Travel holes in Auckland’s Covid-19 boundary and open floodgates exiting Waikato is generating fear amongst the region’s southern leaders that the virus isn’t far away.

A Taupō site that in its heyday accommodated a nursery employing dozens of staff and which sent millions of trees all over the country will be brought out of its mothballed state.

Echo may be only just over two-years-old, but he’s proving a bit of a wunderkind – or wonderfind.

Fifty years ago Taupō’s new 25-bed hospital was opened before 500 people by then Minister of Works Percy Allen.