ANZ Corporate Retail Services—11 April 2022

We had a special day welcoming our friends from ANZ’s North Shore business team who we hadn’t seen since 2020 because of Covid restrictions.  Ada, Allan, Dennis, Ella, Keith, Kim, Kylie, Miki, Navneen, Sam, Sarah and ZhenZhen arrived bright and early to help out again.

Also joining us for the day was our good friend and regular volunteer Alan.

Because everyone had been to CUE Haven several times in the past, we spent morning tea socialising.  Thomas then gave a safety briefing and described the work planned for the day.

The plan for the day was to work on walking track maintenance and improvements and do a few other maintenance tasks.  Because of the size of the team, we broke into three smaller teams.

One team started off cutting back vegetation that had grown over the track.

Once they finished the trimming, they worked on installing some signs on the tracks to assist visitors in finding their way around.

They then joined up with the other teams to help out with the track upgrade.

The section we were working on is in the middle of one of the tracks.  Thomas had previously dropped the gear off at the point closest to the work site and the first task was to carry the gear to the site.

The plan was to upgrade the old section of track by widening and levelling it and installing side boards with pegs and nails.  The work involved figuring out the best layout, levelling the track, digging out channels for the side board and installing the boards with pegs and nails.

The first task was to figure out the best layout for the improved track.

Once the layout of the track was determined, they cleared away overhanging vegetation and cleared the track and dug out channels for the new side boards.

The boards were cut to size as needed.

Pounding the stakes into the hard ground was a challenge.

The boards were then nailed in place—a job that took a lot of teamwork.

The hard working team completely finished the section and even replaced some old side boards that had moved out of line.

There was still some time left before lunch and the teams decided that they wanted to put down a layer of gravel on at least part of the track section they’d completed.  A group filled up buckets and loaded them onto the ute.

We then drove as close to the track as possible and unloaded the buckets. 

The buckets were unloaded, carried to the track and the gravel was dumped on the track and raked smooth.

The end result is amazing.  The hard working teams did an excellent job and upgraded almost 40 metres of track!  Great job!

This is how the track looked at the start of the day:

And this is now it looks now!

When we finished in the field, the teams gathered up all the gear and we headed back to the cottage for a leisurely lunch.

It was a fun and very productive day and we really enjoyed working with everyone and the interesting conversations.

A big thank you to Allan for organising the volunteer day.  It was great seeing you all again and catching up and as always, we really appreciate your hard work and your continued support.

And our dear friend Alan, many thanks for giving up your day and coming out to once again work with us.

You all have made a major contribution to CUE Haven and thanks to your efforts the tracks are looking better than ever.   We look forward to seeing all of you again soon!

Thank You! Thank You!