No less than 18 All Blacks are about to start filtering back into the national provincial championship.

New Zealand's analogue television service will be switched off progressively nationwide between September 2012 and late 2013, the Government said today.

Standing on snakes and having trees fall on him are all in a day's work for the archaeologist who's been called Auckland's Indiana Jones.

The town's business association baked the world's largest scone, weighing in at just over 120kg, the previous record was 60kg.