Mt Mugga Mugga Nature Reserve VKFF-0852

With a bit of a break in the rainy weather on Sunday afternoon decided to do another WWFF park activation, this time visiting Mt Mugga Mugga Nature Reserve, VKFF-0852, an unactivated park.

Mt Mugga Mugga is one of 3 hills along Red Hill Ridge just South of Parliament House, Red Hill to the North, Davidson Trig in the middle and Mt Mugga Mugga to the South, on the other side of Hindmarsh Drive. I accessed it via the Suburb of O'Malley coming off Dalman Cres towards Wallangara St, Mt Mugga Mugga clearly visible.

There is a old stone quarry on the side of Mt Mugga Mugga, visible on the right. The park runs around the quarry, shown in grey on the map below, which is on private land. Map from Openstreetmaps. There are several access points into the park from Wallangara St, Keyar St and Akame Circuit. I used one off Akame Circuit.

There was a locked gate here, with a gap for walkers. Note the mud from all the recent rain...

Just behind the green parks noticeboard sign was a small gum tree suitable for squid pole support.

Dipole legs tied to nearby trees. The dipole crossed the track but high enough to allow walkers underneath. There were a few walkers and mountain bike riders using the track.

Radio shack on the table. Used my Kenwood TS480 radio set to 40w output.

Got on 40 m. First in the log 3 park to park contacts with Paul, VK5PAS, John VK5BJE and Pauls wife Marija VK5FMAZ, activating Belair National Park, VKFF-0022. This was a special event activation, the 125th Anniversary of Belair National Park. You can read about it in Paul's blog

My next contact was another park to park with Rob, VK4AAC/3 activating Lower Goulburn National Park, VKFF-0741. This was a much needed contact for me, the last of the 45 Victorian National Parks I needed for the Keith Roget Memorial National Park Award! I had been chasing these parks for the award since 2012, and had waited for months to get this last park. Sending off for the award.

Spotted myself on ParksnPeaks and got the usual chasers from VK1, VK2, VK3, VK4, VK5 and VK7. Several more park to park contacts followed:

VK5KLV/p Les in VKFF-0812 Clements Gap Conservation Park
VK2LAD/p Steve in VKFF-0547  Woomagarma National Park
VK3PF/p Peter in VKFF-0976 Shepparton Regional Park

VK3ANL/4 Nick on SOTA summit VK4/SE-117 Tennison Woods Mountain. This was also in a park, VKFF-0129 DÁguilar National Park near Brisbane.

VK7LTD/p Tony in VKFF-1144 Lime Bay State Reserve

VK4FE/p Fred in VKFF-1208 Mount Lewis National Park.  This park is in far North Queensland near Port Douglas, an impressive contact on 40 m! He was about an S3 and I got received S2

VK2YK/p Adam in VKFF-1349 Medowie State Conservation Area
VK5WTF/p Marcus in VKFF-0933 Sandy Creek Conservation Park

Changed the dipole links to 20 m, tuning about found and made another park to park

VK6LDX/p Lewis in VKFF-0446 Serpentine National Park .

I tried spotting myself on 20 m and calling, but no takers...

Returned to 40 m. Noticed only had a few more contacts to go to reach the 44 needed to complete the park for a WWFF point, so hung about, despite the cold wind now blowing. Made it to 45 contacts so all done for this park :)