Another good day on the Frome

Despite the overnight and morning rain, we decided to have another go at the balsam on the far bank of the Frome between Black Rocks and Cogmill. Although the river yesterday was probably wadeable, it had risen by at least a foot by today so once again we decided to cross using the metal footbridge near Cogmill.

Returning to the same spot we cleared last week, we were pleased to see that there were very few stragglers which we'd missed. We were slightly less pleased to see that the island which we wanted to work on seemed even more inaccessible than last week.

The Route across to the Island

However, donning waders and wellie boots we were able to get across without getting our feet wet. We were then able to clear the majority of the balsam some of which had reached more than 2 metres tall and were beginning to form flower buds.

At the same time some of the group worked along the river bank and cleared a large swathe of balsam growing between the edge of the field and the river.

There's still more to do but we have cleared a huge amount on this section of the river which in previous years had seemed both inaccessible and insurmountable.