European Year of
Volunteering 2011
   
 

 

  
 

GAIN is a Registered
Charity SC029574

  
     
 

"Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings"

  
 

Hodding Carter

  
 

See Also
GAIN-NESS
 
Local voluntary effort and grant funding has turned this area of disused wasteland into an exciting facility for the whole community.  We have designed the park to be sustainable and to provide stimulation of all the senses using golden sands of natural safer surfacing.

Eoropie Dunes Park has an extensive range of natural and built features, including a fully-fenced traditional playground, a free-play area with a zip-wire, safe tunnels, an embankment slide, a cycle & skateboard zone, swings and slides, a maze, adventure trail and much, much more.  The park is free and open all year round, providing opportunities for every age and ability to have fun and exercise while learning about, and better appreciating,  the spectacular environment that surrounds us.

We are constantly striving to improve facilities at the park and introduce new games and features.  A recent addition is a new mini-digger, which is designed to improve the children's hand-eye co-ordination and develop manual dexterity, especially gross motor control.  The digger is situated in a quiet, sandy valley between two dunes, allowing users to scoop up sand from one area, swing the bucket around and deposit the sand in another.

Rabbits are a familiar sight around our park, and if you're very lucky you might just spot a black one

 

Click images to enlarge
The park's aesthetics are also constantly being improved.  For example, the maze interior is being planted with wild flowers and other interesting and thought-provoking features, and sculptures and artwork are being introduced into the maze's dead-ends. 

A pair of Oystercatchers
 
The park is a wild-life haven with a host of wild flowers, including orchids, forget-me-nots, marsh marigolds, and many other plant species, providing a habitat or home to a variety of birds, mammals and insects, including rabbits, bees and butterflies to name a few.

Our park has a dry stream bed, where the 'stream' feature consists of mosaic stepping stones.  Built by young park users, these depict stream life, with representations of fish, freshwater insects, beetles and dragonflies. 

 

< Click above images to enlarge >
The park contains three beautifully illustrated Nature Trail Boards painted by artist Kate Watling that depict many of the animals, insects and birds that can be found on or near the park.

 Kate Watling is a retired lecturer in Arts & Crafts whose specialty is Lettering, Writing and Illuminating, including work for the Royal Family.

Stream   Machair
The park's management committee (GAIN) also regularly works with agencies, local individuals and organisations to continue to improve the facilities at the site and ensure visiting adults and children have and enjoyable and fulfilling experience.
   

Right: 

A montage of the wild flowers that grow in or around our park. 
Click montage image to enlarge >

Shore   Wild flower montage
We have worked in partnership with the community owned estate trust, Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn (Galson Estate Trust), and the Trust's ranger, Julie Sievewright, on a number of wildlife and environmental projects, such as the 'Mini-beast' workshop we held in the summer of 2006.  In this instance about 20 local youngsters were engaged in a project to learn more about the bugs and beasties that naturally lived in or around the park. The children explored the park, collecting and identifying 'mini-beasts' from traps and searched out their favoured habitats.
 
LEFT: A Painted Lady butterfly, which migrates to Lewis from the mountains of Morocco, finds excellent camouflage on a red brick wall near the Butt of Lewis lighthouse
 
Right: A naughty Cabbage White butterfly laying eggs.  When the caterpillars emerge from the eggs, they will feast on the cabbage that's growing in the crofter's vegetable plot

 
 

 Click images to enlarge

  
 
LEFT: A Sparrowhawk hunting for food in a nearby garden
 
Right: A small bird looking bedraggled after getting wet in the rain

     
LEFT: A juvenile Golden Eagle resting on an earth bank a few miles from the park
 
Right:  Snow Bunting feeding on the machair

     
LEFT: Another bird, possibly a young Song Thrush, almost blends into the rocky outcrop it's resting on
 
Right:  A Whimbrel (or possibly a Curlew) uses its long, slender, beak to search for and dig insects out of the machair grass