Since 2015, international students from Orewa College have come to CUE Haven to help out and also learn a little about New Zealand plants and animals. 

Today we were very happy to have another group of students from Argentina, Germany, Italy, Japan & Switzerland.  Joining us today were students Antolius, Aya, Beatrice, Carla, Cristobal, Emilia, Esteban, Flor, Gen, Hirofumi, Isidora, Ivonne, Julia, Karen, Keno, Kokoro, Leo, Maximo, Rino, Takato, Yumi and Yume. This was Julia’s second visit out to CUE Haven as she had also volunteered last year.

 The students were accompanied by Adrienne Croad–Director of International Students, Cecilia Tyne—NZ Experience Teacher and Mark McCarthy–Former Orewa College teacher -Mark McCarthy.

We spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave an overview of the CUE Haven project.

Thomas gave a description of the activities planned for the day and a safety briefing.

The plan for the day was to break into three groups and do some autumn maintenance work.  One group worked on clearing the drains along the tracks so they are ready to handle winter rains and the other two groups worked on trimming back vegetation that had grown over tracks during the summer.

We headed out to the field and went to work.  The first trimming task was to clear branches from the boundary fence with the neighbour.  They are having the fence painted and clearing the fence will both protect the trees and give the painters easier access to the fence.

Once they finished that task, they moved on up the road, trimming as they went.

The second trimming team worked along the other side of the road.

Thanks to the efforts of both teams, within a couple of hours they made major progress and trimmed back most of the overhanging vegetation along the main road at CUE Haven, Huarahi Kowhai.  Trimming back this vegetation will make it easier for the service ute to drive along this road. A big thank you to them all!

Huarahi Kowhai has a system of drains and pipes to channel water away from the road surface.  In order for the system to work, we have to keep the drains and pipes clear and Mark’s team helped out with that job.

The drains get blocked with both vegetation and also dirt and rocks and the team used spades, rakes and hands as they worked.

They managed to clear long stretch of drain system. A big thank you to the team for accomplishing so much on such an important but messy job!

At the end of the day, all of the teams packed up the gear and brought it back down and had a well-deserved and relaxing lunch.

We want to thank Adrienne and Cecilia for their help today and for organizing the visit and continuing to champion CUE Haven at Orewa College. And thank you also to Mark for all your help. 

And thank you very much for the gift of flax cutters—very much appreciated and needed!

And a special thanks to all the students for all their hard work today despite the iffy weather.  We appreciated your enthusiasm and efforts and hope you enjoyed the day.  You have made a great contribution to the CUE Haven community reserve—Many thanks!

We hope you have a great stay in New Zealand and wish you much happiness and success in your studies and all your endeavours.   And we hope that someday you all come back to visit CUE Haven.

Thank You!! Thank You!!