Got leave to spend a few night away camping. Decided on Bakers Downfall Hill. So packed up all my camping gear and headed North again.
I liked VK2/NW-006 last time I was there. And I noted it would be a good site to camp at. So that's what did. Directions to get to this site are in this previous blog post. With the added bonus of all the activations taking place for Easter and ANZAC Day hoildays gave me the chance to catch a stack of S2S.
Only issue getting to the site was a tree down across the access road, which only took a short time to clear off. Got up to the top and set up my camp. Grabbed the SOTA gear and did the walk out of the activation zone and back in to set up about 20m away from my camp.
Spent three nights on this lovely, but windy, spot. No stink bikes! No bogans! No bugs! Just quiet. And there wasn't much wildlife either. Just the odd wombat and some dingos. Only heard 3 cars on the dirt road that was about 1 km away. Lovely. Even broke my camping rule of "no fires". Just sat in the quiet and enjoyed my book. And every time Rucksack Radio made a noise I'd walk out of the activation and zone and back in to grabbed every S2S I could. 166 contacts, 36 S2S, 14 countries.
I forgot to move the fridge off 12v onto gas on the first night. And found next morning my sub battery had dropped to 4 volts. Doe! So I was a bit toey about using the main battery in the ute. I've been stuck on a hill top in the past when my battery died. So I wasn't charging my LiFePo as often as I should of.
Got off the hill on Wednesday and when I got onto Thunderbolts Way I SMSed the XYL to tell her I was on the way. She SMSed back "I thought you were home tomorrow" Cool! Thought I! And then "Stay out an extra night if you want". Wow! Even cooler!
I didn't want to go back to where I'd been so I headed off to VK2-NT-009 which I have activated a few times before. But I knew it had a nice campsite at the base of the hill. Spent two night here. Also the drive gave me the chance to charge up my sub battery and LiFePo as well.
Getting into the activation zone was a bit more effort this time. All the way up to the fire tower and back each time I needed to charge battery, get food or just get out of the wind. Got my exercise in at this site.
97 contacts, 14 S2S, 16 countries.
In a previous post I said I needed a HF rig installed in the ute. I now have the battered IC-706 fitted. And this allowed me to pickup 12 summits while I was crusing along.
And here is a nice PANAROMA VIEW I stopped at on the way home.
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