Dalby Forest Weekend Residential, 19-20 March 2011
Friday night and 13 of us set off for the North Yorkshire moors for what
turned out to be a great weekend of warm weather, great food and company and
plenty of scrub bashing. The accommodation was in Bransdale Mill, hidden
away in the remote valley of Bransdale. This restored watermill is
ideal for getting away from it all, with no TV and no mobile reception. The
toilet block is across the yard which, as Laura pointed out, is great for
allowing you to experience the tranquility of an early morning in the dales.
Saturday morning and we set off for Dalby Forest to meet Dave from Butterfly
Conservation. We started by clearing scrub regrowth from an area we
had helped to clear about 2 years ago. That lasted the morning when we
moved over to an area that was being cleared of much bigger scrub.
This occupied us for the rest of Saturday and Sunday and made for some
serious felling chopping and dragging, plus a small bonfire, although the
warm spring weather didn't make that as attractive as on a cold winters day!
Back
at base on Saturday evening, we enjoyed a big feast of pork and vegetable
stew and dumplings with mash and veg, overseen by Nick, while the non meat
eaters tucked into a vegetable stew with cheesy dumplings courtesy of Lucy.
Dessert was a tasty fruit crumble prepared by Nicola &Sara. All washed down
with a fine selection of wines, beers and some of Simon's homemade wine. We
gathered round the blazing open fire, burning some of our cut logs from the
day's work, although the value of seasoned logs became apparent as we dodged
the spitting fire!
All in all, a great residential task. Julian
More photos on the LCG Picasa website
