Sunday 9 February 2014

SOTA Activation Durras Mountain

With a weekend of hot temperatures forecast for Canberra, 38c Saturday and 39c Sunday girlfriend Sarah and I headed down to Batemans Bay on the South Coast to escape the heat. Maximums of 32c and 33c a lot more bearable...

On Sunday morning weather was nice and cool, in the low 20s, so set off to climb Durras Mountain.
I have climbed this several times before and knew where to go. Drove North of Batemans Bay on the Princes Highway, about 15km North turned off onto Pebbly Beach Rd. Just past the intersection with Higgins Creek Rd there is a gated off road for ranger fire trail access to Durras Mountain, parked here and we started walking.


The fire trail climbs steeply, there is another locked gate up the top of the ridge to step over.


The road reaches a junction with another track, this is a foot track coming up from Pebbly Beach, which is how most walkers approach Durras Mountain. A bit more scenic with rain forest but a longer than the road.


Sign to Durras Mountain at the same junction.


Just past this junction the track clears the forest and follows old farmland.


After 1.5 Km and 40 minutes walking reached Durras Mountain trig. Like others in the area had been beheaded :(


Durras Mountain trig nameplate


Just near the trig was a picnic table.


I put this to good use as a SOTA operating table :)


SOTA shack on table.


Got on 40m. Worked S2S with VK1RX Al on VK1/AC-040 and VK5STU Stu on VK5/SE-013. Conditions not great on 40m, lots of QSB. After UTC changeover switched to 20m, worked Al and Stu again, also VK5PAS Paul and VK5WG Nev with good signals. 18 contacts all up. Wind started to pick up so headed down.

Track log of walk




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