The Sri Sathya Sai group is a spiritual organisation whose members make a commitment to fostering peace and community service. The group have made many contributions to the CUE Haven restoration project over the years—assisting with planting trees, painting the nursery and walking track maintenance.  Today nineteen members gave up their Sunday morning to help us with some restoration planting.

The group arrived first thing in the morning and included Anil, Aaditya, Anuleshni, Dharana, Dharma, Hrithika, Krishna, Mandar, Manu, Mark, Navashree, Nikitha, Serel, Selva, Sumi, Udaya and Yasashini.  Also joining were youngsters Aroha and Noah.

As there were new members in the group, we took some time to get acquainted over morning tea.  Mahrukh gave an introduction to the CUE Haven project and talked about our current activities and plans.

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

The plan was to plant some kahikatea trees in an area near the northwest boundary of the property.  The area had initially been planted in 2013 but needed to have some gaps filled in and because it is a wet area, kahikateas were the perfect solution. 

We had previously taken the trees out to a spot near the planting site.  We walked out to the site and went to work.

The first task was carrying the plants to the site.

The group then broke up into teams, spread out throughout the planting site and went to work.  One team tackled an open area that had a lot of weeds that they cleared before starting the planting.

As they planted out an area they moved to new spaces that needed to be filled in.

And the kids gave a helping hand and enjoyed their first tree planting experience!

The group slowly moved through the area, filling in open spots with new trees.

The planting was hard work but everyone kept smiling.

The team managed to quickly plant all of the trees we had for them in spite of the challenging conditions. Well done!!

They then gathered up all of the spades and empty pots and trays to take back down.

After the planting we still had time until lunch so we request the group assist with other tasks. The group broke into two teams – one team worked on helping to clear the drains along the main race to ensure that they aren’t blocked and ready for heavy winter rains and the other worked on trimming vegetation that had grown out over the track.  The teams swapped the spades for rakes and loppers.

The track drainage team worked on making sure pipes weren’t blocked and that there were no obstructions in the drains.  Over time, leaves, rocks, gravel and clay can fill the drains if they aren’t regularly cleaned.

By lunchtime, the team managed to clear a long section of the steepest part of the main race and that will be a huge help in ensuring the drains continue to function in heavy rains.  Thanks!

The other team went to work with loppers trimming vegetation along the track.

They slowly moved up the track, starting at the bottom.

They made it all the way to the top of the property where they took a well-earned break and also visited Te Rite o Taranaki – the viewing platform.

All of the teams then headed back down and after spending some time cleaning up, relaxed over a leisurely lunch.

The team accomplished an amazing amount of planting in challenging conditions.  Thank you so very very much!

Many thanks to Anil for organising the volunteer day and to Anil, Krishna and Selva for continuing to champion CUE Haven within the Sri Sathya Sai organisation.

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone for giving up your Sunday and coming out to help on a cold winter morning!  It is always good to see old friends and we really enjoyed meeting the new members too. We very much appreciate your hard work and amazing contribution to CUE Haven.  The trees you have planted are a much needed addition to the CUE Haven reserve – what a wonderful legacy.

We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and do look forward to having you out again for another fun and productive volunteer day. And we also look forward to having you out with your friends and family for a leisurely visit soon to explore more of your community native forest reserve.

Thank You!! Thank You!!