We have felt the colder weather and finally got to see some sun towards the end of the week which was nice. Fingers crossed the mountains get a good dumping of snow soon!

My first week on the Wanaka Police Public Safety Team has been a reasonably busy one.

We received a report of a vehicle broken into near Makarora after the owner had unfortunately broken down and had to abandon their vehicle for one night.

Please remember to take valuables from your vehicles and don’t leave any items visible for thieves to see and give them a reason to target your vehicle.

Tuesday, we dealt with a family harm matter of a minor nature.

You may have noticed an increase of police presence along Lakeside Road where there is plenty of roadworks and construction taking place. We will continue to monitor this - I remind you to please slow down along here.

Wednesday morning, we had a motor vehicle incident with a flock of sheep along Cardrona Valley. Thankfully the sole occupant received no injuries.

We also received a complaint regarding glass bottles having flown off a truck and trailer unit as it left Wanaka. The truck was stopped shortly after which was lucky.

A cow on the road near Hāwea caused a minor accident, again thankfully no one injured.

A family harm matter was also reported.

Thursday morning, we had a single vehicle crash into a power pole in Luggate which put a lot of people's power out for the morning. The driver was not injured.

We received reports of camo skull image graffiti at the Wanaka skate park. This is not appreciated and a reminder that we do have CCTV around this area so these people will be caught up with.

On Thursday we arrested a person on a warrant for failing to appear in court. They were taken to court the following morning to front the judge. Another person was served a suspension from driving for three months due to excess demerit points.

Saturday, an alcohol checkpoint was conducted for patrons leaving town, over 200 vehicles all complying with the alcohol limits. Well done to this bunch!

In the early hours of Sunday morning a person was caught with low range excess breath alcohol and received an infringement of $200 along with 50 demerit points. This is often a wakeup call to a lot of people who don’t realise they had that one too many.

The bars had many patrons out for the Super Rugby finals, many cleared out pretty swiftly with the Highlanders loss – it seemed to put a dampener on the night for some. Others partied on a little too hard. A person was found lying in their own vomit and another found sleeping on the grass roadside. Thanks to good members of the public we managed to get them home safely.

Drugs were seized from a vehicle after a strong smell was noted during a routine traffic stop.

Be patient If you’re travelling to Makarora. There are a number of traffic lights set up, wait for the green otherwise you could see yourself with a $150 ticket!

Enjoy your week and keep warm.