Monday, February 25, 2008

More trail building

Being gainfully unemployed has led to me working on the trail pretty much full time.

Well OK, maybe not FULL time...but I'm up to about four hours a day before I get too knackered to carry on.

So far I've built more than 1/2 km and reckon I have at least another 500-600 Mt's to go until I merge with an existing trail about 40-50 mtrs above my current position.


Things were pretty slow going for a while as I had to cut a lot of full bench into rock to make the trail follow the saddle up. I also had to put a switch back in and build no less than four retaining walls.

This section is all finished now. Although its steeper than I would have liked, it drains well and makes for good riding....



Now that I am at the top of the saddle the going is much easier and I'm making good progress. In fact, I have a well defined process.

First of all the trail is walked and marked (there are white ribbons tied to trees in this photo)



Then the trail is cleared...



Then the trail is cut...



Then after triming, compaction (using our dogs fat arse) and a few days to let the soil settle there is the final test....

....the dog run....



If our dog doesn't want to run it..then the trail isn't finished...

Tomorrow I have this lot to clear....



It sure beats working for a living.....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed!! You would have done well as a Fijian Soldier cutting through the jungle of Malaya in the 40s!!!! Gucc looks abit nackered in one of the photos; is she your goffer?

Anonymous said...

Good work Dave - we should bring you back here to KL to work on Kiara some more.