Old and New Friends—3 July 2021

Today we were very happy to host a group of wonderful  young people who came out to help us with some tree planting and track maintenance work.  Our friend Drew organized a group of his friends to come along and joining them were several students from the University of Auckland who came out in connection with the university’s Volunteer Week program. 

The group included Dominique, Drew, Finnbar, Isabella Lyle, Oliver, Tiger and Timothy.  Drew and Tim have volunteered at CUE Haven previously and Oliver spent a week at CUE Haven in 2019 doing his Duke of Edinburgh Hillary Award residential and it was great to have them all back.

We had introductions over morning tea and Mahrukh gave a quick introduction for the benefit of the new people.  Thomas gave a description of the work planned for the day and a safety briefing.

The plan for the day was to do some infill planting of long lived canopy trees.  Today we planted totara, puriri, karaka and nikau in three sites around the property.  It started out as a frosty winter day but quickly warmed up beautifully.

This planting was challenging because these long lived trees need to planted amongst the pioneer trees.  So the group had to work their way into the bush and find suitable places for planting. 

Sometimes it was necessary to clear away vegetation to make sure the new trees would have space and light.

When the planting was finished, we asked the team to help out by spreading metal on some track and road sections that were wet and muddy.

We loaded up buckets down in the car park and drove them out to the sites.

The buckets were emptied out onto the track sections and the metal was raked smooth.

In just a few hours the team accomplished an amazing amount of work and it was time for a late and relaxing lunch.

A big thank you to Drew for organizing yet another volunteer day and his continued support.

And a huge thank you to the entire team for giving up a Saturday to help out on a cold winter’s day.  The trees you planted today will live for hundreds of years and help create a habitat for native birds and animals to thrive. And the metaling will make it easier for visitors to navigate the tracks this winter.

We really enjoyed meeting you all and enjoyed the interesting conversations over morning tea, lunch and in the field.  We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and will come back to explore more of the CUE Haven community reserve and of course back again for another productive volunteer day.

Thank You!! Thank You!!