Tuesday 4 April 2017

New paths - we dig it

"The right path is often the hardest to follow, but the hard path is also the one that leads to the greatest growth."

Well that is the inspirational mantra for the path-laying part of our Gwent High Sheriff's Community Fund project which started on Friday 24th March 2017.

 
The plan is to create 200 metres of path which is shown in orange. This links up all the entrances on Henllys Way offering easier access routes at the southern end of the LNR. The problem with those areas currently is that they are very boggy and the path is getting wider and wider with more habitat being lost as people try and use slightly firmer ground. This is natural behaviour even in wellies as the ground is extremely slippery. These pathways will eliminate this problem.
 
The paths are being copied from the work carried out in 2013 (yellow lines) by contractors, except it is all being dug out and laid by hand, by volunteers.
 
Essentially, the ground is dug up by 80 cm wide and at least 10cm deep. We measured the old paths at around 1 inch depth, but in parts these are wearing out, so we're going a little deeper. As we've been digging it out, we've been carefully laying out the spoil on the uphill side of the path to allow water to freely run off the path. Before we lay the path we will dig in some drainage pipes where necessary. We've been actively tweeting after each session and you can find these by following us on @HenllysLNR .
 
Here are some of the pictures so far:


 


 
In the last 2 pictures we volunteered for around 7 hours altogether and my Fitbit blaze reckoned that I had burned 5300 calories over that 24 hours which is the most I've ever burned in a day in 2 years of Fitbit history (2900 calories more than a sedentary day in the office). Doing good for the LNR and doing exercise at the same time, what is there not to like about that?
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment