Belmont ZL1/WL-110

This trip to Wellington was primarily driven by an open day at Steam Inc, where amoung many other things you could drive the full sized steam engine down the 200 m long track and back. Well how many people can say they have driven a steam engine? Now I can, having driven (is that even the right word here?) AB 608 down the track and back. I’m sure it was a successful fundraiser day for the organisation. Anyhou, the following day I figured a walk was in order, and this was one of the local Wellington summits I hadnt yet activated. Time to fix that.

Signboard at start track carpark

Access is a drive down Stratton Street (yes its still called a street but looks more like a road) and just after a bridge on the left is the entrance to the park area. A futher 200 m down the road there is space to park where the signboard above is located. From there it is a steady climb of just over 300 m up to the trig. You can see the trig early on in the walk so you know what you are in for. The track is a 4WD track so the gradient isnt too mean. However there is no real shade on this track except for a bit of bush right at the top.

There is a park bench up the top facing East and from there you can see the Marlborough Sounds of the South Island. Once set up there were a few cyclists and a broadcast radio engineer who were interested in my activities, so I shared the amateur radio and the SOTA story. This activation I managed to work 9 stations including 2 on VHF and 8 on 7 MHz (one station twice).

The walk back down was fairly quick which was great as the sun was getting quite powerful now and it would be easy to overheat if I was still powering up hill. You can see the tower for the Wellington VHF group 710 repeater and the national system above, with the HVDC lines in the foreground. The urban area pictured is Petone.

Details

Summit – ZL1/WL-110 Belmont

Height – 456 mASL (climb 320 m)

Access – From Stratton Street (just after the bridge on the left)

Nominal time to summit – 1 – 1.5hrs

Mobile and internet coverage from the summit – Good from the top. 710 only 500 m away.

Summit Marker – Trig

Land Access Permission – Not Required.

NB: PHOTOS NOT FOR USE ELSEWHERE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION