WHANGAMATA

New Zealand surfer Ella Williams has earned fourth place at World Surfing Games in Santa Catalina, Panama this morning (NZT).

Competing at the games for the first time, the finish is easily the best international result in the burgeoning career of the 18-year-old from Whangamata.

Williams' star continues to rise after she won the New Zealand Women's Open in April and subsequently a starting position in the World Championship Tour event held at New Plymouth. Williams finished 13th at that event while competing against the best surfers in the world.

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This salon is location in beautiful Whangamata, and has been operating over 17 years with it initially being called Sea Sister.

It is an owner operated business with part time professional staff. All staff share a passionate goal of providing a high standard of service to all clients. The Salon only uses professional branded products - no cheap or bulk goods are used.

Most important Earthquake Data:

Magnitude : 3.3

Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2013-05-01 02:39:58

GMT/UTC Time : 2013-04-30 14:39:58

Depth (Hypocenter)  : 369 km

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Double-murderer David Tamihere was banned from going to the Coromandel because of fears he would move the never-recovered body of Swedish tourist Heidi Paakonen, a court heard.

Tamihere, 59, was released from prison in November 2010 with strict parole conditions, including that he stay out of the area in which he murdered Paakonen and boyfriend Urban Hoglin in 1989. But he flew in a helicopter over the scene when the Sunday television programme convinced him to agree to an interview and flyover. He was charged with breaching his parole conditions for doing so.

He defended the charge in the Waitakere District Court on Friday where it emerged that the Parole Board had drawn a Tamihere exclusion zone around the Coromandel Peninsula.

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A spot of fishing on the Coromandel has turned up the wildlife discovery of the year with a critically endangered leatherback giant sea turtle was spotted at Whangamata.

Shannon Rolfe and partner Aaron Radford came across the two-metre long turtle last weekend while taking part in a fishing tournament.

''We were out on my dad's 42-foot boat, out by the Alderman Islands, and my dad was looking out onto the water and starting yelling out that he'd seen a whale,'' Miss Rolfe says.

''There was this animal in the water, we could see a white belly, and then he rolled over and we saw that he was a turtle,'' she says.

''He was at least two metres long and would have weighed about 700 kilograms.''

After viewing photographs of the turtle, Department of Conservation marine mammal scientist  Dr Louise Chilvers confirmed it was a leatherback.

"They are quite rare,'' she said.

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Hot rods, sunshine and plenty of V8 goodness - Whangamata certainly turned it on for the 2013 Beach Hop.

The annual event attracted more than 1000 classic car and hot rod entries, including three from the US, with thousands more driven in by some of a vast spectator crowd estimated at up to 100,000 on the Saturday alone.

The 13th annual Coromandel event began with a Wednesday Waihi warm-up party, followed by a Tairua cruise and another to scenic Onemana Beach over following days, but for most Saturday's Main Street parade is the focus.

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People without fossil fuels running through their veins don't quite seem to understand how wide and varied the motoring world actually is.

There's a misconception that we're just hairy bogans who drink low-rent beer and fight when we're not doing burnouts in front of primary schools; there's another that we're all poorly educated twonks with little or no idea about what exists outside of the engine bay; the list goes on - underlined by a wowser email that slimed its uneducated way into my inbox on Monday, complaining about noisy cars at Whangamata's Beach Hop.

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 Beach Hop 13, come and gone... What a week!

Over 15,000 photos to have a look at....

Nic Brenton-Rule has no memory of what led to his near-drowning, but believes a dent on his surfboard may be a clue.

The Port Waikato father of one spent almost six minutes unconscious in the sea off Whangamata before being pulled to safety on March 1.

Now the 42-year-old is keen to thank the men who helped him dodge death for the second time in his life. He survived a brain tumour eight years ago.

Mr Brenton-Rule is now in Auckland awaiting an MRI test to see whether there is any cancer-related reason which may have caused him to black out while surfing.

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Gray and the family trust will retain a bach in Whangamata, two rental properties in Hamilton, other vehicles, farm stock and cash assets worth about $2.5 million in total.

Originally His Honour sentenced the drug kingpin to 17 years but deducted five years for the forfeiture of the property.

However, he imposed a minimum period of imprisonment of five and a half years.

Outside court Gray's daughter Michelle Riley said her father was truly remorseful and described him as "the best dad in the world".

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