Beca is one of the largest advisory, design and engineering consultancies in the Asia Pacific and in 2018-2019, they generously provided pro bono geotechnical and structural engineering services when we built Te Rite o Taranaki, the viewing platform at CUE Haven.

Today, Beca continued their support with a small team of professionals from their structural and geotechnical engineering departments coming to help with some walking track maintenance.  The group arrived first thing in the morning and included Andrew, Jordan, Kiran, Nazli, Oliver, Rick, Silvia, Vivit and Will. 

Jordan was one of the engineers who had worked on the viewing platform project and Oliver had volunteered at CUE Haven previously, but the rest of the team was new to CUE Haven, so we spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave a talk on the history of the restoration project and plans for the future.

Thomas then gave a safety briefing and an outline of the work planned for the day.

Before we started work, we drove up to Te Rite o Taranaki so the entire group could have a good look at the platform.

The plan for the day was to use the team’s engineering skills to repair some sections of the wetlands boardwalk that had moved out of alignment.  Two very dry summers followed by the unusually wet weather last year have affected the ground conditions in the wetlands causing movement and sinking.

We started out by taking a walk along the boardwalk to identify areas needing attention.  We then broke into three teams and went to work, carrying the gear down to the work areas.

One team worked at one end of the boardwalk to lift a section that had tilted out of alignment.

They levered up the sunken section and put in supporting blocks which will provide enough surface area to support the framework.

Once the section was level, they replaced the screening we put on the boardwalk surface to make it slip proof in wet weather.

They continued down the boardwalk, repairing and replacing damaged screen sections.

They managed to improve a long section of the boardwalk.

Once they finished that section, they moved to the other end of the boardwalk to repair another section that was also out of alignment.

And they also spent time trimming back vegetation growing over the boardwalk.

Another team tackled the challenge of levelling off a section with a T junction where one of the frames had sunken, creating an uneven walkway.

They had a good look at the bottom of the frame to see what had caused the issue and decided that the best approach was to pull up the frame and reposition it.  This required cutting it free of the supporting posts.

The frame could then be lifted out so that the ground underneath could be levelled.

The section was then reinstalled and fixed in place.

The last step was to replace the screen mesh covering the walkway.

The third team took on the messy challenge of lifting up a section adjoining the wetlands bridge.  The stream normally flows under the bridge but after the heavy rains last year, the overflowing stream diverted along the side of the boardwalk, causing it to move out of alignment. 

The team took some time to study the area and come up with a solution.

They decided that the best approach was to do some digging under the bridge to make sure the stream was channelled away from the boardwalk edge.

They then removed the top planks over the joint between the two frames that were out of alignment so that they could inspect the ground underneath.

They decided to level off the frames and dig down to firm ground.  They then put timber blocks under the boardwalk frame to support it and keep it level.

Once the frames were level and secured in place, the top boards were replaced.

Once that section was finished, they moved on to the other side of the bridge where the boardwalk takes a 90 degree turn.  The corner bit was out of alignment and they decided to take the same approach to level it up.

They cut timber sections to place under the frame to level it.

Once the corner was level, the top boards were reinstalled and that section of the boardwalk is looking better than ever.

After several hours of hard and messy work, we gathered up all the gear and headed back to the nursery to clean up and then have a well-deserved lunch.

We really enjoyed working with the Beca team.  We asked them to take on some unusual challenges to fix the boardwalk and it was great to see the teamwork as they worked to come up with practical and effective solutions to the variety of issues.  They worked really very hard in messy conditions and exceeded our expectations as to what could be accomplished.

We thoroughly enjoyed meeting, chatting and working with everyone today.  And also got some good engineering tips that we will use as we continue to make further improvements to the boardwalk! Thank you all very much for all your hard work and help today. 

A special thank you to Oliver for initiating the idea of a volunteer day at CUE Haven and to Milan and Sylvia for handling the logistics of the visit.

We hope you all enjoyed the day as much as we did and we hope you will come back with your families and friends to visit CUE Haven —your community nature reserve.

We truly value our relationship with Beca and we look forward to having you all back for another productive volunteer day. And we look forward to Beca’s continued involvement and support in the future.

Thank You!! Thank You!!