Hackfall Woods revisited: 9-10-2012

Editor's note: Today's task was the culmination of work carried out by no fewer than four volunteer groups. The sand and hardcore mentioned involved 2 days of track barrowing of material down steep paths a couple of weeks before by the Hackfall volunteer group. The Open Country volunteers previously played a part in helping to gather sand from Alum Spring.  

The NCVs' perspective:

What a stunning autumn day it was when 7 NCVs, Paul our leader and 12 willing volunteers from Wolseley UK- one of the AONB’s “Firm Friends”- met in the car park at Hackfall Woods in preparation for a combined task of the day. Doug Adamson welcomed the willing workers on board, then we gathered a barrowful of tools, buckets and spades (no, not the beach variety unfortunately!), and set off along the track to  Alum Spring, savouring the beautiful clear views before dropping down into the equally lovely wood.

We introduced ourselves one by one, together with announcing our favourite woodland animal. Oh how we wished later that we could have had that elephant that Sunil admired so much, to take the strain of the loads we had to carry up the hill, but at the time we did not know what lay in store…..!

Our task was to continue with the path upgrade that was started some weeks before. This entailed filling large plastic buckets with hardcore initially, later on with sand. 

The path in question was the other side of a small waterfall, which was crossed by teetering over large but stable boulders, then uphill along a pretty woodland trail. Wolseley UK and the NCVs quickly made themselves into a human chain, 3 gallant “Wolseleys” stood in the waterfall to get the buckets across the water, then the heavy buckets were passed up, up ,up, to the waiting wheelbarrow. 

The hardcore and sand were transferred from the buckets and wheeled- with enormous strength and muscle power!- up the final yards, where it was spread out by waiting NCVs who were to level the new surface, as well as constructing the wooden barriers along the path edge to prevent the precious materials from tumbling down into the steep wood again. A game of Chinese Whispers was introduced: “less in the buckets”, "no more hardcore”, "only sand now” were some of the messages that were relayed down the human chain. Surprisingly few messages were misinterpreted!!

The day was a fantastic effort of hard work, fun, friendship and teamwork. Our most grateful thanks go to the person who supplied the delicious “cake treats” at coffee break. They were very much appreciated; we did not realise, (the NCVs), that our cake habits have become so well known in the area!!

Ros K.