One of the club’s achievements that Linton is most proud of is the Hutt River Trail.
Completed last year, the mammoth 30-year project is the work of eight different Rotary clubs from across the Hutt Valley. A total of 54 kilometres of walking and cycling trails on both sides of the river were built and planted, from the mouth of the Hutt River in Petone to Te Marua, north of Upper Hutt.
“The gulf between the haves and the have-nots has grown too wide” the Summerset Boulcott resident says. To counter this, Linton actively serves his community through the Rotary Club of Hutt City, of which he has been a member for more than 35 years.
“In 1993, our incoming club president wanted a major project to celebrate the club’s 50th anniversary. We landed on the river trail as the best idea and decided to involve the other Rotary clubs in the region. It was a massive project, and by the time we’d finished the club was celebrating its 80th anniversary!”
Linton says the Hutt River Trail was a labour of love; while there were hard days it was a lot of fun too. The retired accountant said many Saturday mornings were spent on the trail working together. In the early years, Rotary clubs organised working bees to form tracks with shingle and other council-provided materials.
“Club members supplied the labour and their shovels from home,” says Linton. They also erected detailed map boards along the trail and designed seats and tables constructed from wire gabions filled with small river boulders to reflect the flood plain environment.
“We also managed to get some help from outside the club from time to time, with people sentenced to Community Service helping on many sections.” The project began with a big clean-up of litter. “We had to clear a lot of rubbish first; there were even old cars dumped in some sections of the river!” Linton says.
Labour wasn’t the only thing required; some changes of attitudes and mindsets were too. “In the early ’90s many of the council river workers felt like we were encroaching on their patch – some were put out that we were there,” Linton recalls.
“That changed when members of the public started to praise them for the parts of the trail that were completed. Their outlook shifted when they saw the benefit of what we were doing. Some council departments started to think about the best way to benefit the river trail while they were doing maintenance work or making changes, like putting in a culvert.”
There were some ups and downs in creating the path too. One day while moving gravel around Te Marua, a club member had a heart attack. Luckily the team rallied around and got him to an ambulance, and he recovered in hospital.
In addition to breaking in the trail and creating the paths, numerous trees were planted the length of the trail. The park became a natural highway for native birds to commute from the Tararua Ranges down the Hutt Valley before heading out to Matiu / Somes Island and then on to predator-proof Zealandia during the breeding season. To provide a food source for these migrating birds, Rotary member Robin Maud persuaded the council that native trees should be planted.
“The regional council wanted willows along the bank because they grew quickly and are great for flood protection and erosion control,” says Linton. “Fortunately, Robin’s perseverance for diverse native plantings paid off. Throughout the trail there are tōtara and other native trees that will be there in 300 years.”
Linton is enthusiastic about the future of the Hutt River Trail once it joins up with the Remutaka Rail Trail and Wellington City’s Great Harbour Way. “With its wild Cook Strait coastline, a river valley and a harbour edge, it will become a bike trail of national significance, similar to the Otago Rail Trail.”
During his time with the Rotary Club, Linton and his wife, Heather, have been involved in other notable projects, with the Tree of Joy and a trip to India being highlights.
The Tree of Joy stands in the Queensgate Shopping Centre every Christmas. Donors give a present for an age-specific boy or girl to go under the tree. The gifts are then donated to needy children via Women’s Refuge, the Salvation Army and other charities.
“We volunteer at the Tree of Joy every year and enjoy witnessing the generosity of the public. It’s a vehicle for people to express all sorts of needs, and it is one of the most important projects we do for the community,” Linton says enthusiastically.
“One year a woman came up and asked for a gift tag for a 12-year-old girl. She told me she buys a gift every year for a girl who would be the same age as the child she had lost 12 years ago. It was an incredibly emotional moment for both of us.”
Heather and Linton, with several members of Wellington Rotary clubs, travelled to India in 2011 to help with the Indian government’s polio immunisation drive. Aiming to eradicate the disease, the government vaccinated every child in the country on the same day.
“It has been extremely effective. In 2010 they’d had just two cases; in 2011, when we were there, there had been only one; and the year after, in 2012, there were none. Naturally we joke that we eliminated polio from India!”
Nowadays Linton and Heather are loving their new life in Summerset Boulcott. The couple lived about 400 metres away from the village for 45 years.
“We would walk past, watching as the village took shape,” Linton says.
“Heather was keen to move in – she could see that we needed a home better suited to our age, and she had some health complaints that were slowing her down and our beautiful garden was getting hard to maintain. I was in denial and felt I could still climb ladders to clean the gutters and so on, but I came and saw the village and went to the information evenings.
“We purchased off the plans, which was a pretty big deal for a risk-averse chartered accountant like me! It was the best decision we have ever made – Heather and I were the first residents at the village. We moved in on a Monday and by Thursday I turned to Heather and told her, ‘This already feels like home.’ She was so happy because I think she thought that she had dragged me here.”
Linton and Heather have embraced village life and particularly enjoy “Decadent Fridays”: aqua aerobics in the morning, followed by a spa and coffee in the village café. Linton jokingly likens it to a Roman bathhouse.
“We just need someone peeling the grapes for us now!”
Republished with permission.
