Real estate data released by property website realestate.co.nz for December 2018 indicates that the Coromandel remains the third most expensive region in New Zealand in terms of the average property asking price. The average asking price on the Peninsula increased by 6.1 per cent compared to November last year to $709,570. The national asking price in December last year was $673,043, up three per cent on the month before and up 1.9 per cent on December 2017.
Mercury Bay Area School science teacher Thomas Everth is spending part of the summer school holidays developing an experiment that will enable school students to investigate questions relating to plant growth in a CO2-enriched environment.
Each Saturday in January beginning at either 11:00am or 2:00pm, the public is invited to attend a behind the scenes tour of the Mercury Bay Museum. For only $10 a person, you are treated to a 30 minute-experience of all the museum’s hidden gems that aren’t on public display.
Initial indications are that the Mercury Bay Seaside Carnival that was held at the Buffalo Beach Reserve in Whitianga on Tuesday last week raised more than $36,000 for Mercury Bay Area School.
An alternative track to Cathedral Cove has opened in Lees Road outside Hahei on Boxing Day last year. The track, as well as a car park to service users of the track, were developed on private land owned by Hahei Limousin Limited.
Leanda Hunt, event organiser of the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust, estimates that his year’s Concert in the Vines, held on Friday last week at Mercury Bay Estate in Cooks Beach, has raised approximately $25,000 for the Auckland and Coromandel Westpac Rescue Helicopters. “I’d say we had more than 700 people at the concert,” says Leanda.
Another brilliant day dawned clear and calm on Saturday last week as my husband, Mark, and I were scheduled to enjoy a scenic flight from Whitianga Airport in a beautifully restored DC3. The aeroplane is based at Ardmore Airport, south of Auckland.
Chrissie Reilly, the winner of an Informer “volunteer competition,” was to join us for the flight.
Tickets to the Whitianga Summer Concert on Sunday 27 January are selling fast. Greenstone Entertainment, the promotors of the concert, say people shouldn’t delay in getting their tickets as there’s no guarantee that tickets will be available on the day.
The Whitianga Summer Concert will be held at the Whitianga Waterways Arena and is more than an afternoon of classic rock by some of the world’s top entertainers. It’s also an opportunity to enjoy a good time with friends and family.
Concertgoers are welcome to take their own picnic baskets and non-alcoholic beverages with them or they can purchase something to eat from the huge array of food vendors that will be available inside the concert grounds. Among the options available are burgers, pizzas, hotdogs, tacos, fritters, Greek, Moroccan and Korean dishes, real fruit and soft serve ice cream and smoothies.
A range of Gibbston Valley wines will also available, along with a selection of beer, including low alcohol options. Non-alcoholic beverages can be purchased too.
The concert will kick of with performances by New Zealand bands TheDrive and The Blind Venetians.
TheDrive, a trio from Auckland, are inspired by an eclectic mixture of 80s “stadium bands,” including Genesis, Guns & Roses and U2, 90s grunge band Pearl Jam and more recently the pop/rock sounds of Cold Play.
The Blind Venetians are an acoustic duo from Taupo. They will be featuring their own music as well as well-known songs that will et the crowd actively involved in the day’s entertainment.
The international line-up of the concert will feature Toni Childs, James Reyne and Mark Seymour - formerly from Australian Crawl and Hunters and Collectors - and Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson.
Tickets can be purchased through www.greenstoneentertainment.co.nz or www.ticketek.co.nz. A very limited number of tickets are also available at the i-SITE in Whitianga and the Pauanui Information Centre.
The Mercury Bay Informer is a highly popular community newspaper, based in Whitianga. The paper is distributed throughout the Coromandel Peninsula, coast to coast from Thames to north of Colville.
