This year was better planned and after a fantastic couple of days fishing, Francie and I set off to Te Puke on Saturday to activate this Bay of Plenty summit.
Warren ZL2AJ and family did all the hard work on the initial activation and documented it well on his blog. Please get the access details and how to find the true summit (it's not the trig) etc from there, I'll just add a few observations and photos.
It's a very nice walk in native bush all the way. One of the best marked tracks I've been on. Lots of native birdsong including Kiwi! A really nice experience hearing them in the wild for the first time.
We arrived at the summit which is densely bush-clad, a strange thing for a Canterbury lad used to alpine tussock and bare rock! I set up the pole with the 41' endfed UNUTenna however it was very tricky to erect far enough away and I ended up doubling back around a branch to the operating site. One learning from this is to take a 25' wire to known bush-clad summits in future, easier to manage. It will mean no 80m or 60m however.
 | |
| Antenna wire coming towards camera around branch and back up behind to pole! |
I found Chris ZL4RA with a good signal on 20m SSB for an S2S and then back to 40m SSB and qualified the summit. I knew getting Warren ZL2AJ and John ZL1BYZ in the log was going to be a challenge as they were too close. 80m, 60m and 40m were no good, I finally worked John (and Andre ZL1TM) on 20m CW and unfortunately Warren and I couldn't make it. I am sure my compromised antenna setup and being surrounded by bush didn't help. Reports received were consistently low.
I worked Allen VK2ARH S2S (20mCW) and Gerard VK2IO (17mCW) and that was it, 9 QSOs, 2 S2S.
It's a very popular track and we made sure we were off to the side. 6 parties came past and Francie adeptly explained what we were doing. One lady was keen to learn more and we had a good chat.
In summary, it's a nice, relatively easy walk but quite a challenge to activate. A good challenge!
There is a lot of work involved in maintaining this piece of paradise - community and DOC partnership seems to be very effective. Lots of bait stations (pink markers) targeting predators
The giant Kahikateas are magnificent, friendly North Island Robins come right up close and plenty of Kereru (Wood Pidgeon) and Tui around too.
 |
| One of NZ's tallest trees, a 40m high Kahikatea (White Pine) |
I'd highly recommend this summit to visitors, it's a great taste of classic Kiwi (literally!) bush.
73
Geoff ZL3GA
