I managed to get a bit more done on the retaining wall during the week which has had the bonus effect of hiding the gap underneath the floating baseboards. A lot more to do but it's definitely getting a more finished look.
I couldn't really find a way in which to build the wall at this location without some form of corbelling of the upper layers of slate. The base layer is pretty much inline with the front of the slate fencing at this point. To make it slightly more complicated there needed to be another opening for a plant to pass through.
The original idea of another archway was quickly dismissed as being far too fiddly especially with the limited room. It became obvious that the sleeper wall of the raised bed is higher at this end and so gives less room for making a curved arch and so instead went for a simple opening instead.
For some reason of which I'm still not sure why, I gradually transitioned the corbelled wall into a normal wall, whereas at the other end there is a clear change. In hindsight I should have mirrored the other end but it's fairly well stuck together now and I really don't want to have to break it all up, remove the dregs of the adhesive and do it all again. If it bugs me too much I will change it but for now it can stay as it is.
Having left the previous slate wall to dry for a couple of days I was able to finish the rest of the wall and take it up to full height. As with the far end of the retaining wall it stops at the beginning of a soil embankment, incidentally this is also where the sleeper wall finishes leaving nothing to build up from so it all works out quite nicely.
Whilst I'm happy with this end of the wall I think I might end up taking the top few layers off of the corbelled section and rebuilding it with thinner slate blocks as I'm still not overly pleased with how it has turned out. I have plenty of slate left over which can be cut down, but I have run out of CT1 adhesive so need to get some more before I can do anything else and besides it sounds very much like a problem for future me.
At the other end of the raised bed the other return loop still has a floating but without the benefit of having a raised bed underneath to help. It is currently supported on a couple of fence posts but it looks far from the finished article it needs to be. This section will end up being some kind of low profile bridge but it still needs to be done in a decent way and in a way that will blend in with the garden as well as possible.
To mark the beginning of the bridge section a slate parapet with capping slab is being built at the edge of the raised bed. At the moment both bits of parapet wall are just above the base board, but again the lack of CT1 adhesive has stopped play, which is probably just as well I need to make some adjustments to both the base board and track alignment. Once the adjustments have been made and parapet walls completed then the slate fencing can be finished off although there wont be much more ballasting done until the bridge detailing has progressed.
So that's it for the moment, some fiddly time consuming work to do on the bridge section and more than likely some retaining wall to re build but it's getting there, even if it is a slow process at times.