Knockchree, GI/MM-014 - 306m ASL - J 271 170 - OSNI Discoverer 29 - 1 SOTA point            

From Slievemartin GI/MM-011, we returned to the A2 and drove eastwards along the South Down coast. Shortly before Kilkeel, we turned left (North) and headed for the parking spot by the farm entrance between Knockchree GI/MM-014 and Aughrim Hill. This would be our third and final activation of Saturday 24th May 2014 and would be bathed in warm sunshine.  After completing the farm track route to the forest rides, we now face a mainly level and even slightly downhill in places one kilometre walk to the south. Eventually, we began to curve around to the right and out of the trees. The final approach to the summit looked steeper but in fact was very easy along graded zigzagging green paths.

We both chose to move a little beyond the summit for shelter, and our chosen spot gave us a splendid view over the coastline. Jimmy MI0HGY/P got off to a flyer with old friend Sean MW3PZO/P straight in the 2m FM log, but he was soon stranded on just two contacts.

24MHz CW brought in 8 QSOs for me, followed by three on 12m SSB including S2S with S57MS/P on S5/RG-027. This summit-to-summit was on SSB, so I invited Jimmy over to grab it for his 3rd contact. He did so, then kept hold of the mike in search of his fourth and qualifying QSO. This came courtesy of EA2LU who had also worked me a few minutes earlier.

After walking back to the car, we drove north up the B27 Moyad Road. This cuts straight through the centre of the Mourne Mountains and some stunning scenary. Our holiday cottages were on the B180, a couple of miles west of Bryansford, and with a quite beautiful view over the Mournes from the patio / garden area. We had an enjoyable dinner of Marianne's homemade Irish stew, following which Marianne's dad and I went for a Guinness and Jamesons in the nearby Maghera Inn.  A pleasing first day's work in the Irish hills. We would be setting our alarms for 5am in order the bag an early activation of Slievenalargy GI/MM-015 on the Sunday.