It beats gym membership!

A busy week began when I went to the Penrith campus of the University of Cumbria accompanied by one of our volunteers (a retired academic) to discuss the potential for collaboration between UoC and the Trust.  This is the earliest stage in what we hope will develop into beneficial outcomes for all involved and also for the environment.


I then met a group of eleven who were arriving for a working holiday.  

Keen to get started.

We spent two days in the Force Crag area  filling builders’ dumpty bags with material from a landslip on the approach road and using them to protect the listed buildings from erosion caused by the water flowing from the old mine.  Yet again there was an amazing amount of work done by another group of dedicated volunteers.

Work in progress to divert water away from listed buildings.

They had one day off to walk or canoe … and then returned to the work. We moved on to Myrtle Bay at the southern end of Derwentwater where we are in the final stages of creating an ‘access for all’ path around the lake.  

Many hands (plus spades and wheelbarrows) making light work.

The well-earned lunch break - and it wasn't raining.

The completion of this path will be a winning situation all round.  It will make a circuit walk of the lake possible for many more people.  Once it is accessible for wheel-chair users, it is also so for prams, children and others with mobility problems.  It creates a good walking surface that people will enjoy using rather than a muddy track that widens as walkers attempt to find a route through.  When we started this work some years ago, the path was 20m wide and it is now 1.5m of good quality surface.  

A good path in the making.

The vegetation beside the path can now flourish and a beautiful part of the world can be experienced by many more visitors without causing damage.

One of the sundew species (Drosera rotundifolia)

So, another group of people can go home proud of the part they have played in a major project.  It’s difficult to convey just how important our volunteers are.  They do some hard work but there are compensations ...

... the view from the accommodation.