

Everyone will be welcome at Kaikohe's Lindvart Park next week for the naming ceremony and the formal flicking of the switch to turn on the newly-installed lights.

Ahipara man Kevin Griffiths has added to his national reputation as a very talented mouth painter with success at a major New Zealand art competition.

What unemployment?

Pete Watson won the heaviest snapper prize of $500 with this 10.3kg fish at the Houhora Big Game & Sports Fishing Club's Easter Sportsfishing Contest, held Saturday and Sunday, April 19 and 20.

Among those celebrating five decades of links play at Ahipara over Easter weekend earlier this month were several members of the exclusive Originals club.

The inaugural Conversations that Count awareness day was celebrated in Northland earlier this month.

Early in the year of 1914, residents of a little, quiet valley in the Far North were getting on with their daily lives.

Jones will be missed