Dr Ashley Bloomfield has been awarded his hometown’s highest honour. 🥇 The director-general of health was gifted a Mayoral Citation by Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry - the highest recognition the region can give to one of its residents. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Bloomfield’s “outstanding expert leadership” during the Covid-19 pandemic was cited as a motivating factor behind the award. 👨🏽‍⚕️💫 Congratulations Dr Bloomfield! To read more about the special ceremony for NZ’s favourite doctor, check out the link in our bio. 📷: @marktantrum

What’s better than skiing? Night skiing!⛷ The largest crowd in years turned up to the launch of Coronet Peak’s evening skiing season to enjoy music, clear conditions and a fireworks display. 🎶❄️🎆 Crowds gathered from 4pm, and thousands were on the slopes by 5:30pm - carving up the mountain and stopping for sunset photos of Queenstown below. 👌🏼 Who would you like to experience this epic Kiwi must-do with? Check out the link in our bio for full details. 📷: @brooksabin

Was someone hallucinating when they told me about pyramids in New Zealand? Turns out, it’s true. #backyourbackyard 🎥: @brooksabin

Imagine watching the Milky Way on an underwater hot spring hammock in the mountains. 💫🏔 For more info, click the link in our bio. 🎥: @brooksabin

It’s 5:30am, raining heavily and Olive Harris is strapping on a headlight in preparation for her 2.5 hour trek to school. 🔦👟🛣 For the third year in a row, the 10-year-old Christchurch girl is walking over 11km to school to fundraise for hungry, orphaned and abandoned African children. ❤️ This year dozens of pupils from as far as Mt Pleasant, Westmorland, Fendalton and Halswell walked fo St Mark’s School for the cause. 💪🏼🙌🏼 “We were just thinking lots of people aren’t as lucky as us and don’t have the things we take for granted ... they have to walk for miles and miles sometimes, so we thought we should do something and u decided a walk would be the perfect thing,” Olive said. To read more about this wonderful initiative, check out the link in our bio. 📷: John Kirk-Anderson/Stuff

Isn’t our backyard stunning?! 🏔☁️👌🏼 @wilderness_addict captured this incredible shot in Mt Cook National Park - there’s nothing quite like waking up above a sea of the fluffiest white clouds! 💫 Have you taken a great photo of Aotearoa recently? Tag us and #backyourbackyard for a chance to be featured. 🌏📍 To see more amazing snaps from around NZ, check out the link in our bio.

Ever wondered where all the lost pens go? Wainuiomata pensioner Kevin Upjohn might know 🖊️🖊️ After collecting them for almost 30 years, he has 13,000 of them "from Bic to Parker" stored in catalogued bins out in his garden shed ✍🏼 From ballpoints to fountains, felt tipped to gel ink, the pens come from all around the world. Many of them are branded promotional pens, the kind given away by businesses, but there are some more frivolous ones, including a clutch of liquid filled novelty pens where "trains and planes move back and forwards" 🖋🖋 But now it’s time to sell his collection, says Upjohn. Click on the link in our bio to find out more. 📷: Stuff

It’s a doughnut... no... it’s a cheeseburger? 🍩🍔 Wait until you see all the other mouthwatering fillings this Motueka eatery puts into their doughnuts!🤤 Tag a doughnut loving friend, and check out the link in our bio to get your hands on these delicious creations. 🎥: @brooksabin

Thousands of people gathered in Auckland and Wellington to march in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Sunday. 🖤🖤🖤 Outrage and despair over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has energised protesters in the US and worldwide. Sunday’s demonstrations were the first major rallies under New Zealand’s newly-relaxed Alert Level 1 guidelines. To see more videos and images from the marches, click the link in our bio. 📷: @gettyimages, Rosa Woods/Stuff

Thinking of lacing up your hiking boots and taking on the breathtaking Routeburn Track? 👟🎒 With Covid-19 having shut out international borders for the foreseeable future and the Government’s plans to fix the damage from the Fiordland storm, there’s never been a better time! 🙌🏼🏔 Before you set off be sure to check out our 9 top tips for walking the Routeburn (you don’t want to miss out on the best views, after all!) 🗺💧⛺️ The link is in our bio 👆🏼 📷: @meghanmaloneyphotography

Hamilton City Council has removed a statue of Captain Hamilton from its civic square after a formal request from Waikato-Tainui. Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton was a naval commander who led a detachment of the 43rd regiment at the Battle of Gate Pā in Tauranga during the New Zealand Wars. The city is named after him, but it’s doubted he ever stepped foot in Hamilton. “I know many people - in fact a growing number of people - find the statue personally and culturally offensive,” says mayor Paula Southgate. “We can’t ignore what is happening all over the world and nor should we.” To read more about the decision to remove the statue, check out the link in our bio. 📷: Christel Yardley/Stuff

“It just doesn’t feel right to me.” New Zealand’s Fittest Man Luke Fiso is ditching CrossFit after insensitive comments from the company’s CEO about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. 🏋🏽✊🏼 For the last six years, Fiso has lived and breathed CrossFit, both as a competitor and as the owner and operator of Instinct Fitness, a CrossFit gym in Wellington. Now, he says the company has betrayed his values. “I’m Māori and Samoan. Looking at racial issues that were occurring over in the States, I have some personal experience with that here in NZ, with my friends and family. I felt strongly for the movement that they were pushing for,” says Fiso. 🖤 To read more about the future of CrossFit in NZ, check out the link in our bio. 📷: Rosa Woods/Stuff