Koko's Poem - Thursday, June 10th, 2010
One sunny day when all the bush was still
me and my class climbed up a hill.
We planted trees that we had once grown from seeds
Our grassy hill will soon be native trees and more
birds will sing forevermore.
Koko 9 years, Te Ra School
Summer Update - Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Warm summer greetings,
It’s a bit late for a Happy New Year; January was a bit busy! First my family and I were touring the North West corner of the south Island, which was great. Since then, we have been busy building a new track up to the Ecosite.
This is pretty hard work as it involves carrying 4.2m lengths of retaining timber and bundles of waratahs up a 40 degree scree slope and breaking rocks with club hammers. And that’s all before you start building anything! I like this sort of work. I find track building of any sort tremendously satisfying and the physical challenge of this job just adds to the sense of achievement. I always thought this made me a bit weird but I have had no trouble finding volunteers to work on the Chain Gang. In fact we have had a veritable avalanche of volunteers recently and not one of them made a run for it when I showed them the job. In fact most of them keep coming back for more!
Since my last update the Global volunteers have been with us on three occasions, we have had Aurélie Ragonet from France, Suzi Bruch from Germany, Deanna Elvines from Nelson – all for a week each – and Donald Shields & Isla Currie from Scotland are with us now for a month to six weeks.
We are also being ably assisted by various kapiti youths who normally prefer to perch behind the wheel of powerful motor cars than on the side of a hill. Then there are local volunteers, Peter Kentish, Ken Fraser and Rhonda. Apologies to anyone I’ve missed.
Work started just before Christmas and we are fair racing up the hill. 350m of boards have been laid with another 120m – 150m to go. We will be at the top in two or three weeks at which point we work our way back down again in-filling and retaining the inside where necessary. We work on the track every Thursday and there are plenty of jobs to do to suit all ranges of fitness. Even coming up for a chat and to look at the view is welcome. 
We are getting visitors most days we work on the track.
Today John from Ames St, Paekakariki, who is 80 years young, came up to have a look around. We had a good chin wag on his way up, then he had a look all over the Ecosite and on the way down said he’d like to make a donation towards our work. We could be on to something here. The track is already of great help with our work since access is already so much easier. We have intensified our animal pest control work with a line of DOC200 traps and are trying to catch the feral cats with Timms traps. There is also a baseline fauna study going on up there this year. A botanical study will be next. A group of meteorologists is coming to help us tackle the English ivy infestation on the 4th March. The list goes on. Last year we did very little planting at the Ecosite but this year will be a different story.
If you want to help out you can either…
- Come to the Ecosite Track car park anytime on a Thursday, or
- I can pick you up from Beach Rd at 9am. Just send me a txt on 021 039 3019
- Bring good boots or shoes and leather gloves if you have them.
- Pack a lunch and bring plenty of water if you are coming for the day.
See you on the hill,
Joe