ZL1/BP-132 Putauaki/Mt Edgecumbe January 2022

 Our annual trip to the Eastern Bay of Plenty to visit Francie's Dad saw me plotting another BoP summit. We usually get out fishing in the bay and I have often looked longingly at Putauaki as it is so distinctive. A quick Google and email to the Kawerau District Council i-Site led me to Maori Investments Limited who couldn't have been more helpful. Only requirement was a minimum of three in the party so a quick email to Warren ZL2AJ and that problem was solved! Warren ZL2JML, Ada ZL2ADA and Stephen ZL1HFT were lined up to join us, the permit was obtained and we were on! Finer details worked out via Messenger the week before and we all met at the Kawerau i-Site at 7:45am, climbed into Warren's Land Rover and off we went. The aim being to be on the summit before the heat of the day. Warren ZL2AJ has an impressive array of radios in his wagon - I don't think Ada was impressed when Warren ZL2JML admired the setup ;-)

We parked at the designated McKee road entry point for the South East track, AKA the "4WD track" (the NW track AKA the "Goat Track" is only open for the annual mountain race so sadly, a circuit was not on for us) and set off just after 8am. It's a fairly easy climb, just 600m of vertical gain over a 3.3km 4WD track and we made good time, arriving at the summit in 1 hour 20 minutes. Pleasing to see a lot of pest traps evident on the way, one of which had dispatched a very large wild cat. The trapping effectiveness was obvious with lots of native birdsong accompanying us up the mountain.

First glimpse of the summit - lots of towers...

With 5 operators, it could have been a challenge to get everyone set up but there was no drama. The VHF gear (Stephen ZL1HFT) obviously had to go on the trig and it was also the best spot to set up the dipoles for the two HF SSB stations. I headed back down off the summit to a disused concrete pad and set up my 40/30/20m trapped EFHW and MTR3B. There were 4 large towers with various comms and data links around us but the only interference we suffered was from the paging transmitters on 2m (oh, and some character on 20m CW interfering with the SSB stations... ;-)

The CW site and op(in orange) viewed from the trig site. Fire Watchtower in background

The 2m and HF SSB site set up under the trig.
L-R Stephen ZL1HFT, Ada ZL2ADA, Warren ZL2AJ , Warren ZL2JML

We were soon in business and I got called up the to summit to work Soren S2S on Pirongia on 2m and to my great surprise, Nick ZL1IU in the Bay of Islands, some 408km away! Great signals and checking with Nick later, tropospheric ducting was the likely mode. A doubling of my 2m distance record! Thanks Stephen ZL1HFT for doing the hard yards, hauling a TM-241A, halfwave antenna and a big battery up to the summit! I also had a local 70cm contact and a few nice S2S with the other ZL and VK activators - thanks all!

2m antenna g-clamped to the trig

We hit the mid-day propagation doldrums and it was getting quite hot so we decided to pack up and head down - looking forward to the shade of the bush once off the summit. A very pleasant descent and back to Warren's wagon - he soon whisked us back to Kawerau where we had a quick debrief, bid each other farewell and went our separate ways. It was a really nice activation, a good chance to chat with ops I normally only get to exchange signal reports with and get a new unique summit to boot.

This is a great summit to activate, I recommend it to all and will definitely do it again. Thanks to my co-activators, it was an enjoyable day.

Access: Contact Maori Investments Limited for a permit ($10), it's easy and quick: https://permits.maoriinvestments.co.nz/ They will issue the permit with a map and conditions of entry.

Time: They say to allow 2.5 hours, we did it in 1.5 hours - 600m of climbing over 3.3km of good 4WD track

2m coverage to Auckland, Waikato, BoP and Hawke's Bay (and Bay of Islands if you are lucky!). Plenty of space within the AZ to set up antennas.

Route from the forestry road - McKee Road

 

ZL3/CB-437 January 2022

This is an un-named, private summit which Dave ZL3DRN arranged access to and invited me along.

There is no track, route-finding required. A fairly simple bush-bash for a bit, a grunt up the spur to the ridge and a stroll around the tops, what could possibly go wrong?!

The day dawned cool with a forecast wind change and heat in the afternoon so we were up there at 7:30am to get the steep work done before the heat of the day. Parking the car at Craigieburn Cutting, we walked across the road and headed up through the beech forest - some animal trails evident and eventually we popped out on to a plateau of felled firs, many fire damaged. Picking our way through them took a while, it was pretty tough going as we couldn't find a clear path.

Arriving at the farm track, we picked the right hand side of the large gut and started up (middle of photo above). Steep and cluttered with debris, it was slow going and then we hit the shale/scree and hard clay... 

Yes, it really is that steep...

Eventually we arrived at the top of the spur and the first of three summits we would pass on the way to the SOTA peak at Pt 1578m. This one had a beaten up metal trig and a very old wooden one about 20m further on. The original surveyor must have been a bit out with his calculations!

From this point on it was ridge walking, great views and relatively easy. Lots of chamois sign and before too long we were rewarded with seeing a dozen of them just upwind of us. There's been no tourist hunting here for the past couple of years I guess so numbers are high. (As we arrived at the summit we disturbed a group of three does and their kids who then kindly posed so Dave could get a photo)

After passing the named summit, Broken Hill at 1486m, we were on the final climb up to our SOTA peak when an orange object appeared in front of us, a Stihl chainsaw left behind by one of the wilding pine contractors! We marked it's position on the GPS so we could find it on the return leg.

Not what you expect to find at 1420m!

After the hard slog, animal watching and chainsaw pondering, we arrived right on our alert time of 2200z/11am (3 hours 13 elapsed time, 2 hours 35 min moving time) and set about setting up the gear. I had made a poor HF antenna selection (doublet) given that we wanted to use the 2m vertical dipole (Flower Pot), of course the open wire feeders detuned the 2m antenna and our local chasers were stronger on the Handheld 1/4 whip! No harm done and we worked S2S with John ZL3MR when he arrived at Mt Hutt. HF went OK with our loyal ZL and VK Chasers and JA5QJX/0 worked. S2S with Ian ZL3GIG (Trig M), Warren ZL2AJ (Maungatautari) and Simon ZL1THH (ZL1/WK-192 ).

Spot the obvious issue...

The forecast wind change arrived so we pulled down the HF antenna and put the pole back up to confirm my theory about the detuning of 2m. Had lunch and then worked the locals after rollover on 2m - booming in!! A quick pack-up and we set off.

Arriving back at the chainsaw, we decided not to carry it down (due to the steep final descent down the spur) and that we would simply send the owner the waypoint location. Dave couldn't resist starting it (5 pulls) and we made a short video for Chris ZL4RA's benefit, showing how WE deal with wilding pine in CB! 

The descent down the spur was uneventful - Dave found us some scree to use and it was much faster than when we climbed it! From our vantage point, we picked out the path through the felled firs and headed for that - much easier going this time and we were soon back into the beech forest. Dave had warned me about the wasps before we set out... About 3/4 of the way down, I hear all this swearing behind me (not his usual trait), I turn around and here's Dave surrounded by angry wasps... I had stood on the nest and they came out angry and attacked him behind me...We hustled down the last bit and he hit the welcome stream at the bottom and got rid of the last of them. Back across the road to the car and a couple of  anti-histamine tablets into him.

The obligatory stop was made at the Yello Shack in Springfield where the owner now recognises us and off home. A great day with the only downside being the wasp attack. Another summit I probably won't return to but one I am glad we did.

Access details - Private summit, please check with Dave ZL3DRN

Time: 3 1/4 hours to the top (2 hours 35 moving time)

Cell: Vodafone good, Spark/Skinny patchy

Repeaters: not tried but good 2m coverage to Christchurch

Mt Horrible ZL3/CB-545 January 2022

 I'd selected this summit for my New Years day activation and gave up after the first 100m (vertical) Straight up from the SH73 (50% grade) and plenty of chest high regenerating scrub to bash through. 

A week later Dave ZL3DRN was back from holiday and keen to get out - let's plan a better route up Mt Horrible and get it done! Plotting my previous attempt on topomap and Google Earth showed that I had taken the wrong option when faced with the wall of scrub. Turning around was the right option. New route planned and loaded to the GPS and we were off. 

Arriving at the layby at 8:30am, Dave looked up and commented "are you sure this is the best access?!" We set off and using the new route, picked and bashed our way up. The first 300m of climbing is very steep and punctuated by walls of pig fern, vicious wild rose hip and matagouri. Several sections required some rock climbing on crumbly, flakey rock - more on this later...

View looking straight up from the carpark...

Once we emerged from the scrub, we picked up an old track which went all the way to the summit, along the very route we had planned. It was good travelling, up the spur and along the ridge to the summit. There used to be a track to the summit from just West of Paddy's Bend (but not since the big fires). 

We arrived at the summit 2 hours after leaving the car. 

The views are magnificent in all directions, so here's the obligatory panorama!

Antenna (EFHW), pole and 2m antenna with the Hawdon River and ZL3/CB-471 Woolshed Hill in the background

We were early but keen to get set up to ensure we got Mark ZL3AB on Mt Southey. I was trying a new 5/8 wave portable roll-up antenna for 2m, the Flower Pot designed by VK2ZOI. The choke slips over the telescoping mast and the top sits up at about 5m. We worked Ross ZL3RJ in Rangiora and Rick ZL3RIK in Hornby with good signals. On to HF and used the 60m EFHW to work the CHC Chasers who couldn't hear us on 2m including John ZL3MR on ZL3/CB-822 Mt Pleasant. 60m proves it's worth again. Taking out the 60m coil, 40m was in good shape and we worked S2S with Warren ZL2JML and Ada ZL2ADA on ZL1/WK-024, Don ZL3DMC on ZL3/CB-760 Pearce, Richard ZL4FZ on ZL3/SL-307 Bluff Hill and Mark ZL3AB on ZL3/CB-383 Mt Southey, a very pleasing haul of S2S points! We worked our way up the bands and our usual loyal ZL and VK Chasers and JH1MXV (on 15m). Nothing worked on 10m this time.

We had decided we would follow the track back down past where we joined it to see if we could find a better starting point and so packed up HF at 12.30pm and had lunch, worked Don and Rick again on 2m after rollover and headed straight back down the hill.

The descent plan was looking good for a while but then the track petered out as we got to the area that had been burnt and regenerated with very thick fern walls and no clear way down. The decision was made to turn around and go back down the way we had ascended. Unfortunately this meant re-climbing another 200m vertical... We were following the backtrack of our ascent but it was still tough to find a way through. Dave took the fast way at one stage - unintentionally. A victim of the crumbly rock and wild rose hip, he managed to flip over and arrest his slide after about 6m, it was scary to watch...

We got back to the car about 4pm, tired but exhilarated after activating a new one!

Be careful if you attempt this summit, the summit itself is very pleasant with great views. It's very dangerous coming down the last 100 vertical metres, if you do decide to tackle it, please take someone else with you.

Directions: Drive on SH73 to just West of Paddy's bend, there is a layby (-43.027741 171.688414). Park there and head straight up!

Time: 2 hours, 3.5km and 689m vertical with some scrub-bashing

Repeaters: 705 accessible. 2m Simplex OK to certain CHC areas

Cell: Spark and Vodafone 4G thanks to the celltower near the Mt White bridge. Skinny not good

Permission: Not required, Mt Horrible Conservation Area