Phoebe & Friends—11 October 2020

We were delighted when our young volunteer, Phoebe, who had previously come to CUE Haven for volunteer days with her corporate colleagues, contacted us to say that she wanted to introduce her friends to CUE Haven and bring them along to help out one weekend.

The group arrived bright and early on Sunday morning and included Felix, Ida, Kelsey, Kurt, Phoebe, Rebekah and Simon.

Because everyone but Phoebe was new to CUE Haven, we spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and Mahrukh explained the history of the CUE Haven project.

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

The plan for the day was to continue to work on fixing up the walking track approaches to the viewing platform by building on the work that previous team had done.  The work involved finishing off one set of steps and installing some new ones.

We drove up to the site and went to work.  Once on site, Thomas showed the group the work to be done and they then split into two teams to tackle the separate projects.

One team comprising Ida, Kelsey, Phoebe and Rebekah worked to finish off a set of steps up to a lookout area.  The steps had been boxed in but now needed to be filled in and levelled.

The job involved breaking up the hard soil and smoothing it to make the steps even.  It was a challenging task because the dry weather had baked the clay and it was rock hard.

But they slowly worked their way up the steps and despite the hard work, kept smiling.

Little by little the steps were transformed.

It took a while to do all the digging and levelling but the results are amazing.  This is how the steps looked at the start of the day.

And this is the end result!

While the steps were being finished, the second team of Felix, Kurt and Simon went to work finishing off a track section connecting the main walking track with the viewing platform area.  A previous team had started the steps, and to finish them off we needed to continue to dig out and box in steps down to the main walking track.

They took some time to study the area and develop an approach and once they decided on the layout of the section, they marked it out with pegs and string.  They measured to determine the length of the side boards.

They could then measure and cut the side boards.

And went to work digging out channels for the side boards and the steps.

They could then position the boards and peg and nail them into position.

Once the side boards were secure, they could dig out the steps and begin installing them.  They spent some time planning the spacing and positioning of the steps.

Once they determined the number of step risers needed, we double checked the measurements and then cut the riser boards to size.

The steps risers were cut to size and installed.

The last task was to connect the two sets of steps with a complicated curve that required lots of measuring and cutting.

The end result is amazing.  Here is how the area looked at the start of the day.

And the finished product:

Near the end of the day both teams joined up to spread a layer of gravel on both sets of steps to finish them off and make them easy to use in all weather. We went down to the car park and filled buckets with gravel.

We then drove up to the work site and the gravel was spread on the steps.

We then headed to the second site and went to work.

Everyone worked together to dump the gravel and smooth it out.

The teams accomplished a huge amount of work and created good looking safe tracks that will be enjoyed and appreciated by visitors to CUE Haven for years to come.  Future teams will finish off the rest of the track work.

A massive THANK YOU to everyone who came along today and a special thank you to Phoebe for organising the visit.  We really enjoyed meeting you all and spending time together and we really appreciate all your good ideas and hard work.  Everyone’s hard work and efforts have made a major contribution to the CUE Haven landscape and set a high standard for other teams to follow to complete the task.

Thank you all for giving up a Sunday to come out to help and we very much look forward to having you all back soon for a leisurely visit to your community native forest reserve.

Thank You!! Thank You!!