Well – it’s been a while but I’m back climbing hills again! That is almost as I now rely on 3 wheels and not 4 and not 2 legs for walking! My last SOTA was in October 2019 in England, Cleeve Hill which is a drive on with a very short walk to the trig. Since 2018 that has been the only type I could do due to illness. However last week I bought a mountain trike so that I could try some of the longer “walks” and Mullaghcarn was to be the test.

The weather was rubbish – forecast said sun but rain it was and wind and fog! We arrived at the start point and got everything off loaded including the mountain dog and her sidekick couch potato.

Ian bought his bike as well so with the dogs in their box and the gear all on the trike we set off.

Unfortunately the rain got heavier as we climbed and the wind stronger. There were points where the steepness of the track was nearly too much for the trike and, as I’m not yet well enough to pedal much to assist, I had to get off and use the walk assist but we got there in the end.

Once at the top the wind was really strong and the rain was driving hard so we tried to activate on the lee side but found we needed to go over to the trig point to get that final bit of height and clearance.

Ian got 6 contacts on 2m (Eddie, EI6GOB/M in addition to my log below) and I got 5. we tried Steve, MI0KXT on 70cms but weren’t able to make a contact. Many thanks to Victor, Eddie, Steve, Jack, Robert and John.

13:17	GI4ONL	144MHz	FM
13:27	GI4LVC	144MHz	FM
13:28	MI0GDO	144MHz	FM
13:29	2I0FMN	144MHz	FM
13:32	MI0KXT	144MHz	FM

At this point the dogs were saying “let’s go” so we decided to pack up and head down as the rain was starting to saturate everything and there was no sign of the sun!

On returning to the camper van we had a cup of coffee and some sandwiches and the dogs enjoyed a yoghurt biscuit!

A big big thank you to Ian for being so supportive in getting me back out on the hills again!