Designed by the Venerable Lama Samten, these capping blocks will go on top of the concrete block walls and then the wall will be plastered. Each block is made by pouring concrete into a fibreglass mould and left to cure for 2 days. Mould made by Saul.
Fibreglass mould
A mostly poured capping block
We’ve now changed the plan and using concrete sheets rather than concrete blocks to make the walls lighter. We will plaster over all sections of wall once the capping blocks are on, so in the end there won’t be a visible difference between the block walls and the concrete sheet wall. Many thanks to Dave and Jacob.
Thanks to Tom and David
We filled in another drainage trench with scoria and added a simple warratah and wire fence to the top of the slip. This enabled us to open these sections of the stupas to the public again. They had been closed since a major slip on the site in Feb 2023.
It was perfect weather for cleaning Stupas. Many thanks to everyone who came and contributed.
We are on tank water at Karma Choeling. We need a water supply at the stupas for mixing concrete, cleaning the stupas, cleaning paint brushes, watering plants etc. So having a secure water supply for the stupas is very important. Previously the pipes were above ground and constantly being disconnected by strong winds etc. So we dug more trenches and put the pipe work underground. Many thanks to Soren, Bex, David and Dave.
On advice from our very generous landscape technical advisor and engineer, Terry Donnelly, we planted vetiver on the steep bare land left after the slip of Feb 2023.
These amazing plants have roots that extend down 4-6 meters. When planted in rows close together (5 plants per meter) they basically form an underground wall of intertwined roots. This stabilises the land and prevents further erosion. These plants are not native to NZ, however they don’t become invasive because their seeds can’t germinate in our climate.
6 weeks later
6 weeks later
Many thanks to Dave, David, Tom, Dean, Bruce, Christine
[images to come]
