They always say to expected the unexpected and well, to be fair that was just what we found as we made our way to our final summit for today. Firstly on the backgrounds towards the summit, going up into the hills via a narrow gravel back roads we met a ute towing a quad bike on a trailer going too fast.
Once we reached the locked gates to the summit of Te Awaputahi Dave unlocked the gates and we started the drive to the summit. About a quater of the way in we hit our second hiccup for this activation journey. A tree had fallen across the path and there was no way around it. This meant we had to get out of the truck and find a way to move it. Luckily we had the means to do this or the blog post would end here.
After taking to the tree with an axe and saw and then pulling it out of the way we made the rest of the drive up the track to the summit.
By now Dave knew what to do once we got to the top and He and Warren made short work of getting the aerial set up and ready to active our final summit of the day. The sun was streaming down by mid afternoon and despite the wind, Warren in particular with his sunburn prone skin came off the summit looking rather pink. Dave by now had taken it upon himself to undertake as usual the job of rounding up the local Hams to give live with Warren and help him activate ZL1/HB-106. We need to thank those who were about, especially those who Warren was able to contact to help spot him on SOTA watch as the cell reception at this summit was not the best.
The summit of Te Awaputahi as with all our summits today had impressive sights on all sides with views out to the ocean way in the distance. Once Warren was on the air he made 13 contacts including a summit to summit with VK1MBE on top of VK1/AC/040 Mount Ainslie near Canberra.
And so ended another successful day in the ZL-SOTA world with three summit activations ticked off for the day!
Summit Information
Te Awaputahi ZL1/HB-106
Summit height – 581 m
Access from Birch Rd East
Nominal time to summit – 10 minute drive from the roadside.
Summit marker – Trig Station.
Land access permission – Required from the forestry or Rangitoto Radio. Locked gates.
