"Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour." A cliché, I know, but surely the poet, William Cowper must have been thinking about volunteering with the National Trust wardens on Northern Ireland's Causeway coast when he coined the phrase almost three hundred years ago!

First, there's the geography: covering sixty miles of the Derry and Antrim coast, the sweeping Atlantic beaches around Portstewart and the charming village of Cushendun in the Glens of Antrim have only beauty in common. Your experiences of all these National Trust treasures will be unique to each of them.

This part of Ireland seems to have everything: the silver strands of Whitepark bay, the majestic cliff top walks at Runkerry or Larrybane, the dizzying traverse of the old rope bridge at Carrick-a-rede, the cultured classical gardens and intriguing history of Downhill Demesne, and, of course, the unforgettable Giants Causeway itself, surely the "Poster Boy" for Northern Irish tourism. The range of experience offered to us by the National Trust in this part of Ireland is truly breathtaking.

Just as varied as the experience of the tourist on this wonderful coast is the experience of volunteering with the National Trust in this area. I spent March and April as a full-time volunteer with the North Coast warden team. As the lambs began to appear in the fields and the evenings stretched longer, I saw first hand the splendid work that the wardens do in maintaining these sites and ensuring that the visitors to the Trust properties can enjoy them in their full glory.

Working mostly outdoors with a team of seven wardens and five volunteers, my experience was as varied as the settings in which we were placed.

Monday, for example, I am helping weld a tractor tyre in the warden's yard;
Tuesday we mingle with surfers on Portstewart Strand as we realign posts to enhance facilities for cars;
Wednesday finds us clearing rock-falls on our World Heritage site at the Giants Causeway;
Thursday I am mowing the picnic area in the evocative shadow of Dunseverick Castle; and
Friday I am helping prepare a Trust owned holiday home for occupation, and while I work, a wedding is taking place 100 yards away in Ireland's smallest church, St Gobban's, with the perfect backdrop. Across the way, the crashing waves of Whitepark Bay glisten in the spring sunshine.
By the weekend, I am windbeaten, sun browned and seriously satisfied!

Volunteering with the Wardens also gave me the opportunity to get involved in a variety of exciting new projects undertaken by the Trust. While hedge planting near Downhill Demesne with local farmers under countryside management guidelines, I saw first hand a scheme behind Hezlett House. Here scores of volunteers prepare allotments for members of the local community to grow their very own fruits and vegetables.

I was lucky enough to spend a few days at Carrick-a-Rede on a project to conserve and regenerate the small fisherman's house on the island. Visitors can learn how Salmon fishing has shaped local lives and the landscape of the North Coast. This project is ambitious. Sods of the dislodged turf have to be re-laid, the house restored and steps built for access. My role was to help build a retaining wall to protect the house from further land slides. This entailed carrying hundreds of concrete blocks, inappropriately nicknamed 'soap bars', from the top of the steps, across the rope bridge and down to the fisherman's house, stopping only to chat with the excited array of island visitors and to occasionally watch mesmerized as the guillemots and razorbills soar from the edge of the island and nestle safely into the side of the rock cliff.

I have also been involved in formal volunteering activities. A group of civil servants from the Department of Enterprise and Trade abandoned pens and laptops at their offices in Belfast and picked up shovels and wheelbarrows on the North Coast to help restone the Runkerry path which makes for a stunning walk from the Giant's Causeway to the nearby seaside village of Portballintrae. We made steps. We fixed fences. We regenerated the path. It was fantastic to be involved in a project where everyone enjoyed themselves so much and we could see the results immediately.

Not only do they engage in many different types of work, but their equally varied backgrounds equip the warden team with the skills to deal with almost anything. With a collective experience in engineering, farming, mechanics and construction, together there is nothing they cannot do.

Varied also are the contacts one makes while volunteering with the National Trust. Thus far I have worked with people from Ballycastle and from Greece, from Portrush and from Germany - people of all ages, delighting in the enthusiasm and energy of the youngest married with the experience of the older retired volunteers and all that is offered by everyone in between. As a volunteer warden you are dealing with the rangers on the different properties, the administration teams and the National Trust education staff - not to mention the thousands of local and international tourists who visit the National Trust every year. This eclectic mix of people makes the volunteering experience highly rewarding.

Of course, the opportunities to volunteer with the National Trust on the North Coast exist not only with the wardens. The range of opportunities helps certainly to provide yet further 'spice' in one's routine. Volunteers may help out with anything at all, from gardening and conservation research to tour guiding, welcome rangering or administration. Whether as a one-off event or a more regular commitment all contributions are valued.

Cowper shared a love of nature with the National Trust - so much so that he changed the direction of eighteenth century poetry by writing about the very coast and countryside for which the National Trust cares. The places where I have worked along the sixty miles of coastline managed by the North Coast team are truly spectacular. Sharing tea breaks with the wardens I stand gazing in awe, looking at the waves crashing against the causeway stones, at the seabirds soaring between the coastal cliffs and Rathlin island and I am reminded of Cowper's words about the power of the nature here on our back door-step.

GOD moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

'Light Shining out of Darkness' (1779)