Path Work - Balmoral Estate, the Mourne Mountains, and Glencoe

So here in Scotland May tends to be our summer.  It really seems like it's the month we get the most amount of sun and the least amount of rain.  Don't get me wrong, the summers in Scotland are definitely warmer, but they are also filed with lots and lots of rain......and midges. However May this year has been as strange as March and April with the mix of very hot days and some very cold wet, regularly snowing days.  Instead of spring we've had an interesting mixture of winter and summer.

We spent the first and second week of May back at Balmoral Estate back beside Fèith an Laoigh.  Similar to the lower section we were working on at the end of April, the actual surface of the path was pretty hard and the main focus was on removing the water off it.

That meant we needed to put in quite a few water bars and cross drains, as well as a few long drains to feed the water to them.  

We were also a few burrow pits to be dug to gain the surfacing needed to help finish off the water features and raise some of the sections out of the damper areas.  We dug a particularly big burrow pit on the last day to completely finish the work.  That was a tough day but completely worth it and a nice way to say goodbye to the site.

Whilst the scenery at that location on Balmoral Estate was definitely not my favourite we did still get to see some wildlife, most notably a newt when it was particularly wet. 

Then there was a completely different location for week 3, the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland.  I've been to Northern Ireland a few times but never really to this area so it was great to get an opportunity to see it.  The view of the mountains against the sea is really stunning though, typically, when we got to the top of Slieve Bearnagh the clouds had come down and we couldn't see a thing.

My role in this was to help with some survey work on a lower section of the path and that meant I actually had some time to do some exploring of the area.  Namely visiting the sand dunes at Murlough National Nature Reserve.  Was definitely worth a visit.

The last week before I went on holiday was with a different contractor and at a different location again.  This time it was on  the west coast, on a path in Glencoe called Coire man Lochan and it's a killer on the legs.  It's a good walk but pretty steep and, while you do get used to it after a while (and I'll definitely have time for that), I definitely don't see myself being able to speed up that hill as I was able to do with others.  It's had work done to it before, but the sheer angle of the path means that it gets eroded and destroyed pretty quickly.

Before

After

Steps and revetment added.

Added anchor bar at top

The maintenance work that I carried out was mainly adding anchor bars and revetments to hold the surfacing in its sections, instead of it just shooting off down the path, and adding features which will make the route of the path much more obvious to those using it.  At the moment there are a few braids, but hopefully the work we're doing will allow the vegetation to grow back in those places.

The views from this path are absolutely amazing and makes the slog up and work so much easier.  There's nothing like sitting with a cup of tea on your break staring at that. And this'll be my view for a few months now. Lucky me.