I did something similar in my Siberian tiger outlook, but covered it in stone..
Those stone blocks work really well for covering the siding on paths and stuff, you can make some fun things with them, I am not a professional or anything but, it is pretty basic and simple and I think anyone could easily recreate it for a somewhat nice look, Probably people more creative than me could make it look 100x better. XD
I say try to cover up and make it look sturdy is what counts, it will need to support a lot of traffic so having something sturdy looking I think is a good idea.