NZ at Noon: Bouncy ordeal and cliff hanger

Volunteer Eketahuna firefighters, from left, Johan van Vliet, acting fire chief Max Mayer, and Ryan Seator, who plucked Australian terrier Fergie from his four-day perch.

Stories making headlines across New Zealand at noon include some children's terrifying ordeal in an out of control bouncy castle, Fergie's ordeal on a cliff face and a kid that didn't know what a potato looked like.

Four children were taken to hospital after strong winds picked up a bouncy castle at a Christmas party and blew it away.

Meanwhile in Eketahuna, Fergie spent four days trapped on a sheer cliff face and probably owes his life to Izzy.

At the Tauranga Community Foodbank Mike Baker gave mum and dad a bag of potatoes, and their child said "what's that, potatoes don't look like that, they come in long thin fries."

It's fine to go trout fishing at Lake Tutira as long as you don't make contact with the water. Meanwhile divers have removed a truck load of rubbish from the Blue Lake in Rotorua including truck tyres and cell phones.

Wet and windy weather failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the thousands who flocked to Omokoroa No 1 School's ninth annual Ride-on Mower Day fundraiser.

The flight path taken by Rotorua's Jean Batten, the first person to fly from England to New Zealand, is being retraced.

The Rotorua Musical Theatre is concerned about their up-coming show Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, which is struggling to sell tickets.

The torrential rain that hit Kerikeri's annual half-marathon street party on Saturday didn't keep everyone away.

There was no evidence to suggest the death of a Whangarei man who was struck and killed by a taxi while crossing the road was self-inflicted.

Napier's Friends of Marineland group has acquired 1550 new supporters from a small town in the US who took on their "town board" over an environmental issue and won.

Two Northland-built voyaging waka on their way to Easter Island are now passing the most remote inhabited island in the Pacific.

People continue to get sucked in by Upfront Payment scams.

For some, Christmas is a time of fun and laughter and for others it can be a time of stress, anxiety, sadness, isolation and a time of self-evaluation.

In an apparently blatantly political play for more control, Waikato Regional Council, and its obedient Peter Buckley-led majority faction, has apparently made a dog's breakfast of its own official rulebook.

Apparently we are about 30,000 pigs short this year so may pay to order your Christmas ham early.

Too many Bay of Plenty drivers are getting behind the wheel drunk.

Fletcher Oxford has made it to the grand final of New Zealand's Got Talent.

Hayley Goodall would have celebrated her 21st birthday this week.

Here's the Topp Twins talking about meeting royalty.

Vinod Meghwal was serving his last customers for the day when an armed man ran into his Wanganui store demanding money and poking him in the stomach with a big gun.

Strange things have been going on around the documentary How Far is Heaven.

Eleven year old Brendon Thompson-Garland has lost his five-year battle with a brain tumour.

The howling southerly and rain tended to slow people down quite a bit at Toast Martinborough wine festival.

After moving enough rock and debris to overflow Wellington's Westpac Trust Stadium, the crew is packing up and moving on.

Coalpit Hill near Oamaru became a war zone over the weekend.

A snow-blind 27-year-old Canadian man was rescued from Mt Aspiring yesterday, after his father in Australia alerted Wanaka police that his son seemed to be in trouble.

It remains a mystery as to how 9-year-old boy got from from his Oceanview Heights school to a rural Canterbury bridge where he was found bloodied and distressed.

K2 turned "a really good worker" into a "zombie." Meanwhile four bongs used to smoke marijuana have been found at Highcliff Rd war memorial on the Otago Peninsula.

Stock truck effluent spills on to public roads remain a problem throughout the South, but poo spillages on Otago roads from dairy cows are particularly bad.

Over in Oamaru the Wizard worked his magic and the sun shone.

A fairytale castle in Bavaria was the inspiration for Oamaru's Pen-y-Bryn Lodge owners to craft their annual Christmas gingerbread creation.

The engineering company behind the reportedly earthquake-risk Mawhera House in central Greymouth, also designed the Christchurch CTV building.

The top trending topics on Twitter in NZ at noon were #AskZac, #AskAndrew,
#LaurenFollowSpree, #UFC154, #JETSvNIX, David Shearer, Labour, Michael Campbell and Christmas.