Travel Diary of a Bushcrafter, Ecology Gardener and Angler: My Part in Building the Eden Project, Cornwall back in year 2000

Above: We came to Cornwall to see the Total Eclipse on 11 August 1999 and at the same time investigated the site of where the Eden Project was to be built .

Back in August 1999 me and Lisa , my girlfriend at the time, decided to make the slightly brave move from Woking , Surrey UK way down Southwest to Cornwall so I could work on the construction of the Eden Project .

Interestingly a Christian lady at a church in Devon had months earlier told me she had a word from God and the word was for me.

This word was simply "Cornwall" . I had dismissed this as simply wishful thinking on her part. Then few weeks later my Dad showed me a newspaper article about something interesting going on down in Cornwall . Needless to say my ears pricked up after what that woman at the Church had said.

Above : The China Clay pit at Bodelva around the time of the Total Solar Eclipse

in 1999 I took this photo from the edge of the pit work had just begun on building up the

levels at the base of the pit before any constuction could begin .

This new project to be called Eden project was the dream child of Tim Smit, the same entrepreneurial Dutch man behind renovating the Lost Gardens of Heligan, and also ex record producer for Nolan sisters, Barry Manilow and maybe even Rich Astley.

Above: Me in the Mediterranean Biome marking out the paths

I phoned up St Austell Job centre to enquire about any job vacancies on the Eden Project (EP from now on ) and was offered a job with Saxtons Deep Drillers as a Telepscopic Forklift Operator ( I had just got a licence earlier in the year not realising it would give me a way into working on Eden.

The company had arranged some accomodation for me over at the digger yard of well know local character Jack Harvey ( well known for his dislike of Devon and Cornwall Police which he often made very public at the time ) . I will never forget his humerous float in the Truro Parade in which one of his diggers was diplayed on a big low loader Lorry with its bucket going through a mock up of a Police Car !. My accomodation was in the security cottage at the yard . My girlfriend moved down to cornwall a couple of weeks later once we had found larger accomodation .

Anyway my first few days at the EP were spent high up on a cliff ledge sitting in a stationary forklift. Here I spent all day lowering down drilling rods into a small square pit located behind the the future site of the Humid Tropics Biome. We were drilling a deep hole , its a long time ago now and don't remember the purpose of this hole perhaps for cables or drainage .

Around me the cliffs were being reinforced by another team of men who drilled horizontal holes deep into the slightly crumbly cliff face. These holes had steel rods inserted and concreted in. The ends of the rods secured a strong wire mesh which covered the whole surface of the area of cliff . This Mesh was then sprayed with liquid concrete making the area of cliff much more stable

Above: My Renault 5 parked in the Mediterranean Biome year 2000

After my drilling job was completed after about a week or two I was given new jobs collecting water tanks and filling them and taking them to various parts of the EP where the water was used to make the liquid concrete for spraying. One of the delivery sites was high up a steeep track behind the HTB here I panicked and got the forklift jammed against the cliff face . The foreman was furious and sacked me on the spot . To be fair i had already been told off earlier in the day for sipping tea whilst waiting for a tank to fill instead of driving off looking for another job to do.
I remember feeling mortified as I was escorted off site and I was depressed and confused for quite a while.

Thankfully a few months later a got a new job on the EP with a different company McAlpines I think it was , and this offered a great deal of variety in work .