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, Adhithi, Anil, Anuleshni, Dharma, Mandar, Mark, Mishal, Monte, Naman, and Selva gave up their Sunday morning to help us with autumn maintenance work. 

In addition to the Sathya Sai group members, Janice, who volunteers at CUE Haven with her corporate team brought her family—Jacquelyn, Jay and Jessica to help out.

And we were also assisted by our young volunteers, Izzy and Jake.

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

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

The plan for the day was to work on cutting back vegetation that had grown out over the tracks and fence lines over the summer.  We broke into three teams.

One team worked with Izzy to trim vegetation that had grown over the roads.  They each collected loppers and headed out to the road.

They slowly moved up the road, clearing the branches as they went.

The team were delighted to spot a tree weta in a manuka tree. This was a very unusual sight as tree weta are nocturnal and it was quite likely that the weta was disturbed by the trimming from the tree cavity it was nesting in.

The team got to see a lot of the property as they moved along the road.

One of the challenges the team faced was cutting back meulenbeckia australis which is a native vine that grows on the fringes of regenerating bush.  It can grow over the tops of young trees and kill them if it’s not controlled.  Intertwining vines have to be traced back to the source and cut back and finding the source can be quite challenging at times.

The team dealt with all these challenges cheerfully and slowly made their way towards the top of the property clearing a huge length of road and finishing up for a quick rest on the viewing platform.

A second team worked with Thomas to trim vegetation along the boundary fence. The work involved walking the fence line and trimming back any overhanging vegetation that might be a temptation to the neighbour’s cows and to inspect the fence as well.

We started at the bottom of the property and worked up. 

Most of the trimming involved loppers but some of the bigger branches required a saw and teamwork.

It was challenging work and everyone’s arms got quite a workout and the team managed to clear the entire northern boundary fence. Well done!!

They then met up with the trimming team on the viewing platform before heading down for a well deserved lunch.

In the meantime, Janice and team worked near the cottage, trimming back flaxes growing out over the driveway and car park area.

The team managed to clear the entire driveway and part of the board walk before lunch. 

All of the teams accomplished a huge amount of work–thank you so very very much!

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

And a big thank you to Janice for bringing out her family to help out.  It was great meeting you all and we look forward to seeing you again.

And thanks so much to Izzy and Jake for giving up a Sunday to help out.  Izzy we really appreciate you helping lead the trimming team and also appreciate your input and advice.

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped out today.  It is always good to see old friends and we really enjoyed meeting new people. We very much appreciate your hard work and amazing contribution to CUE Haven. 

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!!