Queens Birthday is well known in New Zealand as NZART conference weekend. This year conference was held in Christchurch and it meant of course that on the Monday, Warren made sure that he had time to tick off another SOTA summit and get it into his log. We got some great views up the top looking out towards the Southern Alps with their dusting …
ZL-Sota
Out the back of the country lands between Cambridge and Matamata, lies Maungakawa Summit. Warrens selling point for today was to tell us (and just quietly i think he had himself fooled too) that the hill was not much bigger or harder than Kakepuku which we can see from home and that walk is certainly easily achievable to scale. In all fairness and to …
Now that ZL3 is live, here’s another ZL blog you should check out: https://zl3cc.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/mount-pleasant/ As well as being a keen DXer and all round nice guy,…
The launch of Zl3 on May 1st 2016 was not something that was on our list of yes we must do’s this year in terms of SOTA activation’s, however when Andrew got in touch and said he was going to be there and invited Warren to join him for a joint activation as ZL3 went live, the opportunity was too good to miss. Andrew (VK3ARR) …
Rainbow Mountain is homed in the Bay Of Plenty, not far from the geothermal wonderland of Rotorua and from its summit you get a 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains and lakes. We left home today at 5.30am and set off on our hike around 7.30am. The summit track is labeled as an advanced track, although it is not overly difficult there are some …
Mount Threeve is located to the south of Hastings and is a secondary transmitter site for broadcast radio. It once also broadcasted TV 4 and Hawkes Bay TV, however these transmitters were switched off during the move to digital. There are still FM broadcast and land mobile users on site. While teaching in Hastings, I had an early finish and a free afternoon to go …
Just to the south of Rotorua is Waipa State Mill. nestled in this forest is an area of bush that is home to Kakapiko summit. I managed to visit this summit after finishing teaching early in Rotorua. A quick check of the maps, I drove south on SH5 from Rotorua and just after the SH30 turn off is a turn to the left towards the …
Somewhere out between Te Kuiti and Taupo on DoC land, Pureora Summit calls itself home. Getting to the base car park was easy driving (metaled road) and the tramp to the summit was gentle for the most part, although as you near the summit there are a lot of steps. Conditions were perfect for a tramp until we neared the summit and light drizzle came …
Today’s adventuring saw Warren dabbling his SOTA feet on the hills and air-waves of Taihape. This morning we left home at 4.30am to meet up with other HAM’s for a visit to Irirangi to see the workings of the army radio operations sites. There was a good turn out for this event and after lunch at the Waiouru Army Museum Cafe we high tailed it …
After leaving Taupo the plan was to head home, though as our feet were sore and Taupo township was bedlam due to the iron man competition on that day we headed Rotorua way for some lunch and an intended stop to soak out feet in the foot pools, though another summit was first on Warrens wish list after our lunch. We headed to Ngongotaha and …