An international effort.

I’ve just had an interesting and enjoyable week with a distinctly international flavour.  I’ve been working with young conservation volunteers from across Europe who have been staying in the Glaramara Centre in Borrowdale.  This is a scheme partially funded by the Foreign Office and partially by the individuals who participate.  This year it brought together groups from Malta, the Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy.  Each day we worked with a different group of 30 so there were fun and games as I did the all-important health and safety briefing with such a multi-lingual mix.

Begin with a briefing.

The successful outcome of all the effort was that we now have in place on Seatoller fell a large amount of timber that we need to replace a ladder stile and to fence an old wad mine shaft.  This is a task that would have taken the Trust staff many weeks to complete so these voluntary groups make a phenomenal contribution to our work.

There isn't an easy way to do this!

There's just hard graft and slightly easier graft ...

... but it's a great sense of achievement on the walk back.

Once that was complete, we took them around Stye Head Tarn and we did a drain run which involves walking up a pitch path and clearing blocked culverts and drains just to maintain the footpath.  It also gets the group into a mountain setting which they enjoyed very much.  

Footpath maintenance.

We hope they are now telling stories across Europe about how wonderful the Lake District is and also that their experience has strengthened their commitment to care of the environment.

A fine perch for a rest stop.

The week was rounded off with preparations for the arrival on Friday of a working holiday group - I need to have ready all the equipment that will be needed by them for the planned work around the lake.  More about that next week.