WAROONEE HILL VK/NE-102.

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Hugh and I finally got the chance to get back to Yunta and claim the two summits we missed on the last trip there when it rained heavily and the tracks were closed. Hugh’s wife Kate came this trip also, she is also a good bush walker and enjoys recording native plants and birds in the area. I spent some time walking with her on the way to the summit and I got a wealth of botanical names for all the plants and which bird was singing at the time. I must say I can’t remember much of what she told me but it made me take notice of the different bird calls you can hear if you pay attention. There was a real “pile up”of birds at times mostly smaller ones but we did hear a smaller Falcon and saw a Wedge Tail Eagle cruising over head .

Waroonee Hill was the first summit and we arrived in good time to make the summit close to Spot time .

This is as far as the track goes so we walk along the bottom edge of this massive rock up lift which is right along the summit and it is probably about a 2 km walk to make the Summit.

Once you get on the ledge it doesn’t take long to gain altitude and the going is a steady one as the goats make a track to follow some of the way.

Kate could tell you the names of all the bushes here but I forgot, this cliff must be 80 to 100 m high .

Hugh checking out the cairn which has some interesting names of people who have been here over many years previous to us first visiting here 3 years ago.

This trip I used some wire extensions added to the 20/40 link dipole to get on 80m which worked well as I was able to get through to VK5FANA VK5WG and VK5IS on 3.6 mhz at that time of the morning.

On 40m Hugh and I went Tag team on the microphone to make our contacts that way we could each make calls with all the chasers who were about at the time. Most times on these activation’s it is often hard for the second operator to find anyone .

My Go Pro walking stick, I have been working on getting better at posting video on F B with mixed success. Now that one is in the log off to the next summit we head.

Thanks to all the chasers on 40 and 80 metres.

KARKALA RIDGE  VK5/NE-104.

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When we arrived at Yunta that morning I had 215 km on the trip recorder in my Ute and when we got back to Yunta to refuel and head home I had 298 km on my Trip recorder so that works out to be 83 km of travelling on station tracks between summits and we were always on the same property. We did not 4×4 to Karkala this trip it seemed quicker to walk up the side of the hill than take extra time slow going on the rocky track along the ridge to the top.

Parked the SOTA transporter in the shade and had lunch before heading off on our hike to the top. Those Hella Roo Cookers are great for night driving.

Up there is the goal and Kate is setting the pace this time, Hugh and I were checking the lines on a track we could see off on the other ridge that may lead to the top. But its a nice day for a walk .

Setting up Hugh’s gear this time to give it a work out, a very dry rocky summit with Waroonee Hill way off to the south on Hugh’s left shoulder. We are able to use the steel guy support post for the repeater station antenna tower to support the squidy. This repeater was very busy with the Tetalpa Property Jackaroo’s doing a muster on Motor Cycles this weekend keeping in touch about the mobs of sheep and locations around there. They mount remote head UHF radios on the bike and have a vox set up in their helmet and ride and chat at the same time passing logistical information among themselves.

Good to give the IC 703 a run this time with a steady pile up on 40m we even got good signals into vk5 this time on 40m. Hugh went first this time and made several contacts and when someone spotted us I took on a steady pile up for a total of 9 minutes then it was over.

Kate questioned our sanity about driving a 500 km round trip for about 30 minutes radio time with a couple bush walks thrown in. The Jury is still out but SOTA fever does funny things to mere mortals.

Thanks everyone from Hugh and I for the contacts this trip.

Regards and thanks for reading my Blog.

Ian

CZ ..