Since 2014, our good friends from the NZ Chapter of the Overseas Chinese Association have been coming to CUE Haven to help us out with planting and maintenance work. The visits have historically been timed to coincide with their annual Dragon Boat Festival and the visit has become one of the highlights of the CUE Haven calendar.

We are no longer having big planting days but the group has continued to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival at CUE Haven. Today almost seventy members and their families and friends joined us for the festivities.

The first people to arrive helped set everything up.

As members arrived, they spent some time catching up and socializing.

Adonis and Jerry of the OCANZ committee, welcomed everyone.

Next, Mahrukh welcomed the group and gave a brief introduction to CUE Haven for the benefit of the new members and talked a little about developments at CUE Haven since the group’s last visit.

It was a perfect winter day with a sunny sky and temperature in the mid teens, and Thomas led the group on a leisurely walk from the cottage to the viewing platform and back.

The group got to see many different areas of the CUE Haven ngahere and Thomas explained different aspects of native New Zealand plants and animals. Once at the top, they had a chance to relax and enjoyed views of the Kaipara Harbour.

We then walked back down for the special celebratory lunch of ‘Zongzi’ (sticky rice dumplings), soup and other delicacies which had been organised by Adonis, Jerry, Chen Huei and their team!

After a relaxing lunch, the group continued to socialise.

Later, the group helped clear everything away and Alex even helped fix up some of the wobbly benches! Thanks Alex!

As always, we had a fantastic day with everyone, and it was great to meet up with old friends and make new friends.

An extremely big thank to Adonis for organising the visit and to Nadia for helping to fundraise for CUE Haven by selling CUE Haven honey and some yummy Taiwanese mangoes.

And thank you to everyone who came along and brought food to share. We really value your friendship and continued support of CUE Haven and many thanks too for also contributing to our fundraising efforts. Looking forward to having you visit again soon.