Waterways Recovery Group

Last year  Swansea Canal was visited for a few days from WRG volunteers who were camping on the Brecon and Monmouth Canal.  They helped the society’s volunteers to clear vegetation from Ynyscedwyn

This year  Swansea Canal hosted a week long camp of their own.  The work commenced  on the Trebanos Upper and Lower Locks, starting on August 31st

The walls supporting the canal sides were repaired and re-pointed, where appropriate.

If you go down to the exit of Lower Trebanos Lock now, you will see that the water is cascading out of the by-wash into the canal where debris has been removed.

Just how busy can one lock get. Eighteen WRG volunteers, six SCS members, several CRT staff,, a couple of new members attracted by the pre-camp publicity, and one dog, all working  away on Trebanos  Lock like bees in clover.  The services of Bob Grainger and Paul Williams, the photographers, were also greatly appreciated. A wonderful sight.

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Note the prominence of the First Aid Kit and the tea urn, Get the priorities right and everything else falls into place.

On the off-side Himalayan Balsam is uprooted, stones that have fallen from the bank dry stone wall into the canal are collected prior to replacement

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And here is Gordon, our resident willow master, about to set up his jig and get everyone a-weaving of the withies before, no doubt, breaking into a spontaneous Welsh Clog Dance.

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Now this is what I call an infestation of Himalayan Balsam. We were given special dispensation by Mark Robinson at CRT to deal with it in its flowering (but pre-podding) state.

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