This week we were not on a residential project, rather we would be based at the volunteer house and picked up each morning to work on various local project in the greater Auckland area.
Monday - Oakley Creek
A small creek just down the road from the volunteer house - quite close to the Auckland Blues trainig facility and Auckland Polytechnic University. We spent the day lopping willow and mulching (splitting it up into small section to rot away) and cleaning other areas of weeds ready for plantation. Not the most thrilling day so far, but we were onto somewhere else on Tuesday!
Tuesday - Puhinui Stream
We drove all the way across Auckland to the western side of the city. This section of Puhinui Stream is maintained and managed by an eccentric old gentleman called John Smith, who volunteers his own time to help manage, landscape and clean the river and its banks. He quickly got us weeding a section of the river bank and planting tens of new Nikkau palms, Kauri trees amongst others and adding mulch to the base of the plats to prevent weeds growing back.
Wednesday - Oratia Folk Museum
A real treat of a day, and something completely different - today we were involved in helping to restore an early 20th century tram carriage and steam engine at a tiny Folk Musuem in Henderson. CVNZ don't just operate with conservation groups - they are also involved in restoring heritage, and this was a welcome change for us. The work was fun ( I was helping restore an 80 year old engine) but also we had a wonderful homemade soup for lunch and tea and homemade scones in the afternoon. The house we were working at belonged to a lovely old couple with loads of stories to tell. They also had theier own vinyard, and we were taken to their cellar to sample some finest NZ cabernet shiraz!
Thursday - Puhinui Stream
Back to Puhinui with John Smith today - we continued to plant around a thousand new trees and plants on the banks of the stream. It was hard work digging lots of holes, but really rewarding to be planting so many new trees that will grow over the coming years. At the end of the day John treated us to a lovely cake rewarded us with some beers and wine for our efforts!
Friday - Work at the Volunteer House
Today the weather was awful and we re-arranged the tools in the garage and took a stock check for future CVNZ groups.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment