The long Easter break is a great time to get away to Rameka. This year’s holiday was no exception. Jonathan, Bronnie, Nicole Benkert and Richard Mansfield caught a ferry from Wellington to Picton and then hired a car to go across for a week. They had three goals.
To take monitoring photos showing the change in vegetation
To build barrier fence around two deep tomo beside the historic Rameka Track
To achieve zero plastic waste for the week.
The most interesting challenge was trying to avoid buying anything (mainly food) wrapped in plastic. We were sick of getting to the end of a trip with loads of plastic rubbish, so we decided to go cold turkey. That cuts out the majority of products sold in supermarkets, and ironically, most of the longer-lasting food supplies. It’s a first-world challenge really, as you won’t starve if you only eat fruit and veges, and bread and cheese wrapped in paper. It did involve a fair bit of pre-thought and cooking before we went away though, as the cooking options at Rameka itself are fairly limited.
At the end of the week, we walked away with only the wrapper from a bunch of bananas that we hadn’t thought about when we bought them and our ferry luggage labels.
The photos to follow and their captions explain the two other goals.
This area was planted out in 2009, mostly by students from Motupipi Primary School. Fifteen years later, and it’s looking quite different, as you will see from the next photo below.The kids who planted these trees in 2009 will be in their mid-20s now. We hope they get back to see their efforts some time soon.Here’s Murray in the thick of it all, standing next to a tÅtara planted in 2009 that would have started out about the height of the tree guard in Murray’s left hand!This photo of the top entrance to Project Rameka was taken in 2010. Check out what it looks like now …There have been over 1,000 trees planted around this entrance. A forest is on its way, and the birds love it.Here are Richard and Murray working on one of the tomo fences. These are deep tomo, and we’ve always been conscious that one misjudged step or pedal stroke might see someone tumbling into one of them, with potentially fatal consequences.For many years, Fil and Albie Burgers would come up and stealthily paint the bridge each season, but last year, they finally handed across their paint brushes and paint pails, and it was our turn to give the bridge a spruce-up. It was harder than we thought, so double thanks go to Fil and Albie for their help in years past.Great weather and great company made the week fly by. Thanks to the core group from Wellington, who were also joined by Murray Drake from Nelson. Good times!
