Day 11 - Wednesday 4th August 2010 - Going home in style!    

 
"Don't want to do any repeats Dad, just uniques" had been Jimmy's warcry throughout much of 2010. Imagine therefore my surprise when he suggested we do Win Green G/SC-008 a few days earlier. "And we might as well do Dundry Down as we set off for home". Fine by me, I like doing lots of activations!

   

Over the next few days of the holiday, the exit strategy from the South West developed. Initially we were going to follow SC-010 with View Edge G/WB-018 and Long Mynd-Pole Bank G/WB-005 (spot the theme here...?) but Jimmy decided that a better line back to East Cheshire would take in Cleeve Hill G/CE-001, Bredon Hill G/CE-002 and Walton Hill G/CE-002!

       

So, that was the plan then, and despite a slow start to the morning due to the previous late night, and the requirement to unpitch the tent and repack the car, the plan remained unaltered. Although with Jimmy feeling tired, looking forward to getting home and unimpressed with the drizzly morning in progress, he did suggest a reduction of the plan!

First job once mobile was our third consecutive visit to the Oggy shop in Minehead for our final Cornish Pasty breakfast and a big pot of tea. By the time we were approaching Dundry Down G/SC-010 near Bristol - a deceptively long drive from Minehead - it was well past 1pm in the afternoon. Was this really going to be the first summit of a four summit day?

       

We got to the car park at ST556668 and made our way up the access track for the transmitters. Engineers were on site working on the transmitter compound, and I had a natter with one of them before setting up. Jimmy took Craig up to see the trig point, while Liam had remained in the car reading his Nintendo magazine.

I set up for 40m and enjoyed a run of 16 CW contacts. Over on 2m FM, Jimmy had made just one QSO, with 2E0ZST. Even Peter G3TJE couldn't hear him, so M3EYP came over to use 40m SSB. There he got his other three QSOs, including S2S with DL/PA1AT/P on DM/BW-019.  Even though it was getting on for 3pm, we pressed on with Plan A and followed the M5, A417, A436 and minor roads to Whittington on the East of Cheltenham, and an activation of Cleeve Hill G/CE-001.