Great to spend some more time with you Andy, thanks for responding positively at such short notice!
Day 6 (last day):
The weather forecast made for depressing reading as we ate our porridge at the Tushielaw Inn. (Yes, even we decided not to go for a sixth consecutive cooked breakfast!). I studied the Met Office rain radar and identified that it might be possible to get one final SOTA activation in, between bouts of precipitation.
This would involve a detour of around 45 minutes further north before heading home on the motorways south.
Cairnpapple Hill GM/SS-254
This is the local summit of our friend Andy MM0FMF from Livingston. I texted him to let him know we were heading that way, and to my surprise, he replied to say he’d meet us at the hill’s car park.
This is a ridiculously short and easy walk with hardly any ascent. Even easier, shorter and quicker than The Cloud G/SP-015 - most un-Scottish-like! This was part of the reason for its selection - the ability to make a sharp exit when the next band of rain came.
I operated on 40m SSB and CW using the Alexloop, while Jimmy operated on 2m FM. Qualification was quick and easy for both of us, and included some summit-to-summit QSOs. One of these was MM0VPM/P on GM/CS-033 on 2m FM. Both Andy and myself borrowed Jimmy’s station to grab this contact for ourselves.
We walked back to our cars, said our goodbyes, got in our cars, at which point the heavens opened. It was a full-on cloudburst resulting in flash flooding! I guess I couldn’t have judged the location and time-window any better!
The long journey home commenced, but included a detour to Gretna for supper - battered haggis, chips and the biggest “large curry sauce” ever - followed by deep fried Mars Bar. It was a very good job we had spent the previous six days doing strenuous cardio exercise!
Excellent little holiday with the eldest. Really enjoyed myself. Refreshed, and ready to go back to work tomorrow!