Spark is New Zealand’s leading digital services provider and one of New Zealand’s largest companies.   Since 2012, Spark employees have been coming to CUE Haven for their staff volunteer days and have made major contributions to our walking track network.  Over the years, the team has grown to include Spark alumni, family and friends and it’s always great to see old friends and meet new people.

The group arrived first thing in the morning and included Bien, Chris, Dawson, Greg, Julieta, Kevin, Kyle, Luke, Martin, Neil, Paul, Philip,  Rita, Rochelle, Sean, Stephane, Vanessa and Wendell.

Also joining us for the day were our good friends and regular volunteers Alan and Richard.  It was a cold and wet spring day so we took the group photo indoors!

Because almost everyone had been volunteering at CUE Haven for many years, we spent morning tea catching up and Mahrukh spent some time updating everyone on new developments and providing a quick history of the CUE Haven project for the new people. 

Thomas then gave a safety briefing and explained the plan for the day.

Because of the size of the group we broke into teams and tackled a variety of projects at different sites throughout the property.  Thomas took each team up to their work site and they went to work.

Project 1 –

Bien, Dawson, Kevin, Luke, Phil and Richard took on one of the most challenging projects we have ever tackled. 

CUE Haven shares a long boundary with a commercial pine forest and the CUE Haven property slopes sharply down to the pine forest.  The boundary fence along that area needed to be replaced, but the only way to access the boundary with equipment is from the pine forest side, so we had to wait until  the pines were harvested. Finally, last year in April 2022 after the pines were harvested, we worked with the forestry owners and the boundary fence was replaced.

We hadn’t been able to get down to inspect the fence after the flooding and cyclone earlier this year because it’s been way too wet and dangerous, but when we finally did, we found that a big portion of the fence had been taken out by a large land slip.

Additionally, some fence wires in other sections were damaged by falling trees.

We contacted the pine forest management team to see if they could bring in equipment to help clear the slip and fallen trees but they advised us that because of numerous slips and flooding throughout their forestry block, their roads were still impassable and they wouldn’t be able to do anything until things dried out further.  The situation was complicated because cows were wandering in the forestry block as a number of neighbouring farms bordering the pine forest also had damaged fences and there is a big risk the cattle could wander into the CUE Haven reserve.

A temporary fix was needed. We requested the team to have a look at the situation and see if we could do some temporary repairs to secure the boundary fence and prevent cow incursions until more permanent repairs could be done.

The team had a look at the area.

And the solution they devised was to try to recover as much of the old fence as possible and then secure the remaining section over the slip by erecting a temporary fence with metal waratahs.

The job was hugely challenging because of mud and also because there is no easy access to the area.  We dropped the gear as close as we could and team had to bring it down one bit at a time.  The biggest job was the heavy roll of fence wire.

They went to work and found the good remaining ends of the old fence.

And dug out as much as they could.

They then pounded the waratahs in and installed fence wires.

The wires were attached to the good fence posts and then strung through to the waratahs to the other section of fence.

The new wires were attached to the existing fence and tightened up.

The team also fixed up some of the other broken wires.

The temporary fence is an amazing accomplishment and we can’t thank the team enough for taking on the project under such challenging conditions.

When they were finished they carried all the gear back up to the road and headed back for a very late lunch.

Project 2 – Walking track improvement

Alan, Greg, Neil, Paul, Philip, Rochelle, Sean, Stephane, Vanessa and Wendell took on another challenging project.

A steep section of the CUE Haven walking track is ten years old and the steps were showing signs of wear.  They were also quite high and we felt that visitors would appreciate smaller steps after a long uphill walk.  We requested the team to re-engineer the steps to make the climb up easier.  It was a big challenge because it required re-imagining how the steps could be redone.

The first job was to bring down the gear.

The team took some time to study the situation and come up with some ideas.

They took some measurements and tested some different approaches and decided that adding some new steps and repositioning some of the old steps would provide a solution.  They broke into smaller teams and each team worked on a different section of adjacent track.  They went to work digging out the affected steps and side boards to make room for the new steps.

Some of the step boards needed to be cut to size to fit with the existing track.

The new steps were installed and secured in place with pegs.

In keeping with CUE Haven’s sustainability ethos, old timber was reused. But where that wasn’t possible, new timber was used for the step boards and side boards.

The last step was to put a layer of gravel on the improved track sections.  The team filled buckets from the nearby gravel pile.

The buckets were carried to the track sections and poured out and the gravel raked smooth.

In just a few hours the team made major improvements to this section of the old walking track. Great job!!

Project 3 – Trimming

An ongoing maintenance project is trimming vegetation growing over roads and walking tracks and Julietta, Kyle, Martin and Rita helped out with that.  The long service road at the top of the property hadn’t been trimmed for a while and we requested them to work on it.  We drove up to the start of the road and the team went to work.

Because they weren’t working in the bush under cover like the other teams, this group bore the brunt of the wind and rain, but they kept smiling and improved a long section of road.  Well done!

Project 4 – Wetlands boardwalk repairs

The flooding due to the storms has also impacted the wetland boardwalk with some areas sagging and shifting out of alignment.  We requested Chris and Sean to have a look to see what could be done. 

The project started out as experimental because we weren’t sure if it was too wet to make repairs but Chris and Sean had a look and came up with some solutions. 

They felt that increasing the surface area of the boardwalk foundation would provide the support needed to level the boardwalk by putting pavers and blocks underneath.

It was a very messy job that required a lot of digging in the mud.

But it worked! 

They also replaced some boards that had become misaligned and repaired some of the mesh netting that we install to make a slip-proof surface that had been damaged. Well done!!

Chris and Sean demonstrated a practical and efficient way to improve and restore the sagging boardwalk sections and future teams will carry on with improvements in other areas.

All the teams accomplished an amazing amount of really challenging work and as usual we had a very productive day. It was great to see everyone working together to develop creative solutions to today’s challenges–everyone had great ideas and showed a lot of dedication to the work and the results are amazing.

A big thank you to Paul for organizing the visit today and for continuing to champion CUE Haven at Spark and with his friends and former colleagues.

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone for their effort and hard work in the cold and wet day. It was great seeing old friends again and for team members who hadn’t been to CUE Haven before, we really enjoyed meeting you and getting to know you. We so appreciate your interest and enthusiasm, and your contribution and ongoing support is most valued.

We hope to see all of you back at CUE Haven both for another fun and productive volunteer day and also for a relaxing visit with your friends and families to show them your wonderful handiwork as you explore more of CUE Haven.

Thank You!! Thank You!!