The next project must have benn somewhere around 1972/1973.  The Avenue leading from Bellville Main Road to Durbanville (Durban Avenue) was a narrow 2-lane road with a narrow gravel "shoulder".  Starting from roughly 2-3 kilometres from the Bellville side the road was lined with tall trees virtually all the way to Durbanville.  For years it had been an extremely popular "Sunday drive" as one could stop for delicious "tea and scones" just on the Bellville-side outskirts of the (then-village) of Durbanville.

However, by 1972 it had started outgrowing it's "village" status rapidly as development was taking place at an incredible rate.  The Avenue needed to be widened and so the Durbanville Municipality cut down ALL the trees lining the road - and started work on widening it.  The hundreds of trunks lay along the side of the (now widened) Avenue for many months.

I was on leave for 3 weeks from just after the start of new school term in January and I got permission from the Town Engineer to saw and hack away at these trunks and branches to my hearts content!!  Petrol was incredibly cheap those days (8 cents a litre!!) so for almost the full 3 weeks, every second day I drove from Pinelands to the Avenue with my axe, bow-saw, mini-bow-saw etc and I would spend a few hours sweating my way through a couple of hundred pieces of wood!!!  It was fantastic!!!  I usually worked stripped to the waist & wearing just a pair of shorts and a pair of boots (& a hat)!!

There were many poor families living not too far from the road in shacks and run-down cottages who were always looking for fire wood.  They often had to chop and saw pieces of trees into manageable pieces for fire wood.  For those 3 weeks they must have thought a second Xmas had arrived so soon after the previous one as I left all the sawn-up and chopped-up wood there, not taking any with me - I had no need for it!!!  Apart from having enjoyed some really great exercise I also ended up with a beautiful tan (Yes, I used the bext skin-protection suntan lotion even then!!!)

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