Since 2014, 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 a group of 33 students from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Columbia, Germany, Italy and Japan join us for the day.

The students were accompanied by Orewa College staff Cecilia Tyne, Bruce Hume, and Trixie Croad. 

Due to the size of the group, we broke into four teams.

We spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave a brief 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 do some autumn maintenance work.  Two groups 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.

The trimming teams worked with Bruce and Trixie and moved along the tracks trimming as they went.

Thanks to the efforts of both these teams, within a couple of hours they made major progress and trimmed back most of the overhanging vegetation along Huarahi Kowhai, the main road, and some of the service roads at CUE Haven.

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 teams working with Ceclia and Thomas helped out with that task.

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

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

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

We want to thank Cecilia, Bruce and Trixie for their help today and also thank you to Adrienne Croad for organizing the visit and continuing to champion CUE Haven at Orewa College.

And a special BIG THANK YOU to all the students for their hard work today despite a few rain showers.  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!!