ANZ Products Group—15 April 2019

Our summer track maintenance work ended on a high note as a great group of professionals from the ANZ products group spent a day at CUE Haven finishing off the track we’ve been working on all summer.

The group arrived bright and early and included Alan, Andrew, Anna, Anya, Bojan, Chris I., Chris W., Glenn, Hayley, James, Jessica H., Jessica S., Nicola, Nipun and Sol.

We spent some time chatting over morning tea and then, because almost all of the participants were new to CUE Haven, Mahrukh gave a short talk on the history and purpose of the project and our current plans.

Thomas then gave an overview of the work planned for the day and a safety briefing.

A washout last December resulted in us doing a lot of remediation work on the drainage and contours on one of the walking tracks all summer long.  Once the remediation work was completed we decided to upgrade that entire track.

The only upgrades remaining were to install some side retaining boards at the entryway to the track, to build some railings on a bridge at the other end of the track and put down a layer of gravel to make the track safe for all weather use.

Because of the size of the group, we broke into smaller teams.  Half of the group spent some time trimming away vegetation that had grown over the track and adjacent road and the rest of the group was split into two teams—one handled the retaining walls and the other did the railings.

We drove up to the track entrance and went to work.

At CUE Haven we like to see trees growing, but sometimes when they grow out into the road they need to be trimmed back.  We asked the team to move down the main race cutting back the trees to the edge of the road.

They went to work with loppers, shears and secateurs and very quickly cleared a long section of road.

In the meantime, the other teams were working on their projects.   We started by unloading all the gear and organizing into teams.

The team installing side boards on the steps had a number of challenges.   The first task was to study the area and figure out how best to merge the boards between the existing side walls.

They then faced the challenge of digging out some old dead tree roots that had prevented earlier teams from installing the boards.

Once that was done, they could cut the new boards to size.

They then installed the boards by nailing and pegging them in place, and the result is a nice set of steps to start off the track.

The railing team also had some challenges.  The plan was to attach upright posts at each corner of the bridge to serve as rail supports.  The team had a look at the situation to plan their work.

The uprights were to be attached to the sides of the bridge but when the bridge was built, the top boards were cut slightly longer than the bridge width so there was a slight hangover that prevented the supports laying flat against the bridge.

The team decided that the solution was to trim off the excess. At one end of the bridge it was necessary to dig to make room to do the sawing.

And they went to work trimming off the excess timber.

Once the area was prepared, the uprights were carefully installed and straightened.

And checked to ensure they were also secure!

The step team had finished their work at the top of the track and joined this team to work on the railings. They brought down the timber for the horizontal railings.

The team installed the railings.

They even installed a second board on another railing along the side of the stream.

The railings are a fantastic addition to both the safety and appearance of the bridge and the team should be very proud of their efforts.

Once the track work was complete, it was time to finish off the track with a layer of gravel.  Most of the track sections were exposed clay which can be very slippery and messy when wet.  To make the track safe for all weather use, we put down a layer of gravel to provide traction.  The team helped out with the challenging task of carrying the gravel down to the track in buckets.

Doing track gravelling is a challenging job because there is no easy way to do it other than by bringing up the gravel in buckets and carrying it down to the end of the track.

Everyone joined up for this task and we set up a system where some members filled buckets down by the car park while most of the group carried them along the track and dumped the gravel on the track.  A small team was positioned at the end to rake and smooth the gravel.  Empty buckets were sent back to be refilled.

The team down at the car park filled the buckets and loaded them onto the ute.

We drove up to the closest entrance to the track where the buckets were unloaded and carried down.  The buckets were emptied at the end of the track and empties were carried back to be taken down and refilled.

At the end of the track two people used rakes to level the gravel as it was dumped on the track.

It was a great moment when we reached the end of the track! And the last of the gravel was poured out and raked in.

Congratulations to this very hard working team for pushing themselves to finish off the track today.

Our thanks to all the nine groups of our fantastic volunteers who have worked on this track since mid-January to make it so good. We are so happy with the way it has turned out and visitors to CUE Haven will definitely enjoy using it to explore the bush.

Take a walk!

A very special thank you to Anya for organizing the day and bringing her team out to CUE Haven today.

And a HUGE thank you to everyone in this very hardworking ANZ team.  We so much enjoyed working with you and truly appreciate your hard work and everything you accomplished.  You have made a major contribution to the CUE Haven walking tracks and your work will be much appreciated by visitors for years to come.

We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and we look forward to having you back with your family and friends for a more leisurely visit and back again next year for another fun & productive volunteer day.

THANK YOU!!  THANK YOU!!