During the first half of 2023 I visited Melbourne and joined in the Mt Hotham group activation festival at the end of March. I activated most of the summits previously visited and a few more mainly due to joining Peter VK3PF and Gerard VK2IO in a 5-summit activation day after the main event had ended. I then drove back home after collecting my tvan from Beechworth, where I had left it for the weekend in the driveway at Geoff VK3SQ’s place there. I activated 36 summits in the first six months of the year.

From that point onwards I was increasingly unwell and in September I was hospitalised with an unknown illness. Eventually it was diagnosed as autoimmune encephalitis.

This illness restricted my activity greatly. As an indication of how limited I was I only activated 3 summits in the following month and none in the six months after that. I was simply incapable of even talking on a microphone or sending Morse with a paddle, so even if I had gone up to a summit with someone else driving, I would not have been capable of making any contacts reliably. I did operate my home station but at nothing like the usual rate of contacts with SOTA and VKFF activators.

In January 2024 I was recovering with the aid of medication and I gladly completed an activation with Andrew VK1AD in February. My voice was still shaky, I believe, and my sending accuracy was down from its usual reasonably good standard. Three activations followed by the end of March and I then embarked on a trip with my daughter and her partner from Yass to Uluru and return. It was a great trip and while I was not allowed to drive, I enjoyed it greatly.

While in vk5 en route to VK8, I activated two VK5 summits with Ian VK5CZ and John VK5HAA who drove up from Adelaide for the day. While I had taken my SOTA kit with me and a couple of poles, I didn’t feel motivated sufficiently to activate any other summits or any of the many parks we passed on this trip. Not even the WWFF park surrounding the rock. I just didn’t have the energy.

We returned via Broken hill, after revisiting Coober Pedy and taking a short trip out to view the Ghan, a famous train that plies the north south route from Adelaide to Darwin, via Alice Springs. The trip takes two days and two nights. On Fridays the southbound train stops near Coober Pedy and the passengers are taken to Coober Pedy for the day to inspect mines, buy opals, eat lunch, buy more opals and finally go back to the train for dinner, after an exhausting day buying opals. At that time of year the train is shortened from its 1.3 km full length to about 800m, which still looks like a very long train.

In Broken Hill we inspected another historical mine. Not opals here, just tin and other metals.

After two weeks of travelling, and about 5000 km, we got back to Yass and yes it was good to stop that night.