Orewa College—8 December 2015

As part of their end of year activities, Year ten students at Orewa College north of Auckland were able to select from a variety of outdoor projects and eight students chose to come to CUE Haven to help us with our summer walking track project.

At about 9:30 science teacher Michele Caldicott arrived with students Charlie, Hannah, Josh R., Josh S., Kate, Maia, Ryan and Travis.  Also joining us for the day was Michelle’s husband, Crispin.

We got acquainted over morning tea and Mahrukh told the group about the CUE Haven restoration project and Thomas gave them an overview of the work planned for the day and a safety briefing.

We then drove up to the new track site and went to work.  Thomas gave a description and demonstration of the work.

The group then broke in to teams to tackle the various track challenges.  Some participants cleared away vegetation while others benched and shaped the track.

Clearing away the thick roots of the kikuyu grass was especially challenging but the group coped well and made a lot of progress moving the track ahead.

The team took a short break in the field–

–and a couple of students decided it was more comfortable relaxing in the thick kikuyu grass.

After a little over two hours of hard work the group took a leisurely walk back to the cottage for lunch.  On the walk back the students had a chance to see some other aspects of the project including a big weta who has taken up residence in one of the weta hotels.

It was a wonderful end to a very productive day. The team had cleared and shaped 25 metres of track – a very commendable effort considering the challenging conditions.

We’d like to thank Nestle NZ for providing the Nestle Hot Chocolate and Nescafe Menu sachets which the students really enjoyed.

Thank you Crispin for joining us and helping out.  We really enjoyed meeting you and appreciated your assistance.

Also many thanks to Michelle for organising the day and bringing out the students and helping today. We hope to have you back with more students next year.

And, a BIG THANK YOU to the hard working students.   It was a fun day and we very much enjoyed working with you all.  This part of the track was especially challenging because of the heavy kikuyu grass but you did a great job and came up with some very creative solutions to some of the shaping challenges we encountered. You have all made a major contribution to the CUE Haven project and the track you helped build will be enjoyed by lots of visitors for many years to come.  We look forward to having you visit CUE Haven again so you can take a walk on the finished track.  Thanks!