AS first raised in this column two weeks ago, Act Party leader has confirmed his engagement to former top squash player Louise Crome, 21 years his junior. The local link? Hide proposed in the romantic setting of Deer Park Heights.

NINETIES deputy mayor Margaret McHugh, who shifted to Auckland where she ran a successful catering company, is now happily ensconced in Picton. “We love Picton,” she tells me. “Like Queenstown was 30 years ago, for God’s sake.”

AMIDST the controversy over Auckland International Airport’s Queenstown buy-in, it’s timely that we’re hosting the New Zealand Airports Conference at the end of the week. Queenstown airport boss Steve Sanderson is giving an address entitled: “Queenstown – Rapid Growth and the Auckland Connection”.

A MAP in the Southern Lakes phonebook labels the Events Centre sportsfields as Davis Park. For their information, the main ground there is named John Davies Oval after local business heavyweight John Davies, who helped sponsor the construction of the Events Centre.

GOD loves a tryer. Rebuffed in 1989 and 1992, lawyer Simon Stamers-Smith stands again for council 18 years later – and this time gets on.

PRIME Restaurant is still advertising an “Autumn Special” on its lake-fronting window. Maybe they’re trying to appeal to visitors from the Northern Hemisphere.