Lucas’s Birthday Party—18 June 2016

A couple of months ago a young boy named Lucas visited CUE Haven with his family.  Lucas very much enjoyed exploring CUE Haven and asked if he could come back to celebrate his tenth birthday with his friends and also help with planting trees.  We thought it was a great idea and today Lucas came with his friends and family to plant trees, celebrate and explore.

The group arrived after lunch and included Lucas and friends Andrew, Brianna, Jack, Lincoln, Louise, Mika, Oscar and Theo.  Accompanying the youngsters were adults Beate, Chris, Claes, Hans, Madelaine, Neil, and Roger.

While the group had some hot chocolate drinks, Mahrukh gave them a short introduction to the CUE Haven project and the plan for the afternoon.

Then it was a quick ride up to the planting site where Tom gave a safety briefing and showed the group the area and trees they would be planting.

The first item on the agenda was for Lucas to plant a celebration Totara tree. It was a big tree and his mates chipped in to help him with the planting.

Lucas’s sister, Louise, also planted a rewarewa tree to celebrate her successful environmental education project to raise awareness amongst Aucklanders about the waste from New Zealand being washed up in the Kermadecs.

We are very impressed with her initiative and efforts and were happy that she received recognition in the local newspaper too. You can read the article here.

The entire group then spent some time planting manuka, karamu and mahoe trees in an area that had been sparsely planted in prior years.

In a short time, the enthusiastic group had planted all the trees.  Yeah!

We then went for a walk to explore the property.

The boys even had a “singing competition” to check out the good acoustics in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award hut.

 They saw weta in the weta hotels.

The group also spotted a number of interesting birds, mushrooms and plants and were especially happy to see a big rat caught in one of the DOC 200 traps.

It started to get dark as we got back from the walk and it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Lucas and enjoy some delicious birthday cake. Happy Birthday Lucas! We wish you many more great years ahead!

We very much enjoyed hosting Lucas and his family and friends.  It’s great to see so much interest and enthusiasm for nature amongst youngsters.

We’d like to thank all of the parents who helped out and planted the trees and a BIG THANK YOU to Lucas and friends for being such good guests and for all your hard work today.

We very much look forward to having you all come visit again and see the how your trees are growing up.