The final week of winter bonus 2021 was looking pretty good weather-wise so Dave ZL3DRN and I both took a weeks leave to make up for time lost in lockdown. We warmed up the legs with a snowy activation of Duvauchelle Peak ZL3/ CB-759 on Monday. Tuesday was looking much better so we attacked a double that I have been eyeing up for some time, two summits on the Mt Thomas forest conservation area Bob's Bivvy track, CB-617 and CB-599
It looked like a series of 4 x 2 hour hikes so do-able in a day but we'd have to start early and keep to schedule.
The day dawned crisp and fine and we arrived at the start point - Wooded Gully camping area at 7.30am and were on our way by 7:40am. 3 degrees Celsius on the Garmin. The sector to CB-617 starts off with a walk along the forestry roads then a gut-busting section through the plantation forest with a gradient of 30% for 270 vertical metres... After that it is a very nice track through Beech forest. Lots of windfall trees to negotiate after the recent Nor West storms - some snapped clean in half! We arrived at CB-617 in good time at 9:27 - half an hour before we had alerted. Thanks to our loyal VHF Chasers, we had 4 contacts each in the log, refueled with a snack and were moving again by 9:43. So far so good.
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| Beginning the descent off CB-617 to the saddle. CB-599 is in the background just to the left of the pinnacle |
The drop into the saddle was pretty steep, two stretches of 25% grade - neither of us were looking forward to climbing back up this on the way home!
The well marked track crosses the saddle and then climbs steadily up through bush to Pt 953 where there is a junction
The Bobs Bivvy route is well marked and after another saddle you climb steadily again to the bivvy turnoff, staying on the main track and arrived at ZL3/CB-599 at 11:30, 30 minutes prior to our alert. A very nice summit with some scrubby trees (rare in CB!), a nice sized activation zone and a very sad looking trig
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| Hams can multi-task! 2m FM in right hand and CW paddle in the left! |
We set up on HF and VHF and worked the local Chasers on 2m FM. HF was flat on all bands tried. Only HF contacts to be had were ZL1BQD and ZL1BYZ worked on 60m (plus Bill ZL3NB groundwave on 20m and 17m!). No RBN spots, propagation clearly not good. Had a very pleasant lunch break perched on the trig remnants and were on the trail back at 12:50 (no rollover - we needed to get back to CB-617 to do HF there).
We made pretty good time back to CB-617 despite pacing ourselves carefully - thanks to Dave I am finally learning not to go out like a startled rabbit! The climb back up to the summit was very slow and careful but we made it at 2:26pm. HF and VHF quickly up and running, the bands were in much better shape and we worked several VKs - Dave got a S2S with VK3BCM and I worked Gerard VK2IO for a VKFF to ZLFF park to park.
Bodies were starting to tire so we packed up at 3pm and headed slowly back down to the start point, marveling at how well it had all gone and how far your feet can take you!
Thanks to all the Chasers, some were keeping an eye on us on APRS and were there waiting when we needed them - much appreciated!
Statistics:
Vertical metres gained: 1483 m
Distance travelled: 21.2 km
7 hours hiking
Here's the Google Earth view of the day (thanks Dave for the images)
