Coming into winter and the forecast is for rain, and lots of it from Sunday. So after mowing the lawn and a few odd jobs around the house I wanted to make the most of the good weather and play radio. Mt Bolton was the chosen target, about 35Km from home and supposedly not that difficult to access. After checking it out on Google maps I headed out.
Sunraysia Highway passes to the South of the summit, but access is via the Northern side. After a false start I traveled to Waubra, turned right onto what Google shows as the Talbot Waubra Rd, but the sign shows as the road to Evansford and Talbot. I guess either way it goes to Talbot. Then turned right onto the Mt Bolton Rd. This quickly becomes a dirt road that’s in ordinary condition due to fires and wet weather. Easily passable in a 2wd though. Near the top of the dirt road I turned right again onto a smaller track which, if it’s named at all, the has lost the sign with the name to the fire.
It looked like the fire had been through the area a couple of months earlier and there are still home sites that are just piles of tin. At the end of the track is a gate which is clearly some sort of land boundary. There’s both a vehicle gate and walking gate, so it didn’t look to be a normal farm arrangement. Both had signs asking to “please shut the gate”, but no other markings.
Whilst I was pondering if I should go through a local farmer turned up. He explained that the North side of the fence is department of lands property, and the South side is City Of Ballarat. So all public property that got very little use. He assured me that it was fine to climb the mount, that he’d done it many times. He also explained that whilst you could tackle it head on and go straight up the mount, it was easier to walk round to the West side and then track back.
With that I drove through the gate and parked at the base of the summit. I ignored his advice and decided to tackle the mount head on, for about 10 vertical meters anyway. A fitter and younger version of me, without a pack full of radio gear, would have made it up. But this time I chose to walk around the mount to the West side, and then climb. All the burnt trees made the area rather dirty, otherwise it wasn’t that difficult.
Once on top I got the Dipole set up. There wasn’t much to anchor the squid pole too other than a small rock outcrop, which also made a nice operating position.
The weather was clearly deteriorating with the wind really picking up and rain off in the distance. On air I could hear static crashes which I assumed to be far off lightning.
All up I made about 20 contacts in fairly short order, with 2 summit to summits. VK3WU on Mt Bogong (VK3/VE-001) and VK1MBE on Livingston Hill (VK2/SM-093).
All on 40m SSB. I should have a crack at 20m too as the dipole has links for that band.
I spotted an echidna on the way up, and a couple of wallabies on the way down.
All up it was a good afternoons outing. I was glad I made the effort and went up the hill.
Here’s a link to the map in OSM. I think it’s a better map, but wordpress won’t let me use it, for security reasons apparently. OSM Track – VK3/VC-023
vk3oak 
Good report Mal, thanks for sharing your experience at the summit. Great to know the summit has public access.
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