Four of us made the journey to Marsden in West Yorkshire for a day's bracken bashing. Daniel did a carshare with Victor and Adrian, and they met Andy S at the rangers office at 9:30. Ranger Francesca ferried us in the 4x4 to the access point to the worksite and we then walked up to the worksite in Oakner Clough. The task was to clear bracken from around newly planted trees because the bracken was overtopping them and shading them out. Slashers were very effective at cutting back the bracken, but it was sweaty work on steep ground and in hot sunshine. The hot weather could not have been more different to when we were last here last August in rain and wind!
We stopped bashing at lunchtime and had a picnic lunch in the shade of trees near the 17th century Close Gate packhorse bridge. The bridge's low sides allowed heavily laden horses to cross.
After lunch, Francesca showed us a fossil 200 metres from the bridge. Adrian said it was a Calamites, a genus of extinct arborescent (tree-like) horsetails to which modern horsetails are closely related. Unlike their herbaceous modern cousins, these plants were medium-sized trees, growing to heights of 30–50 metres and lived in the Carboniferous Period (around 360 to 300 million years ago).
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| Calamites |
We returned to the 4x4, cutting back ferns and nettles on either side of the footpath. Once back at the 4x4 we drove via Slaithwaite (pronounced Slawit!!) to the Buckstones car park on the A640 so that Francesca could empty the litterbin and we did a quick litter pick. The views from the car park were fantastic. You could see for miles in every direction. We counted five paragliders in the air. The views from up there must have been even better!
Thanks to Adrian, Andy S and Victor for an excellent workday and to Francesca for hosting us and telling us so much about the Trust's work in the area and the important bog stabilisation work the Trust and Yorkshire Water are doing.
Daniel
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