Hutt Valley

I'm John Macdonald, kia ora and welcome into the Community Drive Hut Zone on Thursday the 1st of October.

The Hut Zone is Wellington Access Radio's weekly look into the stories, people, history, poems and music that make the Hutt Valley community.

Tonight we talk arch trails, this time on the annual Upper Hutt Arch Trail which runs the weekend 10th and 11th of October.

I chat to painter and potter Elizabeth Gibson and hear about this year's artists, venues, as well as her art story and love for Te Awa Kairangi, the Hutt River.

I've made it my ambition over the last six years that every time I see something that, you know, like there's a weekend course or a, short workshop or something like that available that I will try and do it so I have been doing some printmaking courses recently and I'm enjoying that work out how I incorporate that into my practice yeah yeah

so with your schooling was that in the hut that you were doing the art or was it elsewhere

yeah I went to Hutt Valley High and did art in fifth form and sixth form And I remember trips to, you know, the Odland Gallery as part of our art class and things like that.

Yeah.

But, you know, most of my time is spent in the Hutt door knocking, phone calling, getting out, getting out and about and meeting people, and you know, what, what else can you do? You just gotta put yourself out there and say, "Look, I'm here for public service.

I'm here to try and make the Hutt Valley a better place."

Got any thoughts about what you do?

Here's where I am.

I met Graeme Dingle and Jill Tremaine up on top of Girdlestone.

And I knew Graeme from school tramping days because he was in the Hutt Valley camp.

high school and we met up off and on in the Taranekau Valley and a few other places and those were the only two I actually recall meeting by and large it was pretty quiet.

And then you moved to Taranaki to hunt goat now what's the difference between hunting goat and deer what's easier?

Nau mai, haere mai, I'm John Macdonald, kia ora and welcome into the Community Drive Hutt Zone on Thursday the 24th of September.

The Hutt Zone is Wellington Access Radio's weekly look into the stories, people, history, poems and music that make the Hutt Valley community.

Tonight, we talk to Upper Hutt's Wheels and Canes Disability Group convener, Blake Forbes-Gentle, ahead of the September monthly meeting at Upper Hutt Library.

We catch up with Animal Welfare Hoo-Ha co-founder, Carolyn Press-McKenzie, to hear about their school holiday behind-the-scenes tour of their Haywards Hill Animal Sanctuary.

Righty-ho.

So we're on the Haywards Hill.

We're on the Hutt Valley side.

So you come up from Hutt Valley and then you cross over to Mount Cecil Road.

I was a city boy.

Suburban, the Hutt Valley.

The Hutt Riviera we used to call it.

Um, [laughs] so I'm v- I'm very much a city boy.

Beautiful, beautiful.

And from the top of the bus, you can see our predominant core fire around the Hutt Valley.

After we'd scoffed our burger combos, the bus picked us up again and took us on a tiki tour around the streets from the Petone foreshore up to Silverstream.

I'm a born nosy parker, Jack, so I loved it.

I'm John McDonald and you're in the Hutt Zone on Wellington Access Radio 106.1 FM.

And that was Jenny Forsyth talking with the late Annie Huggins in 1979 on Mrs Huggins' Hutt Valley and Petone memories.

Thank you to Hutt City Library's Heritage Centre for letting us play their interview.

Part three plays next week.

Time for our feature story of the week.

Next month is the annual Hutt Valley Arts Trails and this week we hear about the Lower Hutt Arts Trail and the artistic path taken by one of its organisers, Louise Thomas.

Louise Thomas and I work with Johannes on the Lower Hutt Art Trail Committee and I do things like the website.

This year I've done the catalogue as well.

He is fronting.

And Aaron says, I've heard a local rumour That Hutt Valley is looking at breaking away from the pathetic rugby union in Wellington and joining the Heartland competition.

Imagine Hutt Valley being in Heartland.

That'd be pretty sick.

I'd like that.

And then all of those clubs.

Yeah, they're all connected to Hutt Valley.

Connected to Hutt Valley.

My father was a technical officer and he went to work at the DSIR.

And my mother was a teacher, so she taught all around Waianamata and the Hutt Valley.

So your schooling, you must have done then in Waianamata.

Whereabouts, what schools did you go to? Yes,

So I urgently looked for somewhere else to accommodate my other son in the hut and found a little two-bedroom flat out in Ipuni near the hospital, which is very, very handy as my son has been in hospital for the last few weeks, but he's getting better.

But it was a planned decision.

I looked at 12 properties all around the Hutt Valley, and this one is actually quite handy because I can walk to the hospital.

It's a 10-minute walk.