Masters games launch at Cooks Gardens.
Video Stuart Murno
July 7 A reinvigorated New Zealand Masters Games was launched in Whanganui with pleas for the city to get behind the iconic event. The Cooks Gardens launch marked 30 weeks until the 30th edition of the Games which will run from February 1-10 next year.
The ceremony featured a raising of three flags - the original Masters Games flag, a new one and the New Zealand flag. Four Games ambassadors to promote the event were announced by Sport Whanganui chief executive Danny Jonas.
They are cycling legend Ron Cheatley; former netballer Cindy Hoskin, who has represented Whanganui in several sports; 61-cap Silver Fern and Whanganui-born Jodi Brown; and former All Black turned Whanganui police officer Glen Osborne. There would be new sports next year, including weightlifting, events for para athletes and even mobility scooter racing.
The Games are being billed as "10 days of sport and 10 nights of entertainment".
A flag raising ceremony launched the 2019 New Zealand Masters Games. They are being billed as "10 days of sport and 10 nights of entertainment" Photo/Stuart Munro
July 9 An Environment Court hearing has cleared the way for the new road needed to provide ongoing access to Waiinu Beach settlement.
The road from Nukumaru to Waiinu Beach was proposed by the South Taranaki District Council because the Limeworks Bridge on the settlement's only access road is weak and likely to fail.
The new road's route extends Nukumaru Station Rd. It was appealed by organic dairy farmer Diana Handley, who stood to lose some land.
Her appeal was heard in the Environment Court in Whanganui and the judge mostly found in favour of the council. The council's next move is to negotiate sales with the nine landowners involved, who include the Conservation Department and KiwiRail then it can call for construction tenders.
Building could start this summer. The beach settlement has 85 houses and about 70 permanent residents, rising to a possible 300 in summer.
The no exit road also services Silver Fern Farms' Waitotara meatworks, which has 350 staff at peak. The new road will be 8.1km long and have a 6m carriageway. It will carry up to 500 vehicles a day and cost an estimated $5.3 million.
July 13 Nurses, midwives, healthcare workers and their supporters picketed along Heads Rd near Whanganui Hospital and their message was clear: make our work safer.
Whanganui's healthcare professionals walked off the job along with thousands of their colleagues from around the country after their union, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), voted to reject the latest pay offer.
At the picket line in Whanganui people held up signs supporting striking staff and asked drivers coming through the busy roundabout to toot in support. "If you do a toot-ometer I'd say yes we do have [good community support]," said NZNO delegate Maura Skilton.
She said the decision to strike was not taken lightly. "Nurses want to be helpful and we tend to just get on with the job and are quiet about it. But the depth of feeling is so strong ... the collective voice must be heard now."
Nurses marched and picketed from the Heads Rd roundabout to the hospital. Photo/Stuart Munro
July 14 Whanganui is home to sharpshooter Bradley McDowell, the world's top junior cowboy.
McDowell had the drop on his rivals to claim the World Junior Champion Cowboy Action Shooting title in New Mexico.
The 16-year-old gunslinger also finished seventh in the open division, just 10 seconds off the overall winner. Last month was his second attempt at world glory after finishing seventh in the junior division of the End of the Trail World Championship of Cowboy Action Shooting in New Mexico last year.
Cowboy action shooting involves shooting a series of metal plate targets with three types of guns; a rifle, a pistol and a shotgun, in a memorised sequence. The goal is to complete the sequence as quickly possible.
Missed targets incur costly time penalties. "Yeah, I suppose it does have a romantic connotation, but in reality it's far from that. I don't even ride horses, for a start. It's more about speed and mental agility. In fact, mental agility is what gives you the edge and I was far more focused than I was in last year's world championship."
The Whanganui High School student has a room loaded with trophies won at various levels and is understood to be the youngest winner of the overall New Zealand title.
Bradley McDowell is the world's top junior cowboy. Photo/Bevan Conley
July 16 Whanganui is "hotter than Auckland right now" with the city's rental property yield "off the chart" compared with other areas.
That's the verdict of Kiwibank's inaugural regional scorecard developed by the bank's chief economist, Jarrod Kerr, and senior economist Jeremy Couchman.
With a rental yield of 9 per cent, Whanganui is streets ahead of the rest of regional New Zealand and also higher than the Auckland average, making it attractive to property investors. Yield calculations are worked out by dividing the annual rental income on a property by its purchase price.
The economists recently visited regional centres to gather anecdotal evidence of what a region "feels like" to add to the hard data in the regional scorecard.
"The 'hot' areas right now include parts of Gisborne, Rotorua, the Hawke's Bay, and Manawatu-Whanganui. And we confirmed the feverish feeling on the ground with shortened times spent on market.
There's been a flood of interest from northerners [Aucklanders] on a southern pilgrimage. House price growth reached 13 per cent in May in Manawatu-Whanganui, on par with the rate seen July last year."
It is believed that the Friesian cow made its way through a fenceline above Mowhanau Beach, before becoming stranded on a ledge part-way down the cliff.
The animal had been there for about 24 hours when the Chronicle visited the beach at 11am on Friday.
Locals were concerned that the incoming tide would see the animal stranded for another night but the owner turned up with his dogs a couple of hours later and managed to herd the cow down the cliff.
"It must be a very relaxed cow," said a local woman. "It was just ambling along as if it hadn't just spent 24 hours on the side of a cliff."
Whanganui vet David Rankin said the cow would have been none the worse for its ordeal because ruminants can store food in their chambered stomachs.
"It would probably have had a fair bit of roughage in its stomach and that would have kept it warm. Cows are very resilient animals and farmers know that."
MOO...VE ALONG: The cow stranded above Mowhanau Beach was rescued by its owner yesterday afternoon. Photo/Stuart Munro
July 24 A 34-year-old Whanganui man was been charged with the manslaughter of Daniel John Gooch, who died after being found unconscious on a Whanganui street.
Gooch, 56, was found unconscious and injured on the ground in Tinirau St, Whanganui East, in the early hours of Friday, April 20. His injuries were unexplained, as was how he ended up there.
He was taken to Wellington Hospital in a critical condition and later transferred to Taranaki Hospital in a "serious condition".
He died there on May 10, and police launched a homicide investigation. Detective Neville Mullany, of Whanganui Police, said the man accused of manslaughter was known to, but not related to, Gooch.
Daniel John Gooch was found unconscious on Tinirau St and died 20 days later. Photo/Stuart Munro
That's what Whanganui District Council chief executive Kym Fell says it has cost district ratepayers in legal fees after Horizons Regional Council took it to court for polluting the Mowhanau Stream.
The district council was convicted in court this week (and was due to be sentenced in November). "The fees in defending the litigation have cost our community in excess of $100,000; money which could have been better spent on core services," Fell said.
In January 2017, human wastewater from a district council pump station entered the Mowhanau Stream after a Powerco pole fuse failed, prompting the prosecution.
Fell accused the regional council of grasping at straws, saying the legal action had achieved nothing.
He said a low volume of treated septic tank wastewater had overflowed from a pump station, and the district council had responded by upgrading the pump station to include a continuous power supply and the ability to connect a generator in the event of an external power failure.
These works were completed in March 2017, but council received a notice of prosecution from Horizons four months later. Horizons' regulation manager Nic Peet said the regional council weighed carefully whether or not to prosecute.
"Horizons is conscious that the prosecution process comes at a cost to both Whanganui and regional ratepayers and we've done our best to keep these costs down. However, the issues were significant enough that they needed to be brought in front of the court."
A sign marks the Mowhanau spill in 2017. Photo/Bevan Conley
July 30 The Ruapehu community was in shock following Saturday's mountain bus crash which left one dead and at least 18 people injured.
The bus, carrying 31 people, rolled on Ohakune Mountain Rd just after 2.30pm on Saturday and later that night police confirmed a young woman had died. Fenella Murphy had spent the morning skiing with girlfriend Aleisha Cope when they decided to take the shuttle back to their car at the bottom of the mountain.
She said the bus had travelled about 5 minutes from the skifield before its brakes appeared to fail. The bus slammed into the side of a bank, flipped and came to rest on its left side. Murphy walked out of a smashed front window with just bruises and began helping the other passengers.
Ruapehu mayor Don Cameron said the community was in shock as he thanked emergency services and those who assisted at the crash. "Our thoughts are with the family of the young girl who died - an immeasurable loss for her family.
We are a small community, and we are in shock," he said. Three helicopters were flown to the crash site on Mt Ruapehu to help transport the injured.
Last year over 87,000 people used the bus services to ski areas in Tongariro National Park and the council said bus transport had operated safely on Mt Ruapehu roads for many years with incidents like this being extremely rare.
