A 15-year-old Te Aroha girl who had been missing since Sunday has been found safe and well.

Elisabeth Easther visits a small town with a big heart - and plenty to see and do.

Police are calling on the public for information about a "brutal" assault on a teenager in the Waikato overnight.

Cycling enthusiast Catherine Smith is one of the first riders to try the Hauraki Rail Trail.

The boat, called Out There and a grey Nissan Terrano, registration BSQ435, were stolen from Te Aroha early today.

Silver Ferns Farms has hit back at complaints that workers at its Te Aroha plant had their pay deducted for observing a two-minute silence to remember the Pike River miners.

Staff at a North Island freezing works had their pay cut for the official two-minute silence to remember the 29 miners killed in the Pike River mine.

Te Aroha locals are supporting the families of workers who lost their jobs when the local meatworks went up in flames.

'They're calling it a seasonal lay-off which is bull,' a worker at Silver Fern Farm's fire-hit Te Aroha factory says.

About 160 of the 350 workers at Silver Fern Farms' Waikato beef slaughter plant at Te Aroha are likely to only be paid a minimum wage until Christmas.

The 200 workers left jobless after a massive fire gutted a Waikato freezing works remain cautiously optimistic.

Sparks from a contractor's saw are believed to have ignited the fire that gutted a Waikato freezing works.