The start of the gruelling event was staggered with teams leaving at intervals to comply with New Zealand s Covid-19 alert level 2 restrictions. When the times are corrected following the staggered start, McCaw’s team could fall behind team Avaya, consisting of Nathan Fa’avae, Sophie Hart, Chris Forne and Stu Lynch, who started later than isport. The Queenstown based Tiki Tour team, led by George Lucas, will also be right in contention.
GODZone
Team isport (from left to right) Simone Maier, Dougal Allan, Richie McCaw and Theo Wordsworth. GODZone race director Adam Fairmaid said the front running teams are setting a strong pace as they jockey for position to lead them into the next gruelling stages of the race over the coming days.
Lakepedia spotlight on Rotorua s lakes: good, but could be better
22 Feb, 2021 05:00 AM
4 minutes to read
Lake Tikitapu. Photo / Graham Jordan
A freshwater enthusiast in Romania has studied decades of data on Rotorua s lakes and found water quality is on an upward trajectory, with Lake Rotorua most improved.
But the outlook closer to home remains sober with some experts saying there is a long way to go.
Catalin Trif, a project manager based in Cluj-Napoca in Romania s northwest, founded his passion project Lakepedia in 2015 and said it was born out of a fascination for lakes and rivers .
The website, an online encyclopaedia of lakes, is run by Trif and one other volunteer.
The trophic level index is a value derived from four factors: water clarity, and the amount of chlorophyll, phosphorus and nitrogen in the water. The lower the value, out of zero to five, the higher quality the water. Trif said the data showed the overall quality of the Rotorua lakes had increased from an average TLI of 3.8 between 2001 and 2010 to an average of 3.6 in the decade between 2011 and 2020. “Lake Rotorua registered the biggest improvement, with a 0.5 reduction of its TLI, from 4.8 to 4.3. In terms of hitting the TLI targets, last year was the best since 2015, with four of the 12 lakes hitting their TLI targets.”
Business digest: Shoppers spend $3m in Bay of Plenty during 2020
24 Jan, 2021 07:00 PM
12 minutes to read
Bay of Plenty Times
Shoppers spent a little more than $3 million in the Bay of Plenty this year, according to the latest Paymark figures. The annual spend was 3.6 per cent more than the $2.9m spent in the region last year.
Retailers using the Paymark network know that 2020 was a tough year for many but by December, for a number at least, the year ended on a high note.
The June quarter, which included alert level 4 nationwide lockdown, saw payments through Paymark via an underlying set of Core Retail merchants drop 15.5 per cent from a year earlier in dollar terms.
Go NZ: Five geothermal hotspots for summer
7 Jan, 2021 04:00 PM
3 minutes to read
NZ Herald
A unique location on the fringes of the Pacific plate make New Zealand one of the most thermally active places on the planet. Here are our hottest experiences, brought to you by the team behind our weekly Travel magazine, published on Tuesdays.
Te Puia Geothermal Valley, Rotorua
Te Puia percolates not only with geothermal activity but also Māori culture, crafts and hospitality. The Whakarewarewa valley has been welcoming visitors for 170 years, making it one of the original seats of kaitiakitanga. Set up as an institute to foster Māori arts and culture in the 1960s, it was later vested to Rotorua iwi as a home for traditional carving and cuisine. Restaurant Pātaka Kai offers traditional hangi on selected Fridays and Saturdays.