After my last night in the Bay of Islands, it was time for me to drive back through Auckland to the Coromandel. A check on the sota mapping site threw up the possibility of activating zl1/nl-076 in Whagarei, just off my route, and virtually a drive on summit 
I checked the location of the ācar parkā using the app āwhat3wordsā and input them into navii, the phone based GPS Iām using on holiday (Iād prevoiusly successfully used it to navigate to the parking spot for Kauri Mountain and fiund it to be excellent!)
Some hour and a quarter later I was indeed driving up the road to the car park virtually at the summit.
Only to be met with a sign āviewing platform closedā and another sign requesting āall suspicious activities to be reported to the policeā I had visions of yet another run in with officialdom 
(aparently the suspicious activity is related to vehicle crime, according to numerous other signs regarding locking yyour iur car and removing everything from view)
steps to the summit and numerous antennae!
Climbing the steps to the summit revealed the huge monument, and the viewing platform that was indeed, cordoned off due to workmen using power tools that were to prove rather RF noisy 
I wondered if the monument could be ātunedā
I ended up bungying the pole in a haphazard fashion to one of the pillars in the stone wall surrounding the monument, and spotted myself. Almost immediately, Paul, VK5PAS answered and did sterling work in trying to drum up contactsā¦ not many came takibg best part of 40 minutes to get the required 4 on 20m
the incredibly low slung linked dipole!
Giving up on the linked gp antenna i strung the oinked dipole up, tying the ends to a couple of handy trees. A few CQs on 40m gaveā¦ nothingā¦ hearing some faint activity on 10m, i gave several CQs there tooā¦ nothing, so back to 20m I went, holding out until UTC rollover, just in case anyone needed points .
my āworkā position
Just before I packed up, some old dear came past and remarked that I was sitting in such a lovely spot to do my workā¦ i guess i mustāve looked hassled or something I neglected to say that i didnāt even have a work permit
Needless to say, a big thank you to everyone who called, and to those who took the time to try and drum up contacts, it was all appreciated!
Don
zl/m0hcu