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While there’s less of a concern about whether recreational drug users are getting what they paid for around the Queenstown Lakes just now, Know Your Stuff general manager Casey Spearin says they’re more concerned about people mixing their drugs with alcohol.

Queenstown Olympian and World Cup alpine skiing star Alice Robinson will share her season’s highlights, which saw her finishing second in World Cup Super G and regularly on the podium, at a Queenstown Alpine Ski Team (QAST) celebration night and fundraiser on September 5 at Cargo Brew Hall at Arthur’s Point.

In what seems to be an ongoing problem Queenstown Police are again chasing the offenders of yet another spate of 11 vehicle break-ins and thefts across four Queenstown suburbs and they’re calling for the public’s help.

Experienced local rescuers are warning young climbers against “getting sucked in by summit fever’ amid calls from Police for extreme caution in the backcountry after two more major alpine rescues near Wānaka in a week.

Kiwi Park is inviting the community to come together on Sunday 16 August for A Day for Dylan, with all proceeds taken at Kiwi Park on the day being donated to support Queenstown local four-year-old Dylan and his family as they navigate his battle with relapsed Stage 4 neuroblastoma.

A climber who fell between 200m and 300m off a ledge down a very steep, rocky face while descending Mount Aspiring in darkness on Tuesday evening is “very, very lucky to be alive”, rescuers say.

A beloved community centre which has served as a second home to tens of thousands of Queenstowners is on the hunt for a new home of its own. Happiness House - which offers free food, low-cost clothes, advocacy and spaces for social connection - has learned it must vacate its premises of two decades near Queenstown Gardens by 2028.

A member's bill that would extend ACC cover to volunteer firefighters has been drawn from the biscuit tin.

Kiwi Park Queenstown has officially revealed the name of its rare brown kiwi chick, Tuku Iho, during a traditional Māori naming and blessing ceremony held with local iwi.

Police and emergency services are urging drivers of the risks of driving on slippery alpine roads, with black ice and frosty roads plaguing the district in recent weeks and more than a dozen crashes, one causing the death of a visiting Hong Kong driver.

Police are investigating the cause of a fatal accident between a bus and a car on the Crown Range Road about 10.15am yesterday (15 July) with the road closed for the rest of the day and into the evening.

Kiwi actor Sir Sam Neill has died, his family has announced. "It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life."

Queenstown will host what is believed to be the first event of its kind in the region this July, bringing together local business owners, creatives, students, technologists and AI practitioners for a community-led AI hackathon.

Five people have been injured after the Queenstown Shotover Jet crashed into rocks on the Kawarau river. Emergency services were called to the scene at about 3:15pm.

A bold and visionary plan to expand the lakeside township of Kingston into a self-sufficient southern community, with reduced reliance on Queenstown for jobs, services and travel, has been unveiled this week.

With heavy snow, wet roads and warnings of more overnight freezing causing black ice, Police and are urging school holiday drivers to take extreme caution and obey the rules.

Rescuers and mountain safety experts are urging climbers to ‘know their descent route’ before taking on big climbs, after two strong local climbers in their 20s had to be rescued late at night from a steep, vertical ice slope, high on Mount Aspiring overnight on Tuesday, 30 June.

Two strong local climbers in their mid-20s had to be rescued on Tuesday night (30 June) after becoming lost and abseiling down onto a vertical ice slope high on Mount Aspiring, sparking a long, tricky and technical helicopter rescue.

In total there were 14 one-star restaurants including: Inati in Christchurch, led by chef Simon Levy, Ben Bayly's Ahi, seafood led Ortega in Wellington, The Estate on Auckland's Waiheke Island, Rātā in Queenstown, Logan Brown in Wellington, Jano Bistro also in Wellington, lunch-only spot Tussock Hill in Christchurch, Kika in Wānaka, Auckland's Paris Butter, Mudbrick on Waiheke Island and Sherwood and Amisfield in Queenstown.

Future Hospitality Group’s Odd Saint and Little Blackwood have been crowned New Zealand’s Best Café and Best Bar at the 2026 LION Hospitality New Zealand Awards for Excellence.