Horty Kim

I really had a great time with the students on the fieldtrip to Okia Reserve which is located on the Otago Peninsula near
Victory Beach,Dunedin New Zealand.
The reserve is owned by the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust and the Dunedin City Council and a committee with representatives from the YEPT,DCC,DOC and Te Runanga Otakou manage the huge job of restoring the bio diversity of flora and fauna which existed before the area was cleared for farming.
We met Anita ,Margaret, and Gaileen from the YEPT on August 9 which was a beautiful sunny day.Margaret and Gaileen are former Otago Polytechnic students who now work tirelessly for the trust.(below)

Myself and the horticulture students spent most of the day learning about the reserve and we were happy to assist with planting 200 native trees and shrubs.(below)

Watch the following informative videos for more information!
An interesting talk about the Okia Reserve and the people who help out
And some info on the remanent bush at Victory Beach.

The next video is us trying to figure out what pest has succumbed to one of the traps used in the reserve to control the ferrets,stoats and rabbits which threaten yellow eyed penguin habitat.

Fenn trap for stoats and ferrets

Thumper trap for Possoms

We then got down to the nitty gritty of our trip to Okia and Margaret demonstates the planting techniques to be used for planting 200 trees and shrubs which were grown at the YEPT nursery from seed collected on the peninsula.Hmmm I have been trying to upload this informative video but having difficulties so I will hopefully add it later.In the meantime I will add some more still images of the planting plus a couple of videos of Zac and me planting a cabbage tree.
Planting a cabbage tree…one down 199 to go!

Otago Polytechnic students plant NZ trees and shrubs at Okia Reserve.

Caging the plants is integral to their survival.

After we finished planting we went for a walk on the beach and picked up any rubbish we spotted.
Margaret suggested we check out their plantings of Pikao grass where the walking track leaves the beach.

We continued our walk from the beach back towards the Pyramids,along the way there are some great information signs.

On our way back to the Pyramids we found a cave!

After we checked out the cave we came across a track

that led to the top of one of the pyramids.We had a great view of the beach ,the wetlands ,the road back to Dunedin and most importantly the area we had just re-planted.We did not see any penguins but we know they are there.