REMEMBER the Newcastle version of board game Monopoly from a few years ago? You may not - it's from the days before COVID, so feels like 100 years ago.
Nobbys and the Anzac Walk made the cut in the version, which entered a second print run based on pre-orders alone. A quick Google shows it's still on sale.
"We've only done major capital cities, so we weren't expecting this from Newcastle," Winning Moves custom games manager Dale Hackett said in 2019.
Well, now you need to pick a side in what's becoming a Hunter duopoly.
The Hunter Valley is getting its own version, developed by Cessnock City Council in a bid to promote the region and local government area. The council says landmarks from Laguna to Lake St Clair will make the cut when it launches in September.
Elfie's first encounter with his own kind
IT can be hard to leave the nest, especially when you're a famous marsupial.
Aussie Ark keepers are looking at the prospect of an empty nest after the potoroo joey they hand-raised, Elfie, prepares to make his first forays into the wild with his own kind.
Much like Grover, he's finding out why he doesn't look like the people he's been around his whole life to this point.
Elfie was found after he was abandoned by his mother last Christmas, and got his name in a nod to Santa's little helpers.
Long-nosed potoroos are an ancient cousin of the kangaroo and considered living fossils. They turn over leaf litter as they forage, playing an important part in the bush ecosystems they make their home.
Feral cats and foxes have driven them to vulnerable status.
Aussie Ark manager of conservation Hayley Shute raised him by hand before he transferred to the Barrington Tops sanctuary itself. He quickly won the heart of curator Kelly Davis, who has spent the last two months working hard to fatten Elfie up and get him ready to meet other potoroos.
Up until now, he's been kept at the staff accommodation and bottle fed.
There has been an adjustment period.
"When he reached his target weight, the first step to his transition was leaving his play-pen in one of our potoroo enclosures in our Species Recovery Unit," Ms Davis said. "At first we left him there just during the day - when potoroos are normally asleep - so he could familiarise himself with the sights and smells of his new environment."
The next step was leaving him in his closed playpen overnight in the larger enclosure. Given potoroos are noctural, there were some active and curious critters just outside the wall.
Camera trap footage caught the first moments of Elfie encountering his own kind.
The sanctuary has a focus on the long-nosed potoroo as part of its 1597 threatened species campaign, which calls on businesses to donate that amount of cash. It represents a dollar for every species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of threatened species.
