Sadly, the last of the summits to be activated in my short VK ‘Road Trip’, Huon Hill (vk3/ve-237) turned out to be a whole lot of fun!

Driving across from Albury I was quickly at the start of the dirt road that would take me virtually up to the summit. driving past the new housing development at the bottom of the hill, I saw my first lot of kangaroos! (live ones that is, I have seen lots of dead ones at the side of the road!)
Did i mention I’m easily pleased? I got excited at the sight of 9 inch high penguins scurrying up a beach in Dunedin last week:)

Anyway, I digress, getting to the top, it was 37c in the shade, and i wasn’t too keen on sitting on one of the exposed viewing platforms that most other activators seem to have used. There is a picnic table, underneath a small roof that provided a little shade on the grass beside it. I didn’t have enough cable to run from here to the viewing platform, so i ended up velcro-ing the pole to the wire fence surrounding the small mast nearby. Discovering I’d left the pegs back in the hotel, i ended up just laying the ends of the dipole on the ground. . Not ideal.

bodged lash up of pole to the mesh enclosure

In the shade, it was still showing 33c, but at least i was out of the sun!

Starting off on 40m, a range of vk chasers who had help qualify the previous summits did the same again, before drying up (well it was Friday evening, real people probably have better things to do!)

Switching to 20m provided lots of fun! 17 European contacts, one JA, one ZL and 2 further VK contacts ensued. Some of the European ones were particularly difficult to complete, so thanks to those who showed the patience to complete the contacts, it was appreciated.
There were, unfortunately some chasers who were just too weak, I could pick out the odd bit of audio, but not enough to get any details at all.
Half way through, a huge orangey-pink looking spider ran across the ground… no idea what it was, but having heard all about spiders here 😉 , I moved all the stuff up onto the picnic table 🙂

(Perhaps the spider was one of these Badge (Huntsman) Spiders Then again, maybe not, as they’re supposed to be nocturnal… I wasn’t going to ask it 🙂

shack on the table away from the scary spiders…….

Finally briefly back on 40m for any outstanding locals who missed 40m earlier, before packing up before sunset as i didn’t have a torch with me.

view from the top

Many thanks to everyone who took their time to chase on all of the ZL and VK summits, it was greatly appreciated!

Equipment used 817nd, mp-817 amplifier and linked dipole

As an added bonus, driving back in the gathering gloom, I managed to take a pic of the roos too!

Real, live, kangaroos 🙂