Day 7 - Saturday 31st July 2010 - the SCs into Wiltshire, and lots of driving!    

 
Fair play to Jimmy, he did warn me that many miles would need to be covered in the car on both the Saturday and Sunday. "Hit me with the worst one first" I instructed him. Saturday was a long long day!  We drove east from Minehead and took breakfast courtesy of a greasy spoon van in the Matalan car park in Bridgwater. And very nice it was too. And then many more miles of driving... Audio entertainment was courtesy of 107.4 Total Star from Somerset.

   

Jimmy advised me to park in a lay-by by the entrance to Ellick House at ST489580. From here we walked south before bearing half-right at a big junction of paths. Now we were heading diagonally up the hill, and then along the gentle broad ridge to the trig point.  Liam, as usual, set himself up to play Nintendo DS at the trig point (the USB charger I bought for the car was inspired - I need to get another - how did I ever cope without them?). Craig, as usual, set himself down for a sleep on the summit.

           

Jimmy went for it again on 2m FM and was untroubled in cruising to seven QSOs. I decided to have a little change and went for 30m CW, resulting in a relaxed, if unspectacular 11 contacts.

   

More "exciting" was the descent. As usual, as we started to pack away, Liam commenced his descent. "Don't forget to turn left" I called after him. I was next to leave the summit, with Jimmy and Craig behind me. But I made it all the way down to the car with no sign of Liam! We all returned to the big path junction, and Jimmy and I turned on our handhelds on an agreed working QRG of 145.575MHz FM. I sent Jimmy and Craig back up the summit path, while I went up the path to the left - where I suspected Liam would be coming down if he had missed the first left turn. Indeed this was the case, so we were all reunited after only 2 or 3 minutes, and a big sigh of relief.

Back in the car, we were now heading for Long Knoll G/SC-007.