The Warehouse Group—19 March 2021

The Warehouse Group is New Zealand’s largest retailer.  They have a strong commitment to people and the environment and today we were very happy to once again have a group of professionals from the Insights and Data Science Team out to help us with some track maintenance work.

The group arrived bright and early and included Amy, Courtney, Dawn, Dora, Harry, Heike, Jeremy, Kade, Katherine, Keryn, Livvy, Paul and Romina.   Also joining us for the day were our good friends and regular volunteers Alan and Lyall.

We spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and because most of the team was new to CUE Haven, Mahrukh then gave an overview of the CUE Haven project and our current activities and plans.

Thomas gave a safety briefing and overview of the work plan for the day.

The plan for the day was to work on a variety of maintenance tasks, primarily improving an old section of walking track.  We also wanted to do some trimming of vegetation and weed growing over the main walking track and fix some washouts on the main race.

We broke into three teams.  Two teams would work with Alan and Lyall on improving the walking track while the other team worked with Thomas trimming and fixing the washouts.

Track Improvement

Thomas had earlier delivered the timber and tools to the entry to the walking track and the first task was to carry everything down to the work site.

The long section of track needed side boards to protect against erosion Because we were working in a small area, people moved around between teams to help out with different tasks.

The first task was to study the track issues and come up with creative solutions.  Once they decided on the proper layout for the track, they marked it with string and then dug out channels for the side boards.

They laid out the side boards to check the lengths and alignment.

The boards were then secured with pegs and nailed into place.

While some team members installed the boards, others continued preparing other sections of the track.

Getting the boards straight and level took a lot of teamwork.

Alan had brought his pneumatic nail gun which helped with some challenging nailing tasks.

The area of track we were working on connected two previously completed sections and the team was careful to accurately join up the two sections.

As they finished a section, the continued down the track and we had to bring up two additional loads of timber!

As the track went around a few bends, the boards had to be cut to size.

Getting the angles just right took some planning.

Once they had a plan, they could dig out the sides and test fit the boards.

And the result is some professional looking corners.

Once one corner was finished, they could install the other side.

At the end of the day, they went over the track with rakes to level the grade and make everything even.

The team accomplished an amazing amount of work in a short time and the track is looking better than ever.

A big thank you to the track team for all their hard work and amazing accomplishment.

Trimming

This time of year everything is growing at CUE Haven and a regular job is to trim back vegetation and weeds on the walking tracks.  The team started out by trimming the flaxes in the car park.

We then drove up to the top of the property and worked down the entire length of the main walking track.

Race Fixing

Once the team finished the trimming, we went on to fix up a couple of washouts on the main race.  After a recent heavy (but welcome) rain there were two spots on the main race where the drainage ditch was overwhelmed and eroded into the surface.  This created a risk that a vehicle could slip into the ditch.

The team studied the situation and decided that the best solution would be to install a retaining wall board and fill in the eroded area.

They dug out the area around the slip and cleared the drainage ditch to make room for the retaining board.

The boards were secured with pegs.

Pounding in the stakes was a real challenge along with digging in the clay to get soil to fill in the eroded section.

The small team accomplished a lot of work and made some major improvements—Many Thanks!

Today was an amazingly productive day thanks to everyone’s hard work and enthusiasm.  When all the teams were finished, they packed up all the gear and took a leisurely walk back to the cottage for a well-deserved lunch.

Many thanks to Keryn, Chris, Harry, and Jeremy for organizing The Warehouse Group visit.

And thank you to Alan and Lyall for joining us today.  We so very much appreciate your help.

And a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone for all their hard work and efforts today. It was really nice meeting you and we thoroughly enjoyed working with you.  You have all made a major contribution to CUE Haven and your efforts will be greatly appreciated by visitors as they comfortably walk the tracks to explore the growing native forest.

We look forward to having you all out to CUE Haven soon to explore more of your community native forest reserve with your family and friends. And also back again for another productive volunteer day!

Many Thanks again!!