Megyn Cordner and Lucas Prince are about to embark on a season of tree planting in Northland. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Getting stuck in Aotearoa during lockdown has been an impractical reality for many travellers but for one couple, it changed their lives for the better.
Megyn Cordner and Lucas Prince have led a nomadic life for the past few years since meeting on backpacking adventures in Australia. Together they are getting stuck into Aotearoa by embarking on a journey as travelling tree planters.
Accompanied by their ridgeback cross mastiff, Boof, the pair are about to launch into their first full season of tree planting, which will run from May to October — weather permitting.
With their self-contained van to call home, the couple are ready to begin filling Northland with native trees and flaxes from their 100,000-tree-strong nursery.
Their newest venture began when the couple became stranded in Aotearoa after a flying visit to Prince’s family. The day after they touched down on New Zealand soil, the country launched into lockdown.
“I wasn’t allowed to go back to Aussie on a working holiday so we decided to stay in New Zealand,” Cordner said.
They did some seasonal work throughout New Zealand that included kiwifruit and blueberry picking, before taking up a job with a tree planting business.
“We loved it,” Cordner said, “and we realised we could totally do it ourselves.”
The venture was something they stumbled upon by “complete accident”.
“Never in a million years would I have imagined this is where we would end up,” Cordner laughed.
They created KiwiCan Contracting Ltd — an ode to the couple’s motherlands. Cordner is Canadian and Prince, a Kiwi.
The business grew its roots in Manawatu but Cordner said the weather “isn’t as wonderful” as Northland weather or conducive to tree planting.
The couple made their way north to Uretiti, on the Tutukaka Coast, where they set up their own nursery on a plot of land they rent.
Together they grafted to ensure the venture would work. Prince did courses during lockdown and obtained a Diploma in Horticulture, and Cordner has an agriculture qualification from a Canadian university.
Cordner said they plant 4500 stems a hectare and have a rule where they don’t go home until they have planted at least 1500 trees a day.
But they can sometimes plant up to 2500 a day. The biggest job they’ve logged was 15,000 trees in a single day.
It is hard work and ensuring they are fit for the season is an important element of what they do in the off season.
“We have to maintain our fitness levels throughout the whole year,” Cordner said.
“So we’re working out when we’re not planting and we eat a certain diet to make sure we have enough protein.”
They specialise in re-vegetation, which is something Cordner said they’re both passionate about.
Their trees are each sourced locally and include cabbage trees, assorted flaxes, manuka, pittosporum, and green and red ake ake.
They stay in freedom camping spots when on jobs and live permanently in their self-contained van.
Cordner said they met many “incredible locals” during last year’s season.
On one particular occasion, a landowner gave them some bacon-and-egg pie, which they enjoyed on a hill — a “really heartwarming” gesture, she said.
Cordner said ”leaving something positive” on a client’s land was hugely rewarding.
Jobs can include re-vegetation, which is what they specialise in, but the pair also plant on dairy farms when cow manure needs to be offset.
They have experience in shelter belts, riparian planting, re-vegetation, timber forests, lifestyle block planting, carbon credit planting, and exclusion planting.
“Every type of planting we do, we’ve done lots of research, and we have a high success rate of survival of the trees,” Cordner said.
For now, the season is about to begin and their first job is back at their favourite spot: Kai Iwi Lakes.
Cordner said there has been a “high demand” for their work, and they are hoping to buy a piece of land in October to put down roots for a permanent nursery.
You can see more about KiwiCan Contracting here.