A 25-year-old French tourist spent a cold and wet night "hunkered down" in the bush near the Routeburn Track on Tuesday night.

An Australian tourist sparked a full-scale search operation in Waikato yesterday - with a helicopter search by police eventually locating him sunbathing at a beach.

A 49-year-old boatie believed to be dead after falling off a boat at the mouth of the Hutt River has been identified as Uikilifi Peniamina.

Grieving family members have identified the body pulled from a Wairarapa river as that of a missing 19-year-old swimmer.

The search for the body of a 49-year-old Wellington boatie is focused on the eastern coast of Wellington Harbour.

A search has resumed for a man who fell off a boat in Wellington Harbour yesterday afternoon.

A father and son have been found safe and well this morning after spending a night in a at the base of a cliff following a kayaking trip that went wrong off the Canterbury coast.

Forensic experts will try to identify the body of a man found on a walking track in the Coromandel as public appeals fail to shed any light.

Police are trying to identify the body of a man found on a walking track near Tairua in the Coromandel this afternoon.

Family of a boy missing after falling into the Whakatane River are holding a silent vigil on the river bank this morning.

The Auckland Coastguard is usually the first point of contact when things go wrong out at sea.

A 15-year-old boy who suffered a serious head injury in the Tararua Ranges near Wellington yesterday has been airlifted out this morning after bad weather prevented rescuers from moving him sooner.

The three people rescued from a crippled sailboat in the Hauraki Gulf overnight were all wearing lifejackets but had no form of communication.

Three people have been rescued from a boat drifting in the Hauraki Gulf early this morning.

Entombed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in an upended tugboat for three days, Harrison Odjegba Okene begged God for a miracle.

A young Waikato girl who heard a German teen's cries for help on Mt Ruapehu says he is "incredibly lucky" to be alive.

Wanja Drees was on the lower reaches of Mt Ruapehu with a badly broken leg and no mobile phone when he decided he would have to try and make his way out himself.

A teenager who fell 100m down Mt Ruapehu might have died if not for his quick thinking - and shoe laces.

A ill-equipped German tourist wearing street shoes had to drag himself to fetch help after a fall on Mt Ruapehu today left him with a bleeding, broken leg.

A paraponter spent about four hours perched precariously on a ridge with suspected spinal injuries after crashing in a remote Canterbury alpine range this afternoon.

A huge avalanche crashed frighteningly close to a rescue party as they treated a woman who had fallen some 300 metres down a Canterbury glacier after her snow anchor apparently detached.

An overseas climber has died after falling 600m on Aoraki Mount Cook this morning.

The two mountaineers who died on Mt Taranaki had little chance of surviving for two nights and a day in their shallow hole in the hard snow and freezing wind, says a leading local guide.