For a two pointer, this was a lot of work!
Strydomsberg is in the Groendal nature reservation near Port Elizabeth. There are two options really – a three day strenuous hike, or a one day strenuous hike. We chose the latter.
On 11 October 2014, way before the birds started to sing Andrew Gray and myself made our way down to Scott Rollo’s home in Central from where we would leave for our adventure. We parked our vehicles and left in Scott’s 4×4 a big-ass Toyota which I subsequently named Cody. Long live Cody!
We traveled to Klein Rivier on the Cockscomb road and began our 10Km 4×4 trail up the hill to Stone Lodge. You can stay at Stone Lodge if you like, but we felt it was a bit pricy. We parked near the lodge and started our walk to the summit. It is not even a 5km walk, but it has it’s ups and downs!
Yes we made it!
What do you do on a SOTA activation if you don’t need points?
Upon arrival at the summit we started setting up the inverted-v antenna with the hope of some 40m QSOs. We made two and then switched to 2m and made some more. Working initially with Andrew’s radio as my little handheld for some reason did not seem to get out. I could hear ZS2TED from Jeffery’s bay, but no one could hear me. Then Andrew noted that not even HE could hear me and we figured out the rookie mistake: My radio was not transmitting on the frequency I was listening on. *Blush* We fixed the problem and then went on to chat to ZS2U quite nicely for a while (using the hand held).
The trip back to the car seemed a lot longer even though it took less time. We stopped and had a lovely refreshing drink from a water hole on the way – amazing what you can find if you know where to look! Thank you Scott.
Being the adventurous lads we are, we decided to take “the other road” out and that presented some challenges (not the least of which was the setting sun) but we made it out alive and in reasonable time.
Scott put the entire trip together and the most expensive part was the 4×4 petrol. R150 per vehicle for access to the road and R25pp to walk over the land from Stone Lodge to the summit and back.