Emergency services in southern Wairarapa are busy today dealing with three car crashes, the most serious of which saw a woman flown to hospital by helicopter.

Nature lovers heading into the bush are being urged let someone know where they're going following a major search and rescue operation north of Wellington.

A man who rushed to a fatal crash last night recounted the horror that awaited him after a car plunged into a flooded river.

One person has died and three others were left clinging to a car roof after the vehicle ended up in a river.

Were the quakes that struck Wairarapa today and Christchurch last night caused by the weather or planets ... or neither?

Police and family searchers have found two young runaways near a lake several kilometres from their Masterton home after the pair went missing two nights ago.

A Featherston teenager has pleaded guilty to attempting to set fire to the town's petrol station.

The skies above Carterton were a riot of colour as participants from New Zealand and around the world took to the air for the 2016 Wairarapa Balloon Festival, which wrapped up on Monday.

A Fire Service spokeswoman said the blaze broke out just before 11pm at the Murdoch James Estate Winery in a building that housed tractors.

Martinborough offers 25 wineries, good tucker and a buzzy nightlife.

A roadtrip to Palliser Bay can take a traveller's breath away, writes Richard Moore.

Drivers travelling along a rural Wairarapa road could be forgiven for imagining the worst when they came across a cottage perched on the side of a bridge.

Wairarapa farmer Bill Hallett is taking a World War I commemorative march so seriously he's shaved off his distinctive, 35-year-old beard.

A whitebaiter who died when he was swept out to sea at a river mouth in Wairarapa yesterday was wearing a lifejacket.

Two cars have collided at a Wairarapa intersection today, closing the road.

This Wairarapa town isn't just for wine lovers and weekending Wellingtonians.

A Wairarapa man found guilty of repeatedly raping a teenager and abducting her to the countryside has had his appeal against his conviction dismissed.

Wellington and Northland will not be reorganised into "super cities" but Hawkes Bay will follow in Auckland's footsteps.

While there was an appetite for a lower North Island super city, the Wairarapa should not be included within it, Wellington's Mayor Celia Wade-Brown told the Local Government Commission today.

Whareama couple Sally Duckworth and Alisdair Ross have conquered the world of marmalade, taking two gold medals at the World Marmalade Championships in Cumbria, United Kingdom, on Saturday.

A team of rural firefighters spent 20 hours battling strong winds, dry, inhospitable terrain and a blaze which took out 10ha of Wairarapa scrub, bush and farmland yesterday.

As hot, dry weather threatens to create a drought, farmers are preparing for the worst.