The Zigzag

Restoration area

Where the work is. The 2026 season went in here.

Planting under way2.9 hectaresPlanting continues each autumn and springBlocks 17, 18, 15, 16

Plants going into the ground, working bee by working bee.

A steep grassy slope of pale tussocky grass with scattered dark green shrubs and two broad ngaio crowns against a blue sky. — “Looking up across the proposed planting area towards the Lookout.”Ma Kōtukutuku – Ancient Cape Wanbrow Trust · The zigzag before planting: grass, a few scattered natives, and nothing between them. A small copy, 640 × 480 — the only version of this photograph we still have.

How far we have got

Not started
Strimmed and sprayed
Planting under way
Planted
Being released
Grass held back
Away on its own

Already carries cover: 12%; 0.36 ha of 2.88. Mapped by extent rather than by species.
Planted by the project: 11%; 2,872 m² of the 2.52 ha of bare ground here.

These two figures are never added together, and the map draws them separately, block by block. Cover that was already here is not restoration — in one block of this project it is pine.

The blocks behind this place

Survey Waitaki, August 2025

Block 171.02 ha · sloped - steep · 16% already vegetated
Main access point from lookout carpark, side of 1st gully down to bottom
2,872 m² planted so far.
Block 180.61 ha · flat-sloped · 31% already vegetated
Floor at the upper half of gully 1 below lookout
Block 150.60 ha · sloped - steep · no existing cover
Side of ridge at the top of the 1st gully, below houses
Block 160.65 ha · sloped · no existing cover
Top of 1st gully next to houses

Where we are now

The side and floor of gully 1 below Lookout Point, from the top car park down to the bottom. The least vegetated ground in the project — two of these four blocks carry no existing cover at all — and the only ground the project has planted at any scale.

What it becomes

Cover the length of the gully, from the houses at the top to the car park at the bottom, along the walk almost every visitor to the Cape already takes.

Why this matters

This ground was chosen first, and for a reason: planting where people already walk is what keeps a volunteer project moving. Every working bee here is watched by somebody out with a dog, and several of those people came back the next time with a spade.

“Both of these sites are east-facing, and easier than most of the Cape, in that they will have better soil, and a bit more moisture. Also, they are very accessible and visible to the public, which is important for the momentum of the project.”

— Makotukutuku, on choosing this ground, 2026

What needs to happen

4 of 8

Surveyed, measured and described
Strimmed and spot-sprayed, ready to plant
Planting begun
Protectors, stakes and water on
Planting completed across the bare ground
Released and weeded, bi-monthly
Grass held back two years, or until the trees reach 2 m
Away on its own

A view east across a shallow gully of rough grass and scrub, with a young planted shrub in the foreground. — “Looking East across the middle of the planting area.”Ma Kōtukutuku – Ancient Cape Wanbrow Trust · A small copy, 640 × 480 — the only version of this photograph we still have.

Four people at the Lookout Point car park with a wheelbarrow of plants, a ute and the multi-arm direction signpost behind them. — The morning of the 16 May 2026 planting — 425 plants, 35 volunteers.Ma Kōtukutuku – Ancient Cape Wanbrow Trust · The only dated planting-day photograph we have.

Grey warblers in a weed

In August 2026 a pair of riroriro were recorded nesting in the flowering currant beside the path down from Lookout Point. The currant is a weed the project is working to remove — which is the honest shape of restoration: the birds are already using whatever is here.