Trail News

Although the Brexit, a terrible blow to Europe’s  unity, achievements, and common goals, is  overshadowing all other news at this moment, I still would like to update you on happenings at the CERCA front.

With Murphy’s Law never failing everything happened on the same day. After waiting weeks for the grader of Duncan Paving becoming available to prepare the parking lot for the trail, Western Stevedoring had chosen the same day to start the foot-bridge replacement. This happened to be one day after we had prepared the site for the kiosk with the assistance of ‘Sinclair Utility Construction’. But we are grateful for the long-awaited progress. 

Duncan Paving provided the grader free of charge and Brandon, one of their employees, donated a full day of his time to operate the machine in order to grade the parking lot and spread the road base we had to purchase. A big ‘Thanks’ to Duncan Paving for sponsoring just another one of our projects. Duncan Paving had been very generous already earlier in supporting CERCA’s bridge project.

We are also very grateful to Kevin Sinclair for providing his mini-excavator and Trevor Beaugard for volunteering his time to operate the machine, assisting us in the site preparation for the kiosk at the trail-head and other sites for signage along the trail. Both Kevin and Trevor have already agreed to donate machine- and their personal time also for the planned landscaping of the parking lot which will happen during the last week of June, a sign of the impressive generosity of local companies in support of Cowichan Valley community projects and CERCA in particular. A big 'Thank you' to all of them who continue donating to a good cause.

In summary:

·         foot-bridge at trail-head: except for the railings the bridge has been replaced. The railings will be constructed by Western Stevedoring during the last week of June.

·         parking lot at trail-head and kiosk site:  the parking lot has been graded and surfaced. The landscaping will be completed during the last week of June. The kiosk site has been cleared and the concrete pad finished. The kiosk will be constructed by 'Robert’s Timber Framing' to be completed the last week of June.

Goetz Schuerholz (Chair CERCA)