Contact Energy Volunteer Planting Day—June 27, 2012

For the second year in a row, we were very happy to have a great team of volunteers from the Auckland office of Contact Energy join us for a day of planting.  Contact Energy, a generator and retailer of electricity, natural gas and LPG, is one of New Zealand’s largest public companies. 

The team arrived at about nine and had morning tea.  Because six of the nine people in the group had come out to CUE Haven last year we spent more time catching up than doing a formal orientation. 

The team consisted of Janet, Martyn, Michael, Marie, Rebecca, Ian, Peter, Warren and Christina.

The planting site was a bit far to walk so we drove up in two groups and by ten the team was at work:

We have been having some very unsettled weather this week but the forecast was for fine weather with the possibility of a shower.  The morning had been sunny so no one was expecting the huge squall that suddenly came roaring out of the west. 

At first we thought it would just be a passing shower but the wind and horizontal rain made us take cover under some big totara trees.

However despite the bad weather Marie and Warren decided to keep working:

And after about ten minutes, the squall passed, the sun came out and the neighbor’s cows decided to come have a look at what we were doing.

In just a few hours of hard work, the team had finished off the area we had prepared for them and did some additional planting work as well.  We did a count of the morning’s effort and the team had planted 600 trees, beating last year’s total.  It was a major accomplishment considering the weather and the size of the team.

We then took a leisurely walk back by way of the walking track:

And then had a relaxing lunch.

It was a fun and productive day and we really appreciate Contact Energy’s help and support with our project.  Contact Energy people have now planted over 1,100 trees at CUE Haven.  Thanks very much!