Today our friends from ANZ’s Auckland North Commercial group helped out with some autumn walking track remediation.

The team arrived first thing in the morning and included Alex, James, Jasmeet, Johnny, Kelly, Leigha, Maggie, Maurice, Nina, Robert, Samuel and Sarah.  Also joining us for the day was our good friend and regular volunteer Alan.

Most of the group have volunteered at CUE Haven previously, so after catching up over morning tea, Mahrukh gave a brief update on activities and future plans.

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

The plan was to continue to work on improving some old sections of walking track.  Because of the size of the group, we split into three teams and went to work.

The first task was carrying all the gear down to the work sites.

Two teams worked on repairing a set of steps that were part of one of the first track sections built at CUE Haven.  The original steps were quite steep and over the years had been widened.  Wear and tear had resulted in some of the risers moving out of alignment and ground settling had made some even steeper. 

We asked the group to reconfigure the steps to make them easier to navigate.

The first task was to study the situation and come up with a plan.  One team started at the bottom and worked up and the second team started at the top and worked down.

Planning the work involved a lot of measuring and brainstorming.  They then went to work digging out the old steps.

As the old steps were cleared out and new steps dug, the team could bring in new timber to reconstruct the steps.

In keeping with the CUE Haven ethos of sustainability, the team tried to preserve and reuse as much of the old timber as possible.

Slowly the new step structure took shape.

There were regular checks to make sure everything was straight and level.

As one step was finished, they moved on to the next.

In order to make the entire run of steps less steep, the team decided that the best way would be to cut back the track at the top and add another step.

Thomas went down to the shed to cut additional timber.

The new steps were installed and the ground was levelled off.

The last step was installed and everything was checked for alignment.

While the step teams were busy, the third team moved along the walking track identifying spots where side boards had moved out of alignment or wear and tear had made the track surface uneven. 

They used rakes and spades to level the track.

When they came to misaligned boards, they dug them out, evened up the track and reinstalled the boards.

Once the board was re-installed, they raked back the gravel and the track is looking better than ever.

The team continued down the track, fixing up other sections further along.

The team covered an amazing length of track and made some much needed improvements!

The three teams then got together to finish off their sections by putting down a layer of gravel.  We filled buckets with gravel.

And drove the buckets as close as we could to the work areas.

The buckets were unloaded and carried down to the track sections.

The buckets were dumped out on the track and the gravel was raked smooth.

The buckets were carried back and refilled for another load.

The end result of all the hard work is amazing!

Thanks to everyone’s hard work today, the track sections have been completely transformed and look fantastic!!

We then brought up all the gear and scrap timber from the tracks and loaded it into the ute and took it down to the workshop.

While some people with energy to burn before lunch walked up to Te Rite o Taranaki to enjoy the views.

We then all met back at the cottage for a well deserved lunch.

The group today accomplished an amazing amount of work and tackled some unusual challenges and showed a lot of teamwork, energy and creativity in coming up with solutions.  We really enjoyed working with all of you and really appreciate your efforts.

Our many thanks to Sarah for organising the fun and productive day.

And a big thank you to Alan for helping out again today— Alan, we always appreciate your company, advice and hard work.

And a huge THANK YOU to the entire team.  We so appreciate your hard work and help. You have all made a wonderful contribution to CUE Haven and all your hard work and efforts are greatly appreciated.

We look forward to having you back out with your family and friends for a leisurely visit to explore more of your community reserve -CUE Haven, and, also returning next year for another fun and productive volunteer day.

THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!