SOTA Activation of The Devil's Peak VK5/NE-080

After an overnight stay at Port Augusta drove almost to Quorn, then turned off onto some unsealed roads leading to The Devil's Peak

The road comes to a gate of a farm, private property, however the owner has granted access for those doing the walk.

The road ends in a car park for the walk.

A sign at the start of the walk indicates about 2.6 Km long. My GPS showed about a Km direct to the peak.

The track started off easy at first, wandering through the bush.

Nearing the peak it got steep and rocky. There were red arrow signs on trees to guide you, plus distance markers from the car park. Got to a saddle in the range and went left.

Around the corner was a narrow canyon between 2 huge rocky outcrops. There was a hard way up

And and easy way

I took the easy way. The views on top were fantastic! Looking North to Quorn

Looking South to the summit and Port Augusta. It was obvious that operating right from the summit would require nerves of steel, which I didn't have...not to mention where do you mount a squid pole and dipole!

I measured the top as 710 m, so dropped back down the slope to the 700 m mark to stay in the 25 m activation zone. I used the stump of a small tree to support the squid pole.

The 20m/40m antennas looped under some rocks. View looking up the slope

View looking down. Quite impressive. The Dutchman's Stern is on the right.

Got on 40 m, made 14 contacts including an S2S with Andrew VK1NAM on VK1/AC-020 Mt Domain. Tried 20 m, also worked Andrew there as well, my first S2S on 20 m! Packed up and headed to Quorn for lunch, then on to Wilpena Pound for the night.

FYI, this activation places me with over 100 Activator points!