SOTA Expedition to Dumfries area
May 2004
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| During late May 2004 Christine had a few days off from work, and we decided to take off in the direction of Dumfries & Galloway in southern Scotland. We found ourselves a very friendly farm campsite a few miles west of the town of Dumfries. They are on the web at http://www.barnsoulfarm.co.uk Over the next few days we set about exploring the local area looking specially for opportunities to activate some of the local SOTA summits. We found 3 within a few miles. The most obvious one being Bishop Forest Hill directly to the north of the campsite. The campsite owner advised that there should be no problem about accessing the hill from the west i.e. from the north end of Glenkiln reservoir. We decided to walk from the campsite up along the west side of the reservoir, and below is a view of Bishop Forest Hill across the Glenkiln reservoir from the road we followed. | ||||
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Bishop Forest Hill, SOTA Ref. GM/SS-228,
can be seen in the distance across the Glenkiln
reservoir. |
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Along
the reservoir there are some 5 or 6 sculptures by renowned
artists; Henry Moore, Rodin and Epstein, strategically placed in the terrain.
This is the "King and Queen" looking
out over the reservoir and the hills. This particular sculpture was vandalised some years ago; someone managed to cut off one of the heads; not sure if it was the King or the Queen. In any case, it was later found in the reservoir and the sculpture was repaired. |
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The
following day we took the bikes around to See
Morris Hill, SOTA Ref. GM/SS-274. It was a long
hard slog pushing the bikes up to the top of the
hill. The actual summit is occupied by a fairly
large BT telecommunications setup with several
masts and buildings. We found a place just
outside the perimeter fence (up to the left of
the photo) and still well within the SOTA
activation limit, from where we managed to get
the required number of contacts on 2 metres FM. The free-wheeling back down the hill was something else; brakes were glowing red-hot by the time we reached the main road again. |
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On our
last day in the area we took the motorhome to the
north end of Glenkiln reservoir where there is a
small parking area which is overlooked by another
Henry Moore sculpture. We then legged it up on
forestry commision roads through the forest in a
north-westerly direction towards the summit of
Bennen Hill, SOTA Ref. GM/SS-224. In hindsight,
we could have taken the mountain bikes and had a
2 mile wheelie coming back down the hill. Here is Christine on top of Bennen Hill SOTA Ref. GM/SS-272, operating 2 mtrs. while holding the mast with the HB9CV antenna on top. The Turner Monument which dominates the summit was erected to the memory of a local Glenkiln man of some considerable local importance. It must have taken some effort to get all those cut stones up to the summit to build the massive memorial. |
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© GM0AXY |
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