Pipeline – the crossing 2011.03.27

Friday, 26 March 2011

No blogs from the previous two trips, the first one by Ellie and I to make a path from Gibson’s Gulch to the river crossing, not quite your average garden job but we managed and then another one by Neil to wield his chainsaw to cut the offending pine tree down.

We were all getting a bit dejected now with the enormity of the job, especially with the problem of crossing the river, and it was good to share our feelings and to encourage one another. We are determined to have water at the old nursery by Easter but still keep it fun and enjoyable.

The solution to the river crossing was to use the bluegum trees as support and suspend the pipe on a thick wire but first we needed to clear the old pipeline track, again lots of gardening.

Here’s the before and after:

We started at eight and by lunchtime we had a track down to the river, while we were having lunch Neil arrived with all the goodies, wire, staples, cable ties and all the tools. Down to the river we went and let the pictures tell the story:

Tying the wire to the tree and the pipe to the wire

Crossing the divide, notice the bad erosion caused by the trees

Winding our way through the forest

Quite a lot of debris

We used the 40mm pipe for the crossing because it is stronger and will take the most pressure. It would have been nice to turn the water on but unfortunately there is still the gap between Gibson’s Gulch and the second fence.

After Neil went home we still went there to try the reamer I had made to clear the metal pipes, we had struggled to push the MDPE through because of the buildup of muck and it worked like a dream. Unfortunately the water stopped flowing, a bit of a worrying mystery but we ran out of time to investigate.