These special artistic effects were produced by using a very low spec camera on a phone (Nokia C1-01).
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It was finally looking like spring on Saturday morning at 9am when Brandon Hire delivered the compactor (whacker). Jez brought the tools round and I kept myself entertained fixing the puncture on one of the wheel barrows and doing a quick recce of the gravel sack situation. The first trail build volunteer was Gary Palmer who arrived at 9:30am after spotting my gravel cam pictures on the Facebook group. We started on the job of bagging up the first of the 20 tonnes of limestone chippings from the pile. Next on site were Robin, Kristian, Pete Toop, Tony La Porte, Nigel Gregson and new recruit Tim. Rafe arrived at 10:30am with his Land Rover 11am update on Facebook: “It’s all happening now. Richard, Rafe and Chris are here too. I make that 12. Gravel being shifted. Bricks being shifted. Start path dug out.” When Gary and Sharon Yeates arrived then that gave us 14 people working on the trail. With this many people present then we were able do another job at the same time as filling sacks for the Land Rover. We dug out the path from the car park to the trail entrance. The mud was moved to the last section of trail where it was going to be used to build a berm. The Land Rover crew filled a massive (2 x 2m) Hippo sack with gravel at the triangle entrance and brought bricks back to be used in the new berm. Cunning. |
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The trail on the west side from the tennis courts down to the trail exit was resurfaced plus the exit was extended by a few more metres. This trail had been built in 2008! The Land Rover crew then moved to a second Hippo bag down near the motorway whilst the local crew fixed a few minor muddy areas near the start of the trail. By 11am the 20 tonne pile was at less than half its original size. An amazing result. Facebook update from 11am “Start path done. Bricks and mud for berm moved. Land rover shifting material. Hand filling west side with 6 barrows.” The Land Rover crew now switched attention to Piper’s Hill where they built a stash of sacks to allow the line from the first rock garden to be fixed, resurfaced the following alley and then resurfaced the climb from the switch back. They also collected stray bricks for use in the new berm. |
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Reinforcements arrived during the afternoon. From Facebook: “Gary Lee, Lee Morgan, Pete, Kat, Jerome, Jo Page, James and Jame’s mate have also been here today. Must be more than 20 people in total. Excellent result.” |
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As evening drew closer then one team resurfaced the back straight near the start using a large pile of sacks from the previous build weekend. Meanwhile the other team tidied up the verge in the car park. |
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We surfaced 240m of trail in a day! Phil was on site from midday, so that makes 23 volunteers present – a record! Full list: |
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