ANZ – Auckland North Business Banking—22 November 2022

It was great welcoming our friends from ANZ’s North Shore business team for a second time during 2022 as they were making up for their absence last year due to Covid restrictions.   Allan, Daniel, Dennis, Ella, Hunter, Keith, Kim, Kylie, Miki, Nary, Vinal and ZhenZhen arrived bright and early to help out again.

The ANZ team have been volunteering at CUE Haven for several years so after a quick catch up over morning tea, Thomas told the team the plans for the day and gave them a safety briefing.

The plan for the day was to work on a few different maintenance tasks. We broke into two teams—one team would work on some walking track improvements and the other would work on repairing damage to the main race that occurred due to recent heavy rain. 

The first team started at the top of the property. 

In October 2020, Allan and some of his ANZ team members had helped build a new walking track leading to the viewing platform. Along the track they had also built a bridge across a gully.  The track and bridge are in great condition but we wanted to attach a layer of mesh on the bridge to provide secure footing when the boards are wet.

They laid out the mesh on the bridge surface and made sure everything was aligned.

They then went to work securing the mesh with staples.  The job required a lot of nailing.

The extra effort the team took to wrap the mesh around the sides of the bridge really paid off.  Not only does it look great it makes the entire surface slip proof.

The team then moved down to the main walking track where we have been working on making improvements by widening and levelling the track and installing side boards.  They went to work with spades and completed a section of track while also fixing up some areas where previously installed boards had moved out of alignment.

As they moved to the next section, the priorities changed.  Because of recent heavy rains, the track section we were planning to work on was very wet and had been damaged by runoff in places.  The team went to work clearing culverts and also found two blocked drain pipes which they cleared.

They also cleared vegetation from the path and removed an old tree root which had become exposed.

Thanks to the team’s efforts, the walking track is already looking better and once things dry out future teams will be able to continue installing side boards and further improving the track.

The team finished off by trimming vegetation along another section of the walking track.

The other team worked on fixing some washouts on the main race.  Some of the drains and culverts were blocked during the very heavy rain last week and as a result water flowed onto the road surface and cut channels in the metal. 

It was a challenging job because they first had to study each washout to determine the cause, dig out any gravel that had been washed into culverts and drains and then rake gravel back onto the road.  Each washout was a bit different as far as cause and each one required a little different approach. And a lot of digging!

As they finished repairing a section, they moved down the road.

The team worked hard and came up with some great solutions to the drainage problems.   As a result the road is less bumpy and more weatherproof.   Water is now flowing in the drains and not on the road!

In just a few hours both the teams accomplished an amazing amount of work and should be very proud of their efforts.  The bankers tackled a lot of challenging engineering tasks on what turned out to be an unusually warm and muggy day, but kept up their energy and smiles.

Many thanks to Allan for organizing yet another fun and productive day.

THANK YOU everyone for all your hard work and efforts today.  You have all made a major contribution to the CUE Haven project and your efforts will be greatly appreciated by visitors as they comfortably walk the tracks to explore the bush and visit the viewing platform.

It is great having you back every year to help out and we hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and look forward to seeing you again next year for another fun and productive volunteer day. And before then do come out with your families and friends to explore more of your community native forest reserve!

Many thanks for your help and continued support!