I was advised by Andrew VK1NAM that this hill was fairly difficult due to not only the climb needed (I measured about 420m, from car park 685m to summit 1105m) but the number of steep sections in the path.  He was certainly right.  I didn’t give up but I was close to it when I got to what seemed to be the high point of the road, then it started to fall and did not seem likely to resume a climb.  At that point I called Andrew on the phone and asked for advice.  Turns out that the summit is in bushland, quite rocky and treed, and I was within a few metres of the point where he had left the path to negotiate the final 100m of climbing through the bush.

I got to the summit at about 18:48 local time after leaving the car at about 17:10.  Quite a long trip but understandable for 420m of climbing.  Set up the 40m dipole, called cq and immediately had a contact with Andrew VK1NAM who was in Melbourne on a family trip.  Another 10 or so contacts followed on 40m and 2 on 2m FM including contacts on both bands with Matt VK1MA who was having problems at Black Mtn on 2m due to the TV and other transmitters at that site.  Although my signal was strong enough, spurious signals produced in the front end of his receiver were making it difficult copy at his end.

One contact on 40m was with Luke VK3HJ and we had a cw contact as well as ssb.  My first activator CW contact.

Packed up at 19:45 local just before sundown.  Left the summit just before 20:00 and got back to the car 1 hour later with a bit of moonlight helping me find the path and avoid rocks.  Nice lights from the city.  If I took my camera I would have better shots to show here.