It's a 20 minute drive to the start of the easement at the end of Chapman's Road. See Mark ZL3AB's excellent blog for full directions from Christchurch.
I parked the truck in the shade and set off. After a km or so figured out I had left my walking poles in the car but decided to carry on as the weather was getting warm! I would regret that decision later...
Mark's directions were good but I have uploaded a GPS track to the SOTA site as this is an unmarked route. Just a few meters into the conservation area I spotted a red deer hind watching me from about 100m away before gliding off. About 3/4 of the way up an NZ Falcon watched me approach, very unconcerned until I got within about 15m. A beautiful thing to see in it's natural environment.
After a couple of false summits I arrived at point 1153, the highest point of the Moorhouse Range. Weather was fine but windy, my Garmin was showing 30 degrees most of the way up... A call on 2m FM netted three contacts using the Signal Stick 1/4 wave whip. I put up the pole (conveniently held by the fence wires at the strainer) with HF Ununtenna and 2m Slim Jim. The Slim Jim meant ZL3QR could copy me for the all-important 4th contact!
HF fired up and promptly worked the ultra reliable John ZL1BYZ and Andre ZL1TM on 40m CW. 30m was barren but 20m produced a swathe of VKs including S2S with Peter VK3PF and Tony VK3CAT. JA5QJX/0 called in too, a nice surprise. 17m produced Allen VK3ARH and Bill ZL3NB (QSO #102).
I was alerted by Rick that David ZL3ASN was on CB-806 on 2m so grabbed him for another S2S! With the wind increasing, I packed up HF and briefly called on 2m for UTC rollover.
Heading down the hill, I really regretted the lack of walking poles. By the time I got home my feet were badly blistered due to not re-lacing my boots after the hot climb and extra pressure caused by the lack of poles. I won't make that mistake again! This resulted in my New Years Day summit being walked in jackals- I still can't wear shoes...
A great day out with no human interaction except over the air! This is a nice hill for reasonably fit activators, 10.5 km round trip and 800m of climbing.
