Star Hotel, Kihikihi, decorated with flags, 1900s
The impact a two-month closure of the Desert Road would have for Te Awamutu was the best-read story online last month.
Maungatoetoenui Bridge, Desert Rd
It was a comfortable winner over Viv Posselt’s piece on the Waipā women’s hub launch in a month which saw a 345 per cent increase of views to the site on January last year and slightly ahead of December last year for total visits.
Teawamutunews.nz’s online presence saw huge improvement throughout 2024 and has started 2025 with more visits than its Cambridge News counterpart cambridgenews.nz
Third best read story last month was the big rise in Te Awamutu bus use followed by Chris Gardner’s piece about Evie O’Brien, the new chief executive of Te Wananga o Aotearoa, “I’ll look and listen”.
Evie O’Brien
There is something about hotels in Waipā that our online readers love. Meghan Hawkes’ Tales from the Passed column about the rat-ridden state of Kihikihi’s Star Hotel in 1916 fascinated readers and came in fifth narrowly edging out a story about 2024’s best read story – the closure of Pirongia’s Five Stags hotel.
