In January and February 2023, the Auckland Anniversary day storm and Cyclone Gabrielle did considerable damage at CUE Haven with landslips and lots of downed trees which blocked roads and walking tracks.  Ever since then we have been working to slowly repair the damage.

Two issues were particularly challenging—one was fallen trees that were too big for us to handle ourselves that blocked two walking tracks, and the other was a slip down a gully on the difficult to access boundary with the commercial pine forest, which took out over 30 meters of fence.

Both arborists and fencers are in big demand, working throughout the area on storm remediation and getting people to work on smaller jobs like ours was a huge challenge.

But our wonderful friends again came to the rescue and went above and beyond to help out.

Downed Trees

Two large trees—a 150+ year old kahikatea on the Ruru track and an old kanuka on the Taraire track had come down and they were too big for us to remove ourselves.

Our friend, Paul, is Trainer/Assessor in the Arbocultural department at Treescape and he graciously volunteered to clear the trees in his free time.

And thanks to his efforts both the fallen trees were cleared and the Taraire and Ruru tracks became accessible again. You can read about Paul’s contribution here https://cuehaven.com/2023/09/02/a-big-help-from-our-friends-2-september-2023/

However, when Paul had cleared the big fallen kahikatea, he was concerned about the stump and root ball which remained alongside the Ruru track.  It was too big to move and too encrusted with soil to cut up so he decided it best to leave the root stump in place. 

Sadly, another big storm last month undermined the stump and brought it down onto the Ruru track, blocking the track again.

Not only was the track blocked, but the movement of the stump destabilised another big old kahikatea that was up slope from the one that had fallen.

We again contacted Paul who came out to check things and agreed that the kahikatea posed a significant risk and decided it best to remove it before another storm caused it to fall on the tracks.

Paul was back at CUE Haven last weekend and expertly cut the kahikatea.  With the assistance of his wife Kim, they managed to winch it back so that if fell well away from the Ruru track into the ravine and not pose any risk to visitors.

It still isn’t possible to remove the big stump and root ball of the first big kahikatea tree from the track, but we will slowly work on clearing it over the summer.

We can’t thank Paul and Kim enough for taking time out of their weekend and helping us out so generously and working hard on a very challenging project.  We really appreciate it. Thank you so much!!

Pine Forest Boundary Fence

CUE Haven shares a long boundary with Pinepac, a commercial pine forest.  The boundary runs through a steep gully dividing the properties.  There are no tracks down to the fence from the CUE Haven side and the boundary fence is only accessible from the Pinepac side when the pines are harvested and the access roads are improved.

The entire boundary fence was replaced in 2021 when the pines were harvested.

Unfortunately, about 30 metres of the fence had been taken out by a large land slip during the January storms.

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

Last month some of our fantastic volunters had managed to put in a temporary fence to help keep the stock out, and the temporary fence was an amazing accomplishment. You can read more about it here: https://cuehaven.com/2023/10/28/spark-friends-27-october-2023/

However, some of the team felt that some additional work would make the fence fully stock proof and long lasting.  So Luke, Phil and Richard came out on their own time after work with fence tightening tools, battens and staples and tightened up the fence and installed battens.

They checked the fence.

And tightened up the wires.

They then installed battens along the entire new section.

They also replaced some of the broken wires caused by the trees falling on the fence.

This was an amazing effort under difficult conditions and we are truly grateful and can’t thank Luke, Phil and Richard for their hard work and time. Thank you very much!

It’s a huge relief to have these issues fixed, but more importantly, we are ever so grateful for friends who so willingly and selflessly give up their time to do challenging and difficult tasks to benefit all of the people who enjoy visiting the CUE Haven community reserve!!