ZL3/MB-354 Kaiaho Point 06/01/2021

Continuing on our summer holiday after a week in the Tasman district it was time for us to move on to the Marlborough Sounds for the last week, we would spend this time at our friends place at Raetihi near the end of the Kenepuru road. The long scenic drive through the sounds takes us past the next summit I had on my to do list, just past the well known ‘Portage’ holiday resort is the very attractive, bush covered ZL3/MB-354 ‘Kaiaho’, it’s only just joined to the mainland by a tiny strip of beach and it is all private property.

I had no luck on past trips finding anyone to grant me access permission, this time I was prepared to door knock some more and walk the private track that follows the shoreline to the holiday homes on Kaiaho, but as luck would have it as I got to the start of the track I met a couple on foot coming the other way, it turned out that the woman’s grandfather was the landowner and on his behalf she said he would be happy for me to go to the summit, so I was on my way up the short but steepish track to the summit at 162m. This is a mere dot of a summit by other SOTA summit standards but the day was very hot and I found this track to be a bit of a slog, maybe it was just that I had been driving for three hours already and was trying too hard to rush this one through as there was at least another hour or more of driving to go on the very narrow twisting road that would take us to our final destination at Raetihi. 

A look up Kenepuru sound on the way up

On the summit, not much to see

On reaching the summit and still within the bush there were no views to distract me and I was quickly set up and on air. Starting on 40m CW I soon had the dependable ZL team of ZL1BYZ, ZL1WA and ZL1TM in the log, then moving to ssb on the same band I netted seven more keen ZL chasers before switching to 20m for another five chasers, three VK’s and two more ZL’s. More than pleased with that quick result I was able to pack up after less than 3/4 of an hour and head back down to get started on the final leg of our drive. 

Down at The Gap looking back toward the Portage

Kaiaho Peninsula has an interesting historical man made feature. Over 100 years ago a cutting was excavated at the narrow section where the peninsula joins the mainland, thus allowing mail boats to pass through and not have to go around what had then become an Island. Today you can still see the cutting but ‘The Gap” as its called by locals, has filled in and is now once again high and dry, only on very high spring tides is the beach between just covered with water. See the two photos below showing present day and way back then.

Summit – ZL3/MB-354 Kaiaho

Height – 162m

Access – Unfortunately the folk I met were in a hurry as was I and contact details were not exchanged so visiting the baches on the Island for permission would be advisable.

Cell / internet – Vodafone excellent, other providers should be similar.

ZL3/TM-116 Mt Campbell

New years day rollover activation

Sarah and I were back down south again for our 2020-21 summer holiday. We started our journey off in the Nelson lakes area but the long term weather for anywhere at altitude in the South Island was not promising, so chasing the sun, we moved down to the Tasman district and set up camp at beautiful Kina beach between Nelson and Motueka.

I had a couple of summits in mind on this trip and had been given key holder contact details for those summits before leaving home in the North Island. When we knew we would be in the Tasman district for New Years I contacted the appropriate person to gain vehicle access to Mt Campbell, situated on the edge of Kahurangi National Park in the hills to the back of Motueka.

At 1330m ASL Mt Campbell’s summit, when not shrouded in cloud, can be easily seen from Motueka township, with the largest privately owned Comms tower in NZ being easy to spot above the bush line atop its high point. 

On picking up the key we were given comprehensive written instructions on how to get to the first of two locked gates but somehow we still managed to get slightly lost at the start, ending up on friendly private property nearby and having to descend again and retrace our steps back to the main road for another stab at it. 

The road to the summit, once through the first gate, is in reasonable condition, but in many places it’s a very steep gradient with large and potentially vehicle swallowing culverts to the sides. Water run off is obviously quite a problem up there when it rains. 

A 4×4 with low range and good ground clearance is a must for this one, or of course, it could be walked from the first gate, but for us a little 4×4 adventure in the South Island was an added bonus. 

It was 22.00 UTC by the time we finished the long grind to the summit and my phone was already receiving a steady flow of spots from other activators, so with only a couple of hours to go to rollover there was no time to waste. There would be time later to take in the stunning views and checkout the impressive comms site. 

The weather on the summit was generally warm and sunny with broken cloud and very little wind. 

I used my usual SOTA setup for this activation, my Yaesu 817, MX-P 50a portable amp and Sotabeams link dipole antenna.

Up and running by 22:20 it was quickly apparent that 40 meters was the band for ZL’s, with most signals being relatively strong, summit to summits were had with all the regular ZL activators in Christchurch, Auckland and all places in between. 

VK’s proved harder to catch, only two summit to summits with VK were had before rollover. The pace of the spots coming in via Sotawatch was quite frantic at times and it was difficult to know who to chase next, spots were coming in from ZL, VK, Japan and the US, but from my location I could only work the ZL and some VK stations. 

After a short break for lunch and a look around I was back into it and working at getting as many summit to summits in the new day as possible, my final tally for the activation was 22 summit to summits, six of those were VK’s and they were all on CW, no VK’s were heard on SSB, such were the band conditions for me on the day. There were also a dozen or so qso’s with mostly ZL chasers.

Around 14.30 local time it was time for us to start thinking about packing up and heading back down, it would take us a fair while to drop back down to sea level and the key had to be dropped back to Stoke near Nelson. By the time that was delivered it was time to get back to the camp and relax with a cold one and watch the sun go down on another lovely day.

Summit – ZL1/TM-116 Mt Campbell

Height – 1330m

Access – Contact me for details.

Cell – internet – Vodafone OK others likely similar.