On Thursday 16 January, some P6 pupils went to Holyrood Park to help the park rangers cut back and control the gorse bushes. Read one pupil’s account of the day below:
We started off at the Education Centre to meet the rangers and receive our instructions and then we headed across Arthur’s Seat to Whinnie Hill (‘Whin’ is old Scot’s language for gorse). When we got there the rangers showed us how to use the equipment. We were shown how to use loppers and bow saws safely. After that, we headed off in our small groups to different areas on the hill to start gorse cutting.
I started using the saw to chop down trees with Eve, while Annabel and Georgia used the loppers to cut down smaller bits of gorse. After a while we had realised that we had actually cut down an awful lot of gorse.
I really enjoyed it even though the gorse prickled me a little. I think I enjoyed it so much because I knew that we were volunteering our time for a good cause. We were cutting down gorse to stop any wild fires from spreading too far. At the end I was really sad to have to put down our tools and leave. I would love to do it again some time.
