Northland news in brief: Whangārei work repairs Harbour Bridge today; and free smiles for all

This strut for the Auckland Harbour Bridge repair, that was fabricated by Whangārei firm Culham Engineering, will be installed on the bridge tonight.

Repairs to harbour bridge

A steel strut fabricated in Whangārei should tonight be installed on the Auckland Harbour Bridge to help ease traffic congestion caused when the bridge strut

was damaged last month. The southbound bridge lanes will close overnight.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency said weather permitting, there will be reduced capacity on the Auckland Harbour Bridge tonight so work can start on replacing a temporary bridge strut with a permanent solution. The strut has been fabricated at Whangārei's Culham Engineering this week. The southbound and northbound lanes in the bridge centre span will close at 5pm to allow the temporary strut to be removed. At 9pm the two southbound lanes on the clip-on will be closed until mid-morning Sunday. The lane closures will allow engineers to install a new strut as a permanent replacement for the one damaged when a 127km/h wind gust blew a truck over on September 18.

Pianist on the road

Piano player and songwriter Jan Preston took the opportunity in her studio during Sydney's lockdown, to lay down tracks for her latest CD Piano Boogie Woman. Following two weeks in Auckland hotel quarantine, Preston is set to release her CD with a 20-date trio concert tour of the North Island

this month. She will bring the tour to the Riverbank Centre, in Whangārei next Saturday, with tickets available from Wards Music or Storytime in the city or online at whangareitheatrecompany.org.nz.

Fun with Radio Lollipop
Free smiles are on offer to all in Whangārei tomorrow when the team from Radio Lollipop will be dishing out plenty of reasons to grin. The team wil be at the Town Basin on Sunday, near the Claphams Clock Museum from 10am to 1pm. They will be sharing its story, creating smiles in the community, selling jute bags and Mop Top pens, with colouring-in for kids, balloons and lollipops to give away. Radio Lollipop started over 40 years ago in Great Britain and is now in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It is a volunteer organisation that works to provide smiles and laughter to children in hospitals. In New Zealand it is in Whangārei, Waitakere and Middlemore hospitals. Volunteers visit children in hospitals each week and provide a much-needed escape through fun and play by offering games, crafts or just someone to talk with. For more information check out https://www.facebook.com/radiolollipopnz

Marine advocates meet
Marine conservation group Bay of Islands Maritime Park will hold its AGM at 5.30pm on October 14 at the Paihia War Memorial Hall on Williams Rd. The meeting will be followed by a talk by marine mammal researchers Cat Peters and Thibaud Guérin about the current state of the Bay's bottlenose dolphins.

Celebrating Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest will be celebrated at the Fairburn Kaiaka Hall on Sunday week (October 11), starting 11am, with hall chairman Peter Niepel promising "the usual German specialities". Admission will be free. Entertainment will include the traditional Bavarian sport of fingerhakeln (finger wrestling). "Wear your dirndl or lederhosen, practise your yodelling and bring your appetite. You won't leave hungry."

No new cases reported
There were no new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand yesterday. New Zealand's total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 remains at 1492 and there was no one in hospital with Covid-19 in New Zealand. Ten previously reported cases are now considered to have recovered, bringing NZ's total number of active cases to 43. Of those, 32 are imported cases in MIQ facilities, and 11 are community cases.