Luckily the rain had passed before our task at Ruxley Gravel Pits.

Upon arrival we made our way to the work area, loaded ourselves with the tools we needed and headed to where the River Cray meets the lake.

We were surprised how much everything had grown since we were last on site in March.

We set to work cutting back the brambles and saplings while burning the remnants on the bonfire 🔥

4 of us from Goodgym Bexley made our way to the very edge of Bexley for this Community Mission at Ruxley Gravel Pits Nature Reserve
We were met at the gates by Martin, who let us on site, and led us to where we would be working for the day. As we meandered our way through the mud and the puddles, Martin gave us some information about the site, what they do and a bit of history. Loaded with saws and loppers, we joined the other volunteers and began to hack away at the brambles, trees and weedy growth next to the lake which were stopping the reeds coming through.
After a short break from the work, Martin took as on a short tour of the site, showing us the fresh deer tracks from the morning, apparently one of the other volunteers had spotted the deer but Martin told us that he was yet to see any.

He thought that some of the tracks may be from a baby deer 🦌

He also told us some history of the site and what the volunteers do to improve the wildlife there.
We returned to our work area and continued to cut back into the overgrowth, looking at how much we had cut back and how far we had cut in, we hadn't realised just how much we had done.
We collected the tools and tidied the areas before making our way back.
Martin and the volunteers thanked us for our work and we discussed about joining them again in September.