DESPITE it only being April it's been quite a year of news.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And the Central Western Daily website has been on top of it all.
So far in 2015 the newspaper's digital arm has seen more than eight million page views and over 400,000 unique browsers - that's a lot of lap tops, phones and tablets accessing the latest in Orange, regional, state, national and international news.
So what have been the biggest stories? Glad you asked.
Here's our top ten most read stories of the year so far ...
10. Police pondering how Kingswood came to be parked on a grave (published March 28):
Police spent Thursday afternoon trying to determine how a car became lodged on top of two graves in the monumental cemetery in Young.
According to Sergeant Paul Colefax of Young Police Station the police were called to the cemetery at around 12.45pm to discover the gold HQ Premier Sedan sitting atop a double plot in the Methodist portion of the cemetery.
Click here to read the full story.
9. PHOTOS, VIDEO: Orange's streets turn into rivers after torrential downpour (published January 25):
Downpours across Orange on Saturday led to 31 call-outs for the SES, with more than 100 millimetres falling in some areas. The main weather station at Orange Airport recorded just 26 millimetres, but heavier falls occurred further north, including hail mid-afternoon.
Hillview near Mount Canobolas recorded 110mm, Kite Street recorded 88mm, 73mm fell at North Orange and the Orange Agricultural Institute recorded 50mm. The falls resulted in flash flooding across the city as some homes and garages took in water.
The East Orange Channel between Summer Street East and Icely Road rose to residents’ fence lines, and one man decided to swap his car for a kayak near the intersection of Autumn and Byng streets.
Click here to read the full story.
8. BREAKING NEWS: Car found, cleaner charged with Stephanie Scott's murder (published April 9):
A school cleaner has been charged with the murder of missing bride-to-be Stephanie Scott after police allegedly found blood in a vehicle and a photograph on a phone of what is believed to be a burnt body.
Police arrested Vincent Stanford, 24, a cleaner at Leeton High School, at a house on Maiden Avenue in Leeton, in the NSW Riverina, about 7.30pm on Wednesday, and took him to Leeton police station for questioning.
Click here to read the full story.
7. POLL: No public holiday for Anzac Day in 2015: decision supported by Orange RSL (published on July 22, 2014):
Anzac Day falls on a Saturday in 2015 and according to the NSW Public Holidays Act no additional day will be granted for the national remembrance.
And that’s precisely the way it should be, according to members of the Orange RSL sub branch, who believe a public holiday on Monday in lieu of the day would be unnecessary.
Click here to read the full story.
6. A dog act: family pets abused and poisoned by 'sinister people' (published on April 6):
It will be an Easter Karlie Irwin and her son-in-law Joshua Langbein’s family won’t forget.
Mr Langbein’s young dogs Buck, Sasha and Charlie were poisoned with bait and abused sometime in the early hours of Wednesday morning, in an attack Ms Irwin described as “very traumatic”.
Click here to read the full story.
5. PHOTOS: Who crashes into a parked car in the middle of the night ... and drives off? (published on January 24):
Police are calling on the public for assistance to help track down the person who crashed their car into a black Ford Territory parked outside its owner’s house early on Friday morning.
After hearing the crash at 3.50am the owner went outside to investigate, and found the vehicle extensively damaged. “The vehicle will probably have to be written off,” Orange police Sergeant Brendan Casey said.
Click here to read the full story.
4. Police appeal for information: man's body found on National Avenue (published on March 9):
Police are asking for the public's help to piece together the movements of a 50-year-old man who was found dead on National Avenue early on Sunday morning.
The man, whose body was discover by someone jogging in the area at around 6am, had a small laceration to the side of his head.
Click here to read the full story.
3. Horror accident: man dead after trail bike accident north of Orange (published on January 19):
A man has died following an off-road trail bike crash in Orange on Sunday. About 6pm a number of family and friends had been trail bike riding through the Mullion Range State Forrest, Long Point Road in Mullion Creek, about 18km north of Orange.
A 43-year-old man was completing a ride on a trail bike with a 13-year-old female pillion passenger when it’s believed the bike left the dirt trail, veering into vegetation and causing the pair to fall from the bike.
Click here to read the full story.
2. OPINION: Greyhound racing and live baiting: time to ban the 'sport of grubs' (published on February 19):
If the practices exposed on Four Corners Monday night are as widespread as depicted, and the governing bodies as ignorant of them as depicted, the "sport" has no right existing. It cannot be reliably regulated.
It's not often you watch television and find yourself simultaneously stunned, furious and heartbroken, but the gut-wrenching documentation of "live baiting" in dog racing did just that to thousands of Australians this week.
Click here to read the full story.
1. Blue Mountains site chosen for country's first human body farm (published on January 3):
Yarramundi in the lower Blue Mountains will be the site of the first human body farm in Australia and the southern hemisphere. A body farm, or taphonomic facility, observes and researches the decay of human corpses.
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) owns the 49-hectare site and will operate the 200-metre by 250-metre facility on Springwood Road near Lynchs Creek after its completion this year.
Click here to read the full story.