Drainage Day at Kayamandi BMX Track…

Along with the infamous winter storms that hit Cape Town and its surrounding areas comes the challenges of counteracting the damage they can do. The BMX track in Kayamandi is yet to see through a full winter and we were determined to put a few things in place so that there would be fewer problems.

digging

There was a specific area inside the track where a lot of rain water had been damming up and would not drain through the clay soil, its only path to one of the canals that had already been dug was over a section of track so we had to dig up a section to lay a piece of pipe which would then clear the water.

digging-21

Initially Michal and I thought it would simply be a case of digging out a section and laying the pipe…wet clay and pouring rain…think again!! We really struggled at first but once word had spread most of the guys from the Cycling4Kayamndi group had joined the cause and had brought some proper artillery with them. With a few pick axes and about 7 spades the work became easier and we made some ground.

tunnel

A few hours later the pipe had been layed but we still had to dig out a canal to the main drainage chute but many hands made light work of this in no time.

flowing