This was my second time to visit Strumpshaw Fen. But unlike the last visit which was purely for a leisure walk, this time was for conservation work - trail maintenance.

The trail we worked on had a small slope at the start. So we spreaded some sand to make that slope more even and less easy for the people to fall over. Some parts of the trail was also spreaded with sand to help water draining otherwise the trail will be too boggy in winter. The amount of the sand used should not be too much, just enough for making a thin layer over the trail, or it will impede the normal grass growth in the trail.

Th sand was dug out in areas adjacent to the trail. The pictures on the left and right below show the look of the trail at the start and at the end of our work respecitively.

The tools we used were shovels and rakes. It was my first time to use a shovel and I found out the shovel was… soooooooooooo… heavy!! Although the shovel I used was already small sized, shovelling the sand was not at all an easy job, so heavy! Fortunately, there were too many volunteers there, so most of the time I had chosen to use a rake to spread the sand even - this was a lot easier.