Te Rā o te Raukura 2014

Peace, love and harmony

We were delighted to have been invited to take part in Te Rā o te Raukura for the first time this year. The festival is a family orientated event with a focus on health, art, and education; with kids’ amusement rides and over 100 stalls with a massive array of foods and crafts.

The name of the event, Te Rā o te Raukura, is significant to the people at Waiwhetu and the tangata whenua in the Wellington Region. The ‘Raukura’ was used as a symbol of peace, love and harmony by the prophet Te Whiti O Rongomai at Parihaka. Te Rā o te Raukura commemorates the day in 1881 when Parihaka was invaded, and celebrates unity in Lower Hutt City and the wider Wellington Region.

Initially a few of us (OK, just me then) were a bit confused and got this gig mixed up with the Matariki gig we did at Waiwhetu Marae last year – an error which was revealed as soon as we saw the huge festival ranged right across Te Whiti Park, next door to the marae. This was BIG!

We had a really lovely time at the festival. Lessons having been learned about cutting it fine timewise at the Kapiti Strawberry Festival last year, we all turned up nice and early, which gave us a chance to hang out, drink some extremely good coffee from the local Havana Coffee Works cart, and take in the atmosphere and music.

We did two short shows, got at least one person up and dancing (!), the sky went from entirely cloudy and overcast before the first show to insanely blue with not-a-cloud-in-it by the end of our second performance, and after we’d finished we all wandered off around the festival grounds to eat yummy homemade food and buy lovely handmade craft items from New Zealand and around the world. A most excellent time was had by all – and we timed it perfectly so that we could head off back to town afterwards and get to Bell Road just in time for band practice. Brilliant!