Path Work - St Abb's

This period of path work has been a little bit different for me compared to what I've been doing throughout the rest of the year.  Firstly, it's been a lowland path by the coast, secondly, it is mostly construction work rather than maintenance, and thirdly I've been working with another contractor.  Similar to the path at Mar Lodge that needed to be re-routed due to the river washing it away, this path has been covered by a landslide and needed to be relocated.

The path was is on the NTS St Abb's Nature Reserve and started from the upper cliff path taking people down to the cove (or it did before the landslide).  The route at the start remains the same, but half way down we're taking it into a different section of the cove to hopefully stop any further landslides affecting people's use.

So, first thing's first, we had to landscape what was left of the old path to reduce the chances of walkers using this section in the future (you can also see the landslide that damaged the original path line).

Next we marked out the new route the client wanted the path to take with red flags.  And then construction began.  It basically made up of a series of stone pitching sections followed by trays with surfacing and stone revetments to hold everything in place, which is slowly winding it's way up to the top.

As with most paths like this we started at the bottom on the beach and are working our way up the path.  As the site is in a protected area we didn't use the stones located on the beach but instead selected the ones we needed from a local quarry.  These where then power barrowed and rolled in a controlled manner down the hill to the needed location.

It's actually been a very interesting learning curve as, rather then getting to select the stones that you want to use specifically you have to work the stone that just happens to have been rolled down to you.  A very interesting jigsaw puzzle with the added difficulty of weight, size, and weather.

There's still work to be done to this path, with more construction on the upper section, landscaping of the revetments, and more surfacing.  However, it should be finished in the next work stint, which starts next week, hopefully giving people the opportunity to use this path again over Christmas and New Year.

I'm not going to lie, this job has been quite a lot of hard work due to the weather.  The downpours we had last week meant that the ground very quickly turned to mud, and the mud in this location is not only very slippery, but also very sticky.  It quickly stuck to the stones we were using, making them heavier than before and their shapes difficult to decipher, and to our boots and clothing so that it felt like you were wearing a space suit.  On the plus side though, the scenery was always amazing no matter what the weather was doing (either grey and moody, or pastel colour skies on blue sea, not to mention the sunsets) and we got daily visits from seals that swam right up to the shore to inspect what we were doing.  We even had a day where we saw dolphins.

I don't think I'll do another blog on this but will probably post the finally pictures of the completed path on Instagram (@greeninggeorgie).  This is probably going to be the last bit of work that I do on footpaths this year, but will hopefully get to do more in the next.