Tuesday
Today was day one of our epic adventure to North Berwick to begin an amazing upland path on Berwick Law, which may have started with a few hitches but we can just overlook them as the past now. We arrived at the sight and we were greeted by the North Berwick wind so tea and coffee were consumed huddled behind the minibus. We split into two groups with Anna and, our upland path trainer, Matt taking Rob, Craig and Steven to the quarry to pick out our lovely stone. The rest of us began the task of cornering off our area so that the lovely locals would divert their usual route up the Law and let us begin our exciting new task. When our diversions were in place we decided that the gorse surrounding the path needed a bit of a hair cut….which may have turned into a shave rather that trim but looked very well cut back in the end. After a few cut backs of tree and other over grown vegetation it was time to regroup and head home for the day.
Wednesday
Back at the Law the day was spent prepping the hillside for the stone arriving….which never came….So it was to the near by quarry (glorified tip judging by the mattress and other lovely things people decide to dump in the natural environment) so that Matt could demonstrate the techniques that will be required in the weeks to come. The path was marked out so that when the stone arrived work could commence.
Thursday
We were guaranteed today that the lorry with our stone would arrive by 10.30am but once again someone was against us and the said vehicle decided it would break down with a huge volume of stones in it so yet again a day without stone….however, this did not damper out spirits and the group battled on moving type one up a very steep slope so our hats off the wheel barrower’s Rob B, Rachel and Neil and out stone carriers Rob H, Martin, Pam and Pat. While this was happening turf was removed from the path and a trench was started at the top of the path to divert water away from our not yet created beauty of a path. Lunch was well deserved by all! After lunch we were joined by an archaeologist who needs to oversee our digging to see if we find any interesting artefacts. Martin may have found some pottery but the bit of material needed to be scraped back very gently to find out for sure. The day ended with everyone a lot more tired than they were at the start of the day, I think this project will make us fit as a fiddle.
p.s. our camera broke today so we have no photographic proff of events but we were there!
If you would like to see pictures from this week (not Thursday) or previous weeks click here.