Planting

A few friends and ourselves started a satellite group of the US based organisation "Roots and Shoots" a few months ago as a way of helping our young kids understand that they can make a difference in the world. By highlighting global issues, such as the environment or social issues, the kids can learn about them and understand that they can have a positive effect on the planet.

Anyway, at present we've joined one of their campaigns called "Rebirth the Earth: Trees for Tomorrow". The idea is that you plant trees locally, but also raise money to plant trees in Tanzania, to help reforest some areas that have been felled.

So today we had part one of our project. Above Christchurch are the Port Hills, once forested, now sadly not, however the City Council is working hard to change that. Each year 30 000 trees are planted (8 000 by volunteers), and along with predator control a number of native birds are returning to the city fringes. We met the Ranger at 11am and they have given us an area to plant. All the trees and materials are provided so we set about planting 100 trees. Around 1.5 hours later we were finished. You can see it was a glorious day! We'll return in 3 weeks to do the next 100. Lots of fun, the kids enjoyed it, and we had a nice picnic lunch afterwards ;-)

Then home and out on my new bike. Great day, great bike, low energy - so it wasn't a legendary ride. But with a view like this (as I rode back up the Port Hills) you can't complain!