Since 2014, international students from Orewa College have been coming 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 12 students from Japan, Germany and Luxembourg join us for the day.  The group included Anne, Antonia, Karla, Kota, Maleen, Mio, Naoki  Penelope, Riri, Ron, Tamon and Valeria.  The students were accompanied by Orewa College staff Catherine Douglas and Trixie Croad.

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 two autumn maintenance tasks. One was to trim back vegetation that had grown over the main road during the summer and the second was to work on clearing the drains along the tracks so they are ready to handle winter rains. We broke into two teams to tackle each task and halfway through the day, the teams switched so that everyone got a chance to work on both activities.
The day started out overcast but as we worked, rain showers continually moved through the area. The rain and wet conditions didn’t slow down the students and everyone kept smiling.
We took the gear to the bottom of the road and started from there.

The trimming team worked their way up the track.

Thanks to the efforts of both 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 the teams tackled the job with enthusiasm.

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

As they cleared a section, they moved up the road, looking for issues and resolving them.

Thanks to the students’ hard work, the main drain is now free flowing.

A big rain event this summer caused significant damage to the road.  The flow overwhelmed a culvert pipe and water flowing down a steep section of track cut deep channels in the surface.  The students went to work with rakes and spades to level up the surface.

As a last step, they filled in the low spots with more gravel. 

This hard and messy job was made even more challenging than usual by the rain and we were really impressed by how willing the students were to carry on enthusiastically in spite of the conditions. Thanks!

At the end of the day, we packed up the gear and headed back to get cleaned up for lunch.

We want to thank Caroline 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 the rain.  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!!