ANZ—9 August 2013

ANZ New Zealand is one of New Zealand’s largest banks.  They have a strong commitment to sustainable business practices and community service and today a group of ten people from the corporate banking office visited CUE Haven for a day of planting and track work.

The team arrived just after nine and included Bion, Blair, Charlotte, Fiona, Ian, John, Katherine, Logan, Paul and Phil.  Our friends Christine and Craig also joined the team.

Over morning tea, we got acquainted and gave the group an orientation to the CUE Haven project.

We are at the very end of this year’s planting season and have finished off the main pioneer species planting.  The planting work for the day involved in-fill planting of canopy trees (e.g., totara, puriri, taraire, titoki) amongst the pioneer trees planted in previous years.

In addition to planting, we wanted to install a culvert in a wet spot of the walking track to improve drainage and water management.

After the orientation, the team got ready to head out to the field.

The team looking very fashionable in their gumboots!

We would be working near the top of the property so we took a leisurely drive up to the work site.

Today’s planting was more challenging than usual for two reasons.  First, when doing infill planting, it is necessary to find a good place to put the trees.  Some trees prefer wet areas and others prefer more shelter.  So this sort of planting involves a lot of walking to find good planting spots.

The other big challenge is that the area where we were planting was in a gully and we could only get the plants by truck to the top of the gully.  All of the plants and supplies had to be carried down the biggest and longest set of stairs on the walking track.  And because most of us can only carry one crate of plants at a time, numerous trips up and down the stairs were necessary.  There must have been some very sore legs the next day!

Even so, the team coped very well with this obstacle and managed to plant over 200 trees in just a few hours—an amazing effort!!

In addition to the planting work, the team also installed a new sump and culvert box on the walking track.  The original system was occasionally overwhelmed by heavy rain and the team worked to improve the channel to slow down the water flow and prevent the drainage pipe from being blocked.

It was a messy job and the first stage involved digging out the existing drain pipe and burying it deeper.

And digging out the new pit.

The next step was fit a box to stabilise the pit and to create channels to direct the water flow in the right direction.

Like all good engineering jobs, the next task was to stand around waiting to see how well the new system worked:

And it works perfectly!

The team then spent some time carrying all the spades and extra equipment back up to the top of the hill and loading it into the truck.  They took a well-deserved break:

And then walked back down the hill to explore the walking track fully.

And finished up the day with a relaxing lunch:

It was a great day and we accomplished a lot.  We really appreciate the team’s hard work.

We’d like to thank Nestle New Zealand for providing Nescafe Cafe Menus and Iced Nestea for the volunteers.  Thanks, Nestle!

And a big thank you to our friends Craig and Christine for giving up a day and coming out to help.  We really appreciate your hard work and support!

A special thank you to Bion Behdin for championing the CUE Haven project at ANZ and organising the ANZ team for the day.

And a huge thank you to the ANZ team for all their hard work and were a lot of fun to work with.  We asked the team to do a lot which they accomplished cheerfully.

You have all made a major, long term contribution to the project and the environment. The sump pit will ensure that the water is well channelled and the walking track stays dry. The canopy trees you have planted will live for hundreds of years and will be enjoyed by visitors to CUE Haven for generations to come.

Thanks again!! We look forward to having you all back.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

~Nelson Henderson