|
Probably overexcited, the boys didn't sleep too well on their first night in Ireland, but they were still made to get up at 6am sharp on the morning of Wednesday 30th March 2005, Jimmy enthusiastically, Liam a little less so. The flask was filled with my father-in-law's homemade chicken and vegetable soup, and we set out to the main street in Larne, and Apsley's Newsagent and Cafe - for an Ulster Fry. For the uninitiated, an Ulster Fry comprises bacon, egg, sausage, tomato, beans, soda bread, potato bread and fried pancake. We washed these down with glasses of fresh orange juice and drove out of Larne on the A8. We turned right onto the A36, signpost Ballymena, but realised when we reached the road summit of Shane's Hill that we had missed the turning. Nonetheless, a 3m band DXing session was in order from this location, and the border station WILD Country was heard as well as new IOM station 3FM. We drove back down to Kilwaughter, and took the minor road heading NW. Just beyond the highest point of this road, we pulled into a boxed space for one car on the side of the road (also used in 2003) and strolled down to the large stile signposted "Ulster Way". Unlike Divis, this section of the Way is fully open, and we followed it over boggy ground up the gently rising hill. Only after the stile over the fence near the top does any kind of distinct path begin to form, and this leads to the summit cairn of Agnew's Hill GI/AH-005.
Mercifully, the "blocker" that had plagued us on Divis the previous day was not apparent, and the summit was qualified in 20 minutes with one Scottish station, and three from the province, including George GI4SRQ who maintained his 100% record. A few calls on 2m SSB yielded zero response, so we set off back down the hill, and to the car for our next hill - Slemish GI/AH-007.
Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts, except for Brian where 5 watts was used:
|
|