ANZ Mobile Mortgage Team—11 May 2022

Today another hard working team from ANZ joined us to do something a little different. The enthusiastic team of Mobile Mortgage Managers arrived bright and early and included Daniel, Jai, Kelley, Kelly and Sharron. 

We spent some time chatting over morning tea and Thomas gave a safety briefing and outlined the work planned for the day.

The plan for the day was to lay down a layer of mulch around Te Rite o Taranaki, the viewing platform.  The platform was formally dedicated in December 2020 and it wasn’t possible to do plantings around the platform during the hot summer months.  The planting had been scheduled for 2021 winter but the Covid lockdown happened and we were back into warm dry weather when things re-opened.

The native shrubs were finally planted last week by CUE Haven trustee and ecologist, Jane Straka, who volunteered herself and two of her Scrub Growers nursery staff, Nicole and Rhiannon to do the work.  A huge thank you to the team for all their hard work and a big thank you to Jane for also donating the plants and the mulch.

With the plants in the ground it was now necessary to put down the mulch to suppress weeds that might grow up among the new plantings as well as to keep the plantings moist. 

The ANZ team went to work loading the mulch into wheel barrows and dumping it amongst the plantings. In addition to Kelly’s banking skills, she is also a very keen gardener and she was able to show her colleagues the right mulching technique.

The mulch was raked to an even layer.

The team had to take extra care to make sure the mulch wasn’t covering up the plantings and also had to work to ensure it didn’t slide down the steep banks.

In some places it was difficult to maneuver the wheelbarrows so the team filled buckets with mulch and carried them to the right spot.

The team slowly worked their way across the planting area.

And the mulch pile slowly got smaller!

After several hours of work, the planting area was fully covered—the transformation is amazing.

Thanks to the team’s efforts, the landscaped area around the viewing platform is now as attractive as the views from the platform.  Thanks!

We still had some time before lunch and we asked the team to help install some of the inspirational signs that our volunteers Rosemarie and Rita had made.  They cleared the area and dug holes for the signposts.

We think it is particularly appropriate that the signs direct the viewer towards Mt. Taranaki, the maunga which gives Te Rite o Taranaki, the viewing platform, its name.

Once the signs were installed, the team brought down all the gear, cleaned up and we had a relaxing lunch.

A BIG thank you to everyone for all their hard work today.  Thanks to all your efforts the area around Te Rite o Taranaki looks great.  It was wonderful working with you all and we also really enjoyed the interesting conversations over lunch.  We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and look forward to having you out again for another fun and productive volunteer day soon.

And we also look forward to having you out with your friends and family for a leisurely visit soon to explore more of your community native forest reserve.

Thanks again!