Working Holiday

A variety of tasks were tackled by a Working Holiday Group who were with us for a week from Sunday 4th of September until Friday 9th.

Some of the group started on Sunday by taking a hedge line fence  down at Cockshott Point, on the East  shore of Windermere, and loading the posts and wire onto trailers (seen here listening to instructions from James, Area Ranger)

A smaller group dug out a rectangular shape in front of a bench in order... 

...to place a wooden frame work within which to position...

...stone setts.

 This is an effective hard wearing surface. (The area in front of the bench was prone to get boggy in wet weather!)

On Sunday work stopped briefly to watch a low flying Lancaster bomber over Windermere on its way to an air show.

At Millerground, on Monday, a small group set to work on more stone pitching in order to safeguard the immensely popular lake shore footpath from being undermined by high water levels. (A walker can be seen using the path above). 

A quantity of small stone was gathered in trugs to infill behind the stone work. 

Impressive looking job.

Another task was to rip out and replace the old worn out wooden steps leading down to Millerground.

Taking shape.

Great team work!

On a very wet Monday time out was taken to watch the second stage of the Tour of Britain flash past Queen Adelaide's Hill.

A well earned break on Wednesday...

...with the Windermere Outdoor Adventure Centre.

Steady as she goes.

The completed steps were filled with a mixture of crushed stone (aggregate) from the local quarry and lake shore gravel. A job to be justifiably proud of!

Visitors to Millerground using the new steps.

Yet another job was to totally upgrade a section of the lake shore footpath at the Southern end of Millerground. Large stones were 'barred' out of the path and used as edging stones...as can be seen bottom right of this image.

The path was levelled and finally resurfaced with approximately seven tonnes of aggregate brought in by...the power barrows.

 From being by far the most difficult to negotiate section of path, it is now arguably the easiest...such is the transformation!

In addition to the work described above, the group also worked in the walled garden at St. Catherine's and on scrub clearance at Millerground.

This Working Holiday Group can be proud of what they have achieved in just six days; it was a pleasure to have worked with them on six (!) different tasks that they so willingly and ably accomplished through admirable teamwork.   

With special thanks to Maureen, Group Leader, and Assistant Leader Andy who, incidentally, supplied many of the images for this post.