SACV Spring Residential.

I spent the weekend in the Peak District with my new friends from SACV, working as a volunteer alongside the National Park Ranger for the Pennine Way. The weather was glorious on both days. We stayed at Brunt’s Barn Volunteer Centre – a barn converted to include a kitchen, large common area, comfy bunks and ablutions.


Brunt's Barn

We arrived late on Friday evening for an evening of introductions, red wine, marmalade tart and Jenga. I met some of the group last time I volunteered. Others were new to me. Everybody was very friendly and very welcoming. The group is really good-humoured, and sometimes very funny too - according to Peter, for example, there are seven different types of block in an officially sanctioned Jenga set. Apparently, each type is shaved slightly differently to make gameplay less predictable. I didn’t believe him for one moment.


Tools and workers, day two

The task on Saturday involved protecting some rare sphagnum moss growing near the Pennine Way on Bleaklow Moor. Walkers avoiding mud had trampled into the bog and damaged the plants. We used subtle persuasive techniques to gently suggest that walkers take a slightly different route along this section of the path: we made the moss side of the path less attractive to walkers, blocking it with coarse grasses to give the impression that there was no way through, and made the non-moss side of the path seem more attractive by creating an obvious stream-crossing point, and then paving the path on either side of the crossing with stones from the stream bed. It worked well, based on the passing walkers at least.


Me with mattock

Sunday’s task also sought to protect the immediate surroundings of a footpath. This time, a lump in the path seemed to lead walkers up onto a soft patch of peat, rather than around on the reinforced path. We built a new path bed in the stream using boulders, and then flattened out the hump and used the displaced earth to grade a gentle decline onto the newly built path. The effect was much the same as on Saturday, subtly suggesting to approaching walkers that a particular route was the best option.


Day two, the flattened lump

In the afternoon, we walked up to Higher Shelf Stones, and looked at the wreckage of a B29 that had crashed there sixty years earlier.


The wreckage, as described here.


More wreckage, still described here.

I really enjoyed the whole weekend. I found it strange that we spent eight hours travelling to and from the work sites - an hour driving and an hour walking each way each day - over the course of the weekend, and only about five hours working. Maybe I'm too used to the hard taskmaster Durex in the allotment. Adjusting to the pace of voluntary work is part of the challenge, I suppose.


DTRPKD