Dean Castle Country Park welcomed ten international volunteers for a 10 day workcamp this August carrying out conservation tasks in the Park staying in the new residential Treehouse Centre. The workcamp, which was run with charity Xchange Scotland, brought together volunteers from Czech Republic, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, ranging in age from 18 to 74!

They started off their stay with some heavy lifting, shovelling stone and repairing footpaths around the paddocks in the farm. The hard work continued throughout the first week with fence repair, ditch digging and reconstructing a set of steps near the Dower House.

The volunteer team also spent a day in their second week working on long distance route, the River Ayr Way. In the wooded gorge at Ballochmyle, the team fixed boardwalk, repaired a fence and cleared drainage, making the path safe for our River Ayr Way Challenge ultra-marathon runners in September. The team were assisted by two local volunteer campleaders, Stuart and Bex, who did a fantastic job bringing the international volunteers together as a team and showing them the best of Scotland. The volunteers made the most of their free time while they were here as well, climbing Ben A’an, cycling round Cumbrae, going out in Glasgow and having a fire on Troon beach.

The volunteer team got an enormous amount of work done in the short time they were here in some very classic Scottish weather and all the team at Dean Castle are hugely grateful for their hard work. We look forward to welcoming the next group of international volunteers next year. This is the fourth workcamp run at Dean Castle by the Volunteer Development Coordinator, a Heritage Lottery funded post through the Parks for People grant.

You can see a few more photos of the team hard at work here