Day 11 - Wednesday 4th August 2010 (part 4)
Walton Hill G/CE-002
After Bredon Hill G/CE-003, Jimmy directed me back to the M5 which we followed North as far as Junction 3, then turning left down the A456 dual carriageway to the south of Halesowen. Finding the car park at SO943802 was a little unnerving in the dark, and with several boy racers careering around the hillside lanes with their super-noisy exhausts.
We were the only car in the parking area, although there was another in the space over the road. Just then, a large police van pulled up. “Going for a walk?” the officer asked us as we kitted up with coats and headtorches. “Nice to see some decent people up here for a change” he continued, a remark that did little to ease my anxiety about my car!
We walked East out of the car park until we saw the steps to our right, leadig to the very wide, and initially very steep ‘motorway’ track up to Walton Hill’s summit. This is a very short walk, and even in the dark it took barely five minutes.
At the trig point, Jimmy unleashed his handheld first, but only made it to two contacts before running dry. I had a go and made my four inside three minutes, with welcome support from Frank G3RMD and Stewart G0LGS on hand to ease the process. With my four safely in the log, Jimmy resumed his own activation. He got the other two he needed, and we were descending by 10.53pm.
Unusually, the four of us descended together, in accordance with my “night-time walking rules”. We descended via the more direct, and much better graded path off the side of the hill, to the car park. As we neared it, we could hear cracks, bangs and laughter, which wasn’t what we wanted to hear. There were no problems though, and the car was fine.
We hit the road, the A456, M5, M6, A534 and A536 back to Macclesfield, with an extra loop to drop Craig off in Bollinton. It was about 1am by the time we got home after an unusual day’s SOTAing rounding off a most exhilarating and enjoyable tour.
Very many thanks to everyone that worked us on any of the activations.
73, Tom M1EYP
