Well Done to the Tauranga Tracks Team on the works completed on the Mount Steps
With back to back cyclones in Autumn bringing a lot of rainfall in a short period of time there were a lot of slips to deal with on our tracks and walkways contract. One slip that became a long term problem was on the Mount Base Track which is one of the most well used tracks in New Zealand. A large slip had taken most of the track with it and forced a long term closure while a short term plan was put in place to redirect the track over a nearby hill. The photos attached show how steep this hill was and with the site being rich in archaeology just under the ground it was a no go for putting deep foundations into it. Between Recreational Services, Iwi, Heritage NZ and the Council we came up with the idea to apply geo cloth and build on top of the ground as much as possible along with laying the aggregate on the geo cloth. This allows the track and steps to be removed without damaging the ground if required in the future. The after photo of the steep area shows the steps in place. Getting the aggregate down this hill to fill in each step involved using sheets of roofing iron and large drainage pipe. This worked really well and made the job much safer than having to carry it down. The last photo shows the other side where it joins back onto the base track. A fantastic job by the Recreational Services Tracks Unscheduled Team completed under time pressure when the decision was suddenly made to go with this plan. Long term plan is a new track being built down by the waters edge which will involve a barge ferrying in copious amounts of rock to build it.
Recreational Services Celebrates 25 years
This month Recreational Services turned 25 years old. To celebrate the incredible journey and to thank our communities for their ongoing support, each of the teams around the country took some time to pay it forward in their own unique way with random acts of kindness.
The Tauranga team took the opportunity to get the BBQ trailer down from Auckland to celebrate the companies 25th birthday. The team locked in 2 spots they thought would work well for drawing a crowd and be able to give out as many sausages and bread and bottles of water that they could to the community. Unfortunately the first one was a slight flop up at the Mount beach with more bottles of water given out than sausages for the walkers going up and around the Mount tracks. The team redeemed themselves at the second spot where they were allowed to set up the BBQ trailer at Blake park for the NZ v Australia woman’s 2nd one day International where around 240 sausages and bread and 150 bottles of water were given out. The team also put $100 on the coffee van right next to them and handed out plenty of tickets for people to be in to win the $1500 prize the company was putting out. Special thanks to Neil Best and Karen Bern for their help on the day, they had a great attitude towards it and received plenty of compliments.
Otumoetai Eels Rugby League Club
After striking up a working relationship/sponsorship deal with Otumoetai Eels rugby league club to help us get bags of aggregate up the Mount (Mauao) for a tracks re surfacing job in 2014, we then took on direct sponsorship of one of the junior Eels teams for the 2015 season.
‘Hoodie’ jumpers with the Otumoetai Eels colours and badge on the front and RS logo on the back were purchased by RS and given to the squad along with drink bottles. The team are in the final this weekend.
Other Sponsorship
- We have sponsored a Secondary School's touch rugby module at Tauranga Domain over the first half of summer 2014.
- The line marking of the fields over this 6 week period was done free of charge.
- We have supplied Papamoa Bulldogs rugby team with drinking bottles.