Wendover Woods, G/CE-005 - 267m ASL - SP 890 089 - OS Explorer 181 - 1 SOTA point           

Sunday 26th January 2020 - Wendover Woods G/CE-005, Gun G/SP-013 & The Cloud G/SP-015

Gig:  Liam Read Band Bandeoke

Venue:  Swan With Two Necks, Macclesfield

I felt somewhat uneasy about bagging this summit after overnighting in Milton Keynes.  It's a half-hour drive in kind of the wrong direction for going home, which feels uneconimcal and illogical!  Plus it was a horrible wet morning.  However, the SOTA addiction was too powerful as ever, and off I went!

I parked at the roadside on Aston Hill and attempted some calling on my handheld.  It was lashing it down with rain, and I had zero appetite for setting up portable antennas for HF, operating datamodes or CW or whatever!  Unfortunately, there was hardly anyone about on VHF.  I eventually got a call and an exchange from G4DUL, and with nothing else materialising, I gave up and drove into the main Wendover Woods car park to visit the cafe for breakfast.

Well breakfast was lovely, and cheered me up.  I had another go at calling on my handheld from just outside the cafe - it's in the activation zone, and in fact very close to the true summit - much closer than Aston Hill!  The take-off for VHF is nowhere near as good as Aston Hill though - which itself isn't all that good at all - and no QSOs were added to the log.  I wasn't too worried, as I had several tour gigs booked for later in the year that would bring me back this way - so I felt confident that sooner or later I would collect the all-important activator point!  (This was before the Coronavirus crisis, which subsequently brought about the cancellation of all those gigs and significantly lessened the probability that I would indeed pass by again during 2020).

I set off for home, but with both Gun G/SP-013 and The Cloud G/SP-015 programmed into my satnav as waypoints!