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.
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| 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... ;-)
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| The CW site and op(in orange) viewed from the trig site. Fire Watchtower in background |
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| Route from the forestry road - McKee Road |
