However, as far as he’s concerned he’s done nothing special.
He was quick to note he was not solely responsible for the tree planting, saying it had been a group effort from the start between other members of Rotary North, local schools, community groups, volunteers and the Whanganui Mountain Bike Club.
“It was always a community effort ... it was a group of people that always came together,” he said.
Over four years he and his team have planted over 8000 native trees at Hylton’s Pit, 4000 of which were planted this year.
The project came around after he and his friends realised there were no walking or mountain bike parks easily accessible to the city.
“If you look at towns like Rotorua or Ōhakune, all of those towns significantly benefit from having good walkways and good mountain bike tracks close to town.”
Planting was started hoping Hylton’s would become that for the city.
The pit is owned by the Whanganui District Council, so the team got permission from the council and worked with the council’s senior parks manager, Wendy Bainbridge, to begin the planting.
Initially, the planting work was difficult, as the park is an old rubbish site and the ground wasn’t particularly fertile, but their slow progress picked up speed over the last year.
“This year the rain has been kind to us, the trees are looking good because we’ve had ample water and you learn from your mistakes,” he said.
He said physically the planting had been a challenge due to the age of a lot of the team.
“It’s been challenging because we’re a bunch of oldies, and I’m one of the younger members so physically there was not always that many people that could help,” he said.
Over that time other members of the club took up as much work with the planting as Hazelhurst.
Planting work for the group will continue into the next year, but not under Rotary North.
Because of the age of many members, Rotary had signalled they were pulling out of the work, with him and his team starting a new group, called the Friends of Hylton’s, to continue the work.
The new group have gotten funding to bring in a professional spot sprayer next year.
He said there’s also a chance they’ll be able to expand the area trees are planted to a much larger section of Hylton’s in the future.
“If that happens then there’ll be a much bigger hectare coverage area that will be involved,” he said.
If this were to happen, he expected it to be a joint operation between Friends of Hylton’s, Horizons Regional Council, and Whanganui District Council.
As for his work as a GP, he said all GPs around Whanganui had been hard at work this year due to Covid-19.
He didn’t want people to think he’d been doing more than others in the city.
“I don’t do anything special above what everybody else is doing,
“It’s just been challenging times for everybody with Covid,” he said.
