Although it would be dark by the time we got there, the next target on Wednesday 1st January 2014 was Dundry Down G/SC-010.  From Ruardean Hill G/WB-021, we drove through Monmouth and Chepstow to the M48 bridge across the River Severn. Now some incredibly heavy rain began to fall, and where the road got close to the banks of the Severn, it looked for all the world that they could burst at any time. Several boulders were on the road having dropped down the steep banks on the sides. I was somewhat relieved to be on the M48 bridge even through it was down to one lane, down to a 40mph speed limit, and closed to high sided vehicles due to the weather.

       

After a bit of a tedious drive around the southern outskirts of Bristol, I found the village of Dundry and its distinctive church. From the parking spot I made the short walk up the track to the transmitter compound. It had stopped raining, but the ground was waterlogged. Liam sensibly remained in the car!

       

It was a bit late for 12m being after 5pm and now dark. Thankfully, five US stations did come back to the calls on CW. It proved to be a short activation with the first QSO timed at 1705 UTC, and the last at 1707 UTC! My patch lead between the Palm Cube and FT-817 had weakened at both ends due to the strange stiffness of the cable. One end was particularly bad and broken, causing intermittent service.

We now had a fair old drive back on the M5 and across the A39 to Carhampton, near Minehead. Here we had a room booked at the Butchers Arms. To our horror, we discovered that they were not doing food for New Year's Day evening. However, the landlord said he would make us some food anyway, and my deep fried king prawns followed by steak and ale pie went down very well.  An Audience with Ken Dodd, then Match of the Day, in our room at the pub rounded off the day, and a good night's sleep was enjoyed.  The next day we would, eventually, activate Selworthy Beacon G/SC-005.