That IS impressive Gerald!
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Thanks Colin. Your motorhome makes me feel very inadequate with my tiny car! Glad you didn’t have any trouble on this occasion!
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Hmm. I think it is time for a confession. On the very same day, Matthew, as you were waiting to be rescued we had already tried a bit of ‘SOTA stone walling’ (for the second time in 12 months if I remember correctly - but a different GW region - and this time the farmer had kindly left a giant heap of road stone with some slabs in it just beside our vehicle.) Somehow we had inadvertently (well we wouldn’t do it deliberately - would we??) backed the car to turn round and I found I was gazing down unhappily into an unexpected deep ditch. On descending carefully and admiring our position from the road I diagnosed that moving forward would have us well and truly ‘bottomed’ on a handy tuft before we even thought of sliding sideways into the ditch. To my surprise, I found that this diagnosis found favour and we were both suddenly dragging small slabs from the large heap and filling the hole into which the back wheel was about to descend. After a bit of re-alignmen, tby the expert, of my dry stone walling technique (not often used since I left my Yorksshire roots) the stones stayed in place as we slowly regained the track and could then park sedately on the grass opposite - with wheels pointing downhill on the FWD vehicle. We were just approaching this on the descent from a (very windy and noisy) Pegwyn Mawr (GW/MW-006) when your call was heard, Matthew from Fan Fawr, and Rod was glad to get you in the log - but had no idea you had got there via a diversion up Cefn Ystrad for that pesky battery. Well done for finding it.
As with yesterday’s activations, the wind made things challenging at times, and by the end I was glad to get off the summit and head back down to the car.
We then drove to Beacon Hill GW/MW-009 and set off into the wind again and wearing lots of layers. We unexpectedly met Phil and Gillian (GW4HQB and M0OVW) who thought they’d add to their previous activation of Gwaunceste - and give us a surprise (which it did) and chance for a quick natter. After erecting the dipole and getting good 2m and 70cm contacts (thanks GW4VPX for the S2S) we started to dismantle and, about 1500, the wind suddenly increased significantly. The flattish walk off the boggy summit before a sharpish descent was, for me, a bit of a struggle and having to clamp my deerstalker(think Sherlock Holmes headgear) onto my head to stop it being blown off meant that I could only use one pole. Things eased when we descended to the bwlch and had some shelter but we were into the wind for the final walk back to the car whch I was very glad to see … and I think that was the day that the 15.9C was recorded in the Highlands?? Just sometimes we do earn our 3 point Winter Bonus even on a boggy 2 pointer in mid Wales!
Looking forward to the next S2S Matthew but not the next car whoopsie!
73 Viki
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Thanks for your solidarity Viki!
It does actually make me feel slightly less foolish for getting stuck in the mud. Well done for managing to get yourself out of it. I’m storing all of these escape strategies in my mind should I ever find myself in this situation again. It had never happened to me before, so I’m sure I wasn’t thinking as rationally as I could have been!
Thanks to Rod for /M contact and I hope it’s not too long until we have another S2S contact.
73, Matthew
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