My second activation for the day was a confirmed Conservation Park, the Port Gawler Conservation Park.

Marija and I headed off the LeFevre Peninsula and along the Port River Expressway, and then north on Port Wakefield Road.  We then turned left onto Port Gawler Road, and headed west towards the coast of Spencer Gulf.  As we were travelling towards the park, it brought back a lot of fond memories.  When I was a child, I often went to Port Gawler with my grandfather and went ‘raking’ for Blue Swimmer crabs.  Grandpa came to live with us when I was just a young boy, following the death of my Grandma.  And Grandpa was a keen crabber and he & I would often drive to Port Gawler beach in his old Hillman Hunter to go crabbing.

Port Gawler Conservation Park consists of vast tidal flats and fringing mangrove forests that are crossed by a multitude of tidal channels.  Shell-grit ridges occur along a well-defined belt within the mangrove forest.  I remember well, that each time we visited the park all those years ago, we would always bring back a bucket of shell grit and cuttlefish.  A that time my Dad was a breeder of finches and parrots.  The birds loved the shell grit and cuttlefish, which were also a source of calcium.

The Gawler River, which has its source over 40 km to the east, flows through the park and forms a long, narrow estuary at Port Gawler.  Fish can be caught in the River, including Bream & Mullett.

As we drove along Port Gawler Road, the sounds of off road vehicles and motorcycles became louder and louder.  There are a few Off Road Parks in the area, and sadly the area is also used as a bit of a dumping ground for rubbish.  I found the following article in the local newspaper which shows that this is an ongoing problem…..

http://www.plainsproducer.com.au/?p=513

Plans to build a settlement at Port Gawler at the mouth of the Gawler River estuary, commenced in 1869.  Below is a map dated 23rd March, 1869 from the South Australian Lands Department.  It is signed on behalf of the surveyor-general, Mr George W. Goyder  and his Excellency Sir James Fergusson, Governor of South Australia.  It shows that Port Gawler was subdivided into various allotments with the street names, named after the Spanish campaign of General Wellington (of Waterloo fame).

In 1869, the ‘Lisbon’ wharf and Waterloo Road were constructed with a grant of £6,000 made to the District Council of Port Gawler.  In its heyday, Port Gawler was an extremely busy place.  Cargoes of grain and various other produce were loaded onto ketches that were able to sail into the wharf across the sand bar at the mouth of the creek at high tide.  It is reported that between December 1874 to November 1875, about 295 boats were loaded at Port Gawler.

The final cargo to leave the port was a shipment of strainer posts to the Peninsula in 1920.  However the arrival of the railway made the use of the port obsolete.  Following this, the blocks within the township were sold to prospective speculators, and the majority of those were reverted to the Crown due to unpaid taxes.  The final ‘freehold’ blocks were held until 1960.  Very little now remains of what was once a very important port.

Marija and I drove to the very bottom of Port Gawler Road, where there is a parking area and a small shelter.  The shelter was a welcome sight, as the weather had really warmed up.  At least there was a spot that we could park the car, and Marija could remain in some shade while I activated the park.

The carpark was really busy, so this was out of the question to erect the antenna.  We set up the gear just to the south of the carpark, where I found some shade under some mangrove vegetation on the shore of the Gawler River.  I was only about 10 feet from the water.  I brought along the Yaesu FT-450 for this action, and ran about 30 watts, into the 40m/20m linked dipole.  The squid pole holder for the 7m squid pole, was easy to push into the tidal sand.

My first contact in the park was with Ian VK1DI who was portable on SOTA peak, Pheasant Hill, VK1/ AC-021.  Ian’s signal was quite low down, only 5/2.  However, because the noise floor at Port Gawler was so low, I was able to hear Ian perfectly.  Not a bad start…a SOTA contact.

Following my QSO with Ian I went up to 7.100 and put out a CQ call.  First taker was the ever reliable John VK5BJE from the Adelaide Hills.  John’s signal was not as loud as I expected.  A good 5/8, but I expected louder.  I received a 5/4 from John.  My VSWR was up a little high for this activation, for whatever reason.  But it wasn’t that high that it should affect my signal that much.

Col VK5HCF then called in from Mount Gambier and gave me a 4/3 signal report.  And this was followed by Brian VK5FMID, also from Mount Gambier, who also gave me a rather poor report of 4/4.  This prompted me to look at the antenna quickly before the next QSO.  The alligator clip links appears okay.  Marija had accidentally stepped on the coax at Mutton Cove, and I started to wonder whether some damage had been done, and that was the reason why the VSWR was up a bit, and why signals were down a bit ?

But then Larry VK5LY from Renmark in the Riverland gave me a call, with a beautiful 5/9 signal.  And I received 5/8 back from Larry.  Larry advised that he couldn’t even hear me when I was in Mutton Cove.  Now I started to think that it was just propagation conditions.  They had been so good 90 minutes earlier at Mutton Cove, and had obviously taken a real step backwards.

John VK2AWJ from Gol Gol in New South Wales, came up to say hello.  John’s signal was a solid 5/8 with no QSB.  Obviously the propagation gods on 40m were playing with the band.

And to prove this, I had some interesting VK3 contacts.  I spoke with Phil VK3BHR from Bendigo who was 5/5 and I received a 5/8.  But just 15 minutes later I received a call from Ron who was stronger at 5/7 but I only received a 3/3 report back from Ron.  Ron reported that there was a lot of QSB on my signal.  A further 9 mintes later I received a call from Tony VK3KKP from Castlemaine.  Tony was running just 15 watts.  Tony’s signal was a constant 5/7 and I received a 5/9 signal report from Tony.

I also spoke with Bill VK5MBD from Red Hill in the mid north of South Australia, with his normal beautiful 5/9 plus signal.  I don’t think I have ever spoken with Bill when his signal has been below 5/9 +.

John VK5DJ from Millicent in the south east also called.  John’s signal was an excellent 5/9 plus and I received a 5/9 from John.  And yet 30 minutes earlier I was receiving 4/3 and 4/4 signal reports from the same geographical area.

Another good contact was with Frank VK5KV who was mobile between Port Augusta and Port Pirie, on his way to a trap shooting meeting.

My final QSO from Port Gawler was with Ian VK5CZ from Clare who had an excellent constant 5/9 signal.  I received a 5/9 signal report from Ian.

Whilst I was sitting back enjoying the day, quite a few kayakers paddled passed me.  One of those was a young lad who had his fishing gear on board.  He paddled up to me and asked if I was an amateur.  Apparently one of his mates has a licence, so he recognised that my squid pole wasn’t for fishing.  Backing up my earlier comments about the state of the area, he advised that there was now very little fish in the area due to pollution.  He stated that car bodies and general dumping of rubbish in the area, had significantly degraded the area.

From what Marija and I saw of the area, it certainly does need a good clean up.  I find it very sad how some people have a total disregard for their environment.  There were quite a few 4WD enthusiasts in the area at the time.  Some of those we witnessed speeding along the sandy flats with total disregard for their safety and that of others.

I found a post on the internet that probably sums up the park and the area…..

“Today, the main activities seen in the area are fishing, vandalism and burning of stolen cars……..there is a boat ramp and access for kayaking, I am not sure how much of your car would still be there upon your return. Given the funding cuts to the Department for Environment and Heritage I don’t expect this to improve.”

The following stations were worked:-

Ian VK1DI/p; John VK5BJE; Col VK5HCF; Brian VK5FMID; Roy VK5NRG; Larry VK5LY; John VK2AWJ; Phil VK3BHR; Tim VK5AV; David VK5KC; Nev VK5WG; Andrew VK5KET; Ron VK3AFW; Bill VK5MBD; John VK5DJ; Tony VK3KKP; Frank VK5KV/m; and Ian VK5CZ.

This was a very enjoyable activation under some unusual propagation conditions.  It wasn’t until I got home and started to read some of the posts on the SOTA Yahoo group, that I saw that the band was in rather port shape.

The day was finished off with a nice meal & a few Bundies and coke, at the Southern Hotel at Gawler.

References.

http://www.environment.gov.au

http://mallala.nowandthen.net.au/index.php?title=Port_Gawler

This morning I headed out early with Marija and headed down to Osborne to activate what I believed was Mutton Cove Conservation Park.  Everything was going smooth sailing until I found out during the activation, that Mutton Cove was not a Conservation Park, and was actually a Conservation Reserve.

Mutton Cove Conservation Reserve is located in the industrial/residential suburb of Osborne, about 19 km north west of the Adelaide CBD.  It is located on the Lefevre Peninsula, which was named by Governor John Hindmarsh in 1837, after Sir John George Shaw-Lefevre, who was one of South Australia’s Colonisation Commissioners.

On driving down Mersey Road North passed the Adelaide Submarine Corporation, we found a small parking area on the eastern side of the road, which appeared quite new, and which had a ‘Mutton Cove’ sign.  We stopped here briefly to have a look at the park.  There was a break in the fence line and a walking track, but in the distance to the north, we could see a car parked at the end of a dirt road, close to the Port River.  So we decided to try to head in that direction.

We continued north along Mersey Road North, and found a dirt road just to the north of the Australian Submarine Corporation installation and Archie Badenoch Ct.  We travelled to the end of the road, where there was a parking area on the shores of Light Passage, a section of the Port River.

There was a sign which read ‘Mutton Cove Conservation Reserve’.  This should have set off the alarm bells for me.  However I had checked the internet the night before.  Google Maps showed Mutton Cove as a Conservation Park.  However from past experience I have learned not to rely on Google Maps.  I have found that numerous South Australian Conservation Parks are not even recorded on Google maps.  But what really threw me, was Mapcarta.  I have found this to be an excellent resource.  Mapcarta showed Mutton Cove to be a Conservation Park.  And even ‘Weekend Notes’ which is also an excellent resource, referred to Mutton Cove as a Conservation park.

It wasn’t until just after my first QSO with Col VK5HCF, who tried to spot me on the parksnpeaks site but couldn’t find Mutton Cove, that I thought to myself “Oh Oh !“.  I immediately jumped on the trusty i-phone to check the parks list, and sure enough, Mutton Cove was not on the list.

Lesson learned…..check the ‘official’ parks list.  Don’t rely on the internet !

Netherless, this was an interesting place to visit.  Although it is not the most aesthetically pleasing place, it does have a very good walking track around it, with interpretive signs.

Sadly, the Mutton Cove area has been significantly degraded since European settlement in the area.  Industrial development and dumping of rubbish has impacted on the area.  During our visit, it was evident that many people have absolutely no concern whatsoever for the environment.  Mutton Cove is the last remaining area of samphire and mangrove woodland remaining on the Le Fevre Peninsula.  Three branches of Mutton Cove Creek weave their way through the park.  However, during our visit, these were mostly dry.

The history of the Le Fevre Peninsula itself is very interesting.  The peninsula was considerably smaller when Europeans first settled the area back in the 1800’s.  A large amount of fill has been placed on the peninsula between the early 1940’s and 1992 when dumping ceased.  The Mutton Cove area is one of the few areas on the edges of the Peninsula that remains at natural surface level.

Mutton Cove takes its name from Mutton Cove in Devonport in Devon, England.  That being an area that looks very similar to the South Australian Mutton Cove.  Captain Collet Barker, is the earliest recorded European to see the Port River and the Mutton Cove area.  He had been sent by Governor Darling of New South Wales to locate the Murray Mouth.  In 1831, from the top of Mount Lofty he spotted the Port River and believed that it was make a good harbour.

I set up on the northern side of the park, under the shade of some mangrove vegetation. It was already very warm, despite being early in the morning.  The expected temperature was to be 38 degrees C.  After putting out a’is the frequency in use’ call on 7.095, I was greeted by the dulcet tones of Col VK5HCF from Mount Gambier with a beautiful 5/9 signal.  This was followed by Ivan VK5HAS who was initially 5/5, but suddenly crept up to 5/9.  It was like somebody had turned on a switch.  David VK5KC, John VK5BJE, Brian VK5FMID, and Tim VK5AV followed, all of whom had very good signals.

After packing up, Marija and I decided to go for a walk around the park.  There are some interesting shipwrecks within the park including the ‘Excelsior‘ and the ‘Jupiter‘.  Looking around at the park, and the relatively dry Mutton Cove inlet, I wondered how the ships even got to where they were ?  The original Mutton Cove Creek was quite deep.

The first wreck is that of the ‘Excelsior’ which initially worked in New South Wales and Tahiti before arriving in South Australia during the early 1900’s.  The Excelsior was originally owned by flour millers John Darling and Sons, and later the SA Farmers Union Co-operative.  By 1933, she had been purchased by the SA Harbors Board and had been converted to a coal hulk to service the steamer dredges working in the Port Adelaide region.  However when diesel powered ships replaced coal fired vessels, the Excelsior was laid up, and abandoned at Mutton Cove.  She was floated right up the Cove to her current resting position on the spring tides.

There is also the wreck of the ‘Jupiter’ but we did not find this.  Apparently it is located mostly buried in the mud in the southern section of the park.

I worked a total of 6 stations, before deciding to pack up and head off to Port Gawler.  I decided it wasn’t worth the effort of explaining that Mutton Cove was not a Conservation Park to all the ‘hungry’ Park Hunters.  Sad really, because conditions on 40m SSB at this time appeared to be very good.

I worked the following stations:-

Col VK5HCF; Ivan VK5HS; David VK5KC; John VK5BJE; Brian VK5FMID; and Tim VK5AV.

There are some very interesting sites on the internet regarding this park, and the associated shipwrecks that can be found within it.

The park also has a Management Plan, which has some very interesting information on the park.  It can be found at…..

Click to access Mutton_Cove_web.pdf

References.

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefevre_Peninsula

Weekend Notes, http://www.weekendnotes.com/mutton-cove-shipwrecks/

Click to access Mutton_Cove_web.pdf

On Saturday morning, 18th January, 2014, my wife Marija, and I headed off to the Barossa Valley, for Marija to get her hair done by a friend.  So I tagged along with the intention of activating a new park, the Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park.

Kaiserstuhl CP is located about 12 km south-east of Tanunda in the Barossa Valley.  It is 390 hectares in size and was dedicated in 1978 to protect one of the last remnants of native vegetation in the Barosa Valley region.  It also protects important seasonal creek and wetland habitats.

The park is located about 15 km from the devastating bush fires from last week that swept through the Eden Valley destroying about 5 homes.  On Saturday morning before leaving home, I mulled over whether I should activate the park.  Based on info from people in the area, I decided that it was safe to activate the park.  The fire threat had significantly reduced the night before, and we were going to be sufficiently far enough away from any fire activity.

The area where the park was located was discovered in the mid 19th century by the prominent naturalists, H.H. Behr, F.J.H Von Muller, J.G.O. Tepper, and J. Menge.  The Tanunda Creek Bullock Track originally crossed the creek several times within the park but was closed around 1885 in favour of the more direct route along Tanunda Creek Road.  I accessed the park via Tanunda Creek Road.

A plaque within the park records the bequest to the Field Naturalists’ Society of South Australia by Mr Leo Wakem Nicholls (1894-1971).  Nicholls was a keen bushwalker whose bequest to the Field Naturalists Society of S.A. enabled that organisation to contribute $30,000 towards the purchase in 1978 of the park.  The official dedication ceremony took place in December, 1983.

The park includes granite features such as Horse Head Rock.   Weathering and erosion have produced this rock formation which, as the name suggests, resembles a horse’s head.  Capped Rock, a horizontal rock slab perched on a vertical outcrop, is another interesting feature within the park.

The park is home to native birds such as blue wrens, parrots, honeyeaters, finches and thornbills.  In the late afternoon or early morning, western grey kangaroos can be seen in the open grassland areas of the park, while Euros can occasionally be seen on the rocky ridges of the higher sections of the park.  Other animals to be found in the park include echidnas, possums, bats, and a variety of snakes and lizards.

About 400 plant species are supported within the park.  The park was principally established to preserve the most northerly occurrence of the brown stringybark, Eucalyptus baxteri. Their multi-stemmed, mallee-like appearance is the result of earlier, regular trimming to provide wood for the Nuriootpa brick kilns.

Large blue gums, river red gums, native pines and sheoaks provide shady cover for the diverse understorey of yaccas, wattles, tea-trees and silver banksias.   Many of the banksias were out in flower during my visit to the park.  Many plants, such as lavender grevilleas and fringe myrtles flower in spring. The green flowered hairy correa is an unusual plant that grows in the shelter of the large granite outcrops. The rare prickly tree violet also occurs in the park and is often mistaken for the African boxthorn. This native plant provides protected nesting sites for small birds.

You may see mistletoe growing on the eucalypts, acacias and casuarinas in the park. These are parasitic native plants, which provide food and shelter for many bird species. The lichens growing on the rocks are also an important part of the ecosystem helping to weather the rocks to form soil.

I ran a little late in getting to the park and setting up.  Mostly because we travelled all the way along Rifle Range Road, on the western side of the park, only to find that the road fell short of the park.  So we then drove all the way back and around to Bethany, and then up Menglers Hill Road, and access the park on the eastern side of Tanunda Creek Road.

There is a gate at this point to enter the park, and I set up the station just inside the park boundary near the gate.  There is a walking track from here which leads to an interpretative sign and some walking tracks through the park.  Soon after setting up David arrived, and Marija headed off for her hairdressing appointment.

I was running behind schedule and I knew the Hunters would be getting hungry, so I quickly jumped onto 40m, only to realise a little later that I had not secured the ends of the dipole.  Nether mind.  It still worked.  My first QSO was with Brian VK5FMID at Mount Gambier, followed by Col VK5HCF also in Mount Gambier, and then Dave VK3VCE near Echuca.  After working 6 stations, I handed over the mic to David, who made contact with 8 stations in VK3 & VK5.  Despite the fact that wee were not on a summit, David had his little fluffy goat as his mascot.  I then took over the reigns again & spoke with Larry VK5LY and Ian VK5CZ prior to the UTC roll over.

After the UTC rollover I worked a further 7 stations before again handing the mic over to David, whilst I went for a walk through the park.  David worked a further 6 stations in VK3 & VK5, including Mark VK5QI who was portable in Deep Creek Conservation Park.  The VK5 Parks award allows ‘Hunters’ to work activators for points every UTC day.  So a few operators called us back for a second bite at the cherry.

The weather was starting to warm up, band conditions were fading, and Marija had arrived to pick me up.  So it was time to pack up the gear and head home.  This was a beautiful park and a good fun activation with David.

A total of 29 QSO’s were made on 40m SSB.

The following stations were worked by me, VK5PAS:-

Before UTC roll over:- Brian VK5FMID; Col VK5HCF; Dave VK3VCE; Paul VK5FUZZ; Andrew VK5KET; Bill VK5MBD; Larry VK5LY; & Ian VK5CZ.

And after UTC roll over:- Larry VK5LY; Basil VK5BK; Dale VK5DC; Mike VK5MCB; Mal VK3AZZ; & Ian VK3VIN.

The following stations were worked by David, VK5NQP:-

Before UTC roll over:- Kevin VK3VEK; Brian VK5FMID; Bill VK5MBD; Joe VK3YSP; Julie VK3FOWL; Larry VK5LY, Dennis VK5LDM; Graham VK5KGP

And after UTC roll over:- Larry VK5LY; Maitland VK5AO; Ian VK5CZ; Nev VK5WG; Bob VK5AK; Frank VK3GFS; & Mark VK5QI/p.