Balsam Bashing by the River

Four GoodGym Yorkies met with Ken, Kevin and Kate from Sustrans. Goodgymer John also volunteers for Sustrans so he was metaphorically wearing 2 hats this evening!

After a briefing from Ken we walked along the path down to the river and were showed examples of the invasive balsam that we needed to remove, along with other growth that was encroaching on the cycle path, which is quite narrow along that particular stretch.

*Kate did a great job with her 'slasher' * and Barbara and Mel helped clear up what she had cut down (basically we threw the cuttings over the fence towards the river to mulch down on top of other weeds). We were soon joined by a fifth GoodGymer - Debs, who only started GG last night on her first group run. She is now converted! We were thanked for our efforts by several passers-by and even a passing rower.

Mel said its lovely to be thanked from both the path and the river

After an hour of solid weed pulling and throwing we declared the mission a great success and admired our handiwork. There was a definite improvement in the width of the cycle path, doubling it in most places and making it a lot safer for everyone to use. There's still lots to do along the cycle path so no doubt we will be back balsam bashing soon!