It was great to once again have our friends from ANZ’s North Auckland and Northland Mobile Mortgage Managers team and a couple of their colleagues from the Albany branch join us for some autumn maintenance work. 

Most of the team members have volunteered before at CUE Haven and for some members it was their seventh year!!  The team included Abhay, Andy, Ashleigh, Eric, James C., James Z., Janice, Jeff, Jim, Jin and Max.

We spent some time catching up over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave an update on our recent activities and plans and Thomas gave a safety briefing and described the work planned for the day.

The plan for the day was to do some maintenance on the walking tracks.  This involved trimming vegetation that had grown over the tracks during the summer as well as some general cleanup and fix up work.

The group broke into several teams and worked on different parts of the tracks.  Because at work the group are travelling out of the office all the time, the volunteer day is a good networking opportunity so people moved around from one team to another over the course of the day.

We headed out to the work site and went to work.

One team worked on a variety of walking track maintenance challenges.  We aren’t building any new tracks, but the existing track network needs regular maintenance due to wear and tear and ground movement.

The team moved up a long section of track identifying and fixing different issues.  They spent time studying the issues and coming up with solutions.

The main issue they found was that in some places, side boards had moved out of alignment or loosened and they nailed everything back in position.

In some cases, it was necessary to dig out the old section to realign the boards.

In some areas, ground movement meant that longer sections of side boards needed to be removed so the track edge could be realigned.

The replacement boards were cut to size.

Others in this team worked on improving the track surfaces by using rakes and spades to clear off leaves and branches and levelling any rough spots.  Unfortunately, this summer we’ve been visited by wild pigs through the neighbouring pine forest who damaged some of the walking tracks. Thanks to our friends, Gerard and Marino, the pigs have now been eradicated from CUE Haven and the damaged tracks were repaired by today’s team.

The team also cleared a big old kanuka tree that had fallen across the track and was blocking the way.

Late last year volunteers had built a small boardwalk over a stream and we wanted to install mesh to make it slip proof.  Some team members cut the mesh to size and nailed it down with staples.

The group also cut back branches that had grown out onto the track.

They worked their way up from the middle to the top of the property.

The group got to see a lot of the CUE Haven reserve as they cleared almost 1.3 km of track.

Thanks to all of the teams’ efforts, the tracks are looking better than ever.

The team members all met up on the viewing platform before walking back for a well-deserved lunch.

The group today accomplished an amazing amount of work and tackled some unusual challenges and as always showed a lot of teamwork, energy and creativity in coming up with solutions.

Our many thanks to Jim and James for organising the day and for championing CUE Haven within ANZ.

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 efforts and your continued support over the years are greatly appreciated.

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

Thank You!!