The Southrepps rainforest grows apace!

 

Himalayan Balsam being the persistent pest that it is, the previous working party’s efforts to remove it, heroic though they were, had had to leave plenty of emerging plants for another session. And so it was that a mere seven days later nine doughty volunteers once again set forth into the sodden and visibly growing reedbed to take on the challenge. Regular readers (if any exist) will not be surprised to learn that your usual correspondent had once again absented himself: this time in order to soak up the Greek sunshine, while his colleagues selflessly just got soaked. And so, yet again, we are grateful to Team Leader Julie for her words and pictures:

Yep the reed has grown - volunteers were soon lost amongst it as they fought their way over to the beck to make the hazardous crossing!

I think Chris de Burgh said “don’t pay the ferryman” but I think ours deserved a bonus payment - thanks go to Noel for finding a spot to cross and helping us all over - with no one falling in!!

He did the same going back too - hurling our luggage over first - well huge sacks laden down with balsam anyway - before ably assisting us back over again!

In between our beck crossings we were busy seeking and pulling the pesky Balsam.

Though Noel looks like he is counting his!

Margaret, of course, let her OCD take over and went almost to the top of her wellies in the water trying to get one she’d seen on the opposite bank!

Muddy wellies were on display in the car park when we finished…

I’m told this last one looks like the end of “Bargain Hunt”…and what a bargain - nine heavy bags full of Balsam.

It’s a huge pile now which we’ve covered and will leave to rot down.

A good job done by a tremendous bunch of hardy volunteers.

Here is the Team Leaders’ message of thanks:

Hello all

This is a huge thank you to the nine who turned out today to tackle the Himalayan Balsam over the beck near to the car park - we can all confirm that the water is quite deep! A really thorough job was done and nine extremely full and heavy bags were emptied onto our now huge covered heap to rot down.

We will have a few weeks respite now before heading over to the Warren Road end of the site to see what is over there. Unfortunately, we will have to let that grow taller so we can see it in the taller reed!

We have had a steady number of volunteers helping out over the last few weeks, it's been a little relentless - so thank you to you all -  especially those mad enough to have turned out every time! We are extremely grateful.

We will be in touch when we are ready to go again - in the meantime, take care and enjoy the sun when it does make an appearance!

Regards, Julie and the TLs