Author: Tim Pickering

Outdoor Learning Manager

The Trail Trolls

Working with Bespoke Bikes and the Stornoway Trust there is a group of mountain bikers who are helping to maintain and improve the trails in the Castle Grounds. They decided the name they would like is the Trail Trolls.

The Outdoor Team have been working with a group of young people on Saturday mornings with Gavin Earon From the Hebridean Cycling Club, to improve their riding skills. they have been working on the Go Mountain biking awards. The long term aim is to help the Hebridean Cycling Club to develop its junior section. The young people have been away as part of the club to race in the Scottish Mountain Bike series.

On a chilly November Saturday morning the ‘Trolls’ gathered at The Hub for coffee and a very welcome bacon roll before heading out into the Castle Grounds to work on the trail. The Stornoway Trust had kindly delivered a few tons track stone to the top of the trail and with the help of barrows, shovels and a mini digger it was moved down to where it was needed.

The Trolls decided there was an opportunity to not just repair the trail but to make it a bit more ‘bike friendly’. The steps were cleared and then the edge was filled to make them easy to walk down but also to create a ridable line.

There was also the chance to make some bumps for the riders but being careful to ensure the path was still a good path of walkers. This created a good talking point with the young people on multiple users of the same place and looking after your own environment.

Once it was completed there was an opportunity to try it out:

Thanks to Ali Glover from the Hub for organising the morning and the Trolls for a lot of hard work.

Stornoway Playgroup go on a Gruffalo Journey

Stornoway Playgroup took the opportunity to visit the Waterwheel building out in the Castle Grounds to use the building as a different space for story time. The story they enjoyed when they were there was the Gruffalo written by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

They took a leisurely stroll exploring the things they found on the way and when they arrived they had an illustrated story time.

This was made even better because they had taken the Gruffalo with them …

After the story it was a nice walk back into town.

The Outdoor Team and the Stornoway Trust are really pleased the building is being used and if there are other groups who would like to use it contact either Tim or Isi on the Outdoor Team to book it.

 

Laxdale School shelter building

One of the classes, P2/3, in Laxdale School are doing a project on weather and with the class teacher we thought one way of exploring this would be to build shelters in the Castle Grounds, to talk about why you need shelter to protect you from the weather. There was a sub-text as part to the learning, to get the young people to experience working effectively as a team and think about how they could do this better.

The weather started the day with a bit of rain but improved as it went on.

The plan was to arrive from the school and head to the water-wheel building with the shelter building equipment. After talking about the water wheel and why it was there, we began to talk about why we need shelter. Before we headed out into the woods several of the young people discovered a water fall coming off the roof and decided to see what it felt like to have it fall on you and then to taste it.

 

Using the tarps, cord and pegs the young people set about creating a shelter to protect themselves from the weather, the four groups made very different shelters using the varieties of trees and other materials.

At lunch time we were able to use the great new facilities at ‘the HUB’ for the young people to use the toilets.

Some of the building materials they young people used were significant in size?

When the shelters were all complete and the young people spent some time making them feel a bit more like somewhere they would like to stay, then each group was able to give the others a tour of their shelter and to explore it. We then drew the learning back to the features which would protect them from the weather and how.

The final thing the young people were left with was to go and explore and question the difference between weather and climate.

The new Modern Apprentice settles in

Andrew joined the team a few months ago and he has been learning the ropes, out and about with Isi. He has been learning about the Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions the team are responsible for. One of the things we hope he will be doing is to blog about his adventures as he learns about working in Outdoor Learning.

It isn’t always hard work though …

Follow up with Stornoway Playgroup

As autumn has turned Stornoway Playgroup wanted to go and explore the Castle Grounds again. The story of our first journey can be seen here.

The journey this time took us up passed the water wheel over the golf course, with the great view of the town, into the broad leaf woodland, towards the college and the Caste where we found some shelters another group had been building. Then back past the Castle under the horse chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastanum) to look for conkers. Finishing upstairs in the Sawmill café for a snack and a drink, which is always a treat.

Conkers collected from the Castle Gorunds

Although the conkers they found were small they were perfect for little hands. The different berries and fruits on the trees and bushes allowed us to talk about how the plants were able to spread their fruit and get other trees to grow, to touch on how things in nature are interconnected. We found and tasted blackberries and played with sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) ‘helicopters’.

Collected Autumn Colours

The next trip the Playgroup are going to take into the Grounds is to the water wheel building, when they are going to walk out and use the space as a place to ‘story time’ before walking back.

Exploring the Castle Grounds with Stornoway Playgroup

On a slightly wet morning Andrew (who has just started work as the Outdoor Learning team on a modern apprenticeship) and Tim met the young people of Stornoway Playgroup at the Golf Club for an adventure exploring the Castle Grounds. They enjoyed the cover of the trees to shelter from the showers.

All the young people were given a magnifying glass and we explained how to use it. This caused great amusement when they realised they could make other peoples eyes much, much bigger. Quickly they discovered they could use them to look at things and for small things.

Although the waterwheel wasn’t working they enjoyed looking it and it will give us an opportunity to visit again.

Bronze Practice Duke of Edinburgh Expedition

On Thursday 7th and Friday 8th a group of Nicolson Institute students did their Bronze Practice Expedition on the West Coast of Lewis. They started at Barvas Machair and their first camp site was at South Galson and then the second day they ended the expedition at the old school in Cross.

Morning Briefing with extra members

On the first day the weather was dreich but this didn’t dampen the spirits of the group, the second day was the opposite with blue skies and sunshine.

 

One young person had an unscheduled dip in one of the streams they were crossing resulting in being a little damp.

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