Saturday 3 March 2012

Workday on the Cudworth Spur - 26th February 2012

This is the first of a number of workdays, which are planned on the Cudworth Spur. The trail in places has become narrow from the overspill of soil and grass on to the Tarmac and these workdays are planned to tackle those areas and to remove any vegetation that is impeding trial users.  
We were due to meet at the junction of the Lundwood/Cudworth Spur at 1000hrs. 1000hrs came and went, so my wife, my three kids and myself made a start. Marie, Corey and me got stuck straight in, Marie and me by removing the soil from our first area and Corey by removing the small saplings that had decided to take root at the side of the path. The youngest two of my tribe decided to go explore the woods close by while we got stuck in

My first thoughts were correct, when I first planned these workdays in and that was that it would be very labour intensive and tiring. It was very slow going due to all the roots that were in the soil. And those pesky kids, that kept coming passed on the mini motorbike certainly slowed us down, every few minutes they came whizzing pass with no consideration to other trail users. Descriptions were taken and passed on to the local police force.


The trail was very busy with cyclists, walkers and joggers who made comments about the work we were doing. One of the more funny comments from a cyclist was “you keep cleaning and we’ll keep using”. A couple jogging stopped for a quick chat, which was nice as this gave us a chance to have a rest. Corey on the other hand continued with his task of cutting back any branches or saplings that impeded the trail. The joggers thanked us for our hard work and set off in the direction of Lundwood. We stopped at 1200hrs for a spot of light lunch, cheese and ham sandwiches and a packet of crisps.


Feeling refreshed we continued our onslaught and with a bribe of either a McDonalds ice-cream or milkshake we managed to even get Peta-Marie and Arron to help out. We made good progress and as you can see from the picture below, we certainly have made a difference and widen the trail back to its form width. On the way back to the car, we got stopped by three cyclists who gave us some very encouraging words and thanked us for helping to maintain the trail.




1 comment:

  1. Route looks great fantastic. You rangers are doing an amazing job. Please help us spread the word about the 2013 Trans Pennine Challenge - Manchester - Penistone - Sheffield in aid of The Hunger Project via http://www.thehungerproject.co.uk/getinvolved/trans-pennine-challenge-50km-100km-manchester-sheffield/

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