Orewa College International Students—10 June 2020

We were very happy to welcome international students from Orewa College in Auckland as our first volunteers since the end of the Covid-19 lockdown.

For the last seven years, international students from Orewa College have come to CUE Haven to help out and also learn a little about New Zealand plants and animals.

Today’s group included students from Argentina, Germany, Japan and Switzerland and three of the students had previously been to CUE Haven and it was great to see them again.

Joining us were students Anna, Ayano, Clara, Daiki, Itsuki, Juan, Juri, Marin, Mary, Minami, Mio, Nanami, Pauline and Yuzu.  They were accompanied by teachers Cecilia Tyne and International Students Director, Adrienne Croad.

We spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave an overview of the CUE Haven project.

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

Because we haven’t had volunteers at CUE Haven for almost three months, there is a lot of work to do!  The task for the day was for the students to trim back vegetation that was growing over the walking tracks.

Because of the size of the group, we drove them up to the start of the walking track in two lots.  Once everyone was on site, Thomas gave a brief explanation and demo for the trimming work.

We continued down the track, trimming weeds and overhanging branches.

We broke for a well-deserved mid-morning snack.

They continued down the track and encountered a tree which had fallen across the track.  They went to work and trimmed it down enough to get it out of the way.

The rest of the track was fairly clear and they continued all the way back to the cottage.

We have been doing some construction work to build a viewing platform at the top of the property, and a lot of timber off cuts had accumulated, so we asked a small group to help load up the ute with the pieces and pile them up down in the car park for disposal.

Once everyone was back at the cottage, the students had a relaxing lunch before heading back to school.

In just a couple of hours the hard working group managed to prune the entire walking track and also clear out the unneeded timber.

Our thanks to Adrienne and Cecilia for organizing the visit and continuing to champion CUE Haven at Orewa College.  And also a big thank you for all your help and hard work today.  It was great seeing you both again and we really appreciate continued support.  And a huge thank you for the flax cutters, which as you know we will put to good use!

And a special thanks to all the students for all their hard work today.  We appreciate your efforts and hope you enjoyed the day.  We enjoyed working with you—you all made a great contribution to our maintenance work.  Visitors will definitely appreciate  your efforts to clean up and beautify the walking tracks—Thanks!

We hope you have a great stay in New Zealand and wish you much happiness and success in your studies and all your endeavours.   And we hope that someday you will come back to New Zealand and visit CUE Haven too!!

Thank You!!