Morning routine, leaving Bright

1. Tom gets up, showers, starts to pack. 2. Francis, while still in bed, finds a coffee shop (Wild Thyme) on Maps and Trip Advisor with an acceptable rating, sends the location from her phone to the Tesla. 3. Francis asks Tom to go get her a coffee. “The directions are already loaded in the car”. She’s already done the hard part. 4. Tom drives the car into town, following the navigation directions. Laughs at the dentist next to the lolly shop. 5. Tom returns with coffee. 6. Francis has made Tom a cup of tea in his thermos, and set up breakfast, but realises that we don’t have enough milk. 7. We pack up everything into the car and check out of the hotel. 8. We swing by Woolies to get milk, and then down to the Ovens River. Beautiful setting, to sit and watch the ducks. 9. We use our camping bowls, cutting board, cutlery etc to have a yummo breakfast of cereal and banana. We realise we left one of our two breakfast spoons back in Knoxfield. 10. We head off east of Bright towards Mount…

“Let’s go for a ride”, she said. “It will be fun”, she said.

It was wonderful, fresh air, blue skies, the mighty Ovens River and gorgeous perfumed flowers along the way. It may seem that we stopped regularly for photo ops, to avoid the magpies and to eat, but the truth is, our backsides were killing us! We swapped our electric car for a couple of electric bikes, thanks to Lee at Bright Electric Bikes. We pedalled, with assistance from the electric motor, from Bright to Porepunkah (about 15 km round trip), along the local rail trail. In the distance we could see a spectacular waterfall coming off Mount Buffalo. Fish and chips, salad and a side of veggies for lunch at Punka Pub, where the sign outside says “Eat, Drink, Ride”. We were amused by the fish tank separating the toilets. We came back to the motel to rest our sore bums and get some work done (via laptop and wifi). I only drove 2 km today to grab curly tagliatelle pasta and veges takeaway dinner from Don Mungo's. It looked like octopus, but was delicious. Charging: The Tesla stayed at our…

Day 2 of our latest road trip.

We stayed in Bright last night (and tonight) at Motel Sierra. We wandered around town, marveling at the spring foliage, including lilacs and azaleas. The Ovens River is flowing fast, presumably from melted snow and recent heavy rains. We suspect that the river was recently higher, judging by the blocked pedestrian bridge. We had dinner last night at Hometown Bright. Mushroom pizza and Italian meatballs. Today we ventured out on some electric bikes, detailed in our next post. Charging: The guy at motel check in noticed that we had an EV and asked “Would you like to plug in to charge? You can use this power point while the builders aren’t using it”. Very kind. I’ve plugged in this evening (the second night here) which should top us up from 50% to 100% overnight while we sleep, ready to leave with a full tank in the morning ☺️. There is also a fast charger in town and a Tesla supercharger up the road in Ovens, but charging while we sleep is super easy.

Day 1 of our latest road trip up the east coast.

Stopped for a quick visit at a friend’s in Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges, then at Heartswood in Yarra Glen for lunch (burger and chips). Stunningly beautiful green scenery all the way to Yea and Euroa. Lots of overflowing rivers, but no flooded roads. Stopped in Euroa for a stretch, then back on the road towards Bright. Charging: We topped up the car last night from a power point, so left with 100% charged battery, giving us about 420km range, more than enough to get to Bright tonight. But my own human “charge” (tiredness and bladder) started to expire at Euroa, so we pulled over to refresh. Since we were parked anyway, we just plugged into the supercharger there and walked away. So easy.

We’re off on another road trip, through the east coast mainland states. S

tarting tomorrow morning from east Melbourne, through the Dandenong Ranges, up to Bright. Then onwards to the NSW Central Coast by Sunday night for a few days. Then meandering (route yet to be decided) up to north Queensland, aiming to reach Airlie Beach by about November 6. A few days on Hamilton Island, then a reverse trip back south to Victoria. Charging: We’ve scheduled the Tesla to top up charge from a power point tonight after 10pm, when electricity is cheapest. It will probably cost $2.40 at off peak rates. Tomorrow night we’ll probably charge in Bright, either at our accommodation or the DC fast charger in town.

We may have found our new home!

In Emerald, Victoria. Beautiful street, town, nature walks. We had lunch at Sticks & Stones Cafe, parked the Tesla with the backdrop of some giant trees, walked along the path that would lead from caffeine back to our potential home. Then, on to Puffing Billy, through Emerald Lake Park, past the wishing well and Nobelius Heritage Park, back to town to grab the car. Charging: Eight panels! That’s not much of a solar array! We’ll be filling that north facing roof with solar panels, to power the house, with battery back up, and charge the car. We’ll be pulling out all the gas. We’ve started seeking quotes for the conversions. That’s assuming all goes well with home loan, inspections etc.

We dropped in to the Melbourne Electric Vehicle Show.

Lots of attendees and companies showcasing their vehicles. We were surprised at how small the frunk and sub-trunk storage is on most of the non Tesla cars. As usual, Tesla doesn’t exhibit, leaving it to volunteers from TOCA (Telsa Owners Club, Australia) to show off their cars. The Tesla Model X seemed to have endless people, mainly kids, climbing in and out through the gull wing doors. Francis was the first person to try lying down in the Model Y. We did manage to (kinda) spot a Cybertruck. We chatted to a few attendees considering an EV about their hesitations, which were very similar to ours, just over a year ago. We listened to a couple of exhibitors about V2H (vehicle to home) prospects, which unfortunately doesn’t yet seem to be economically viable. We would love to at least have V2L (vehicle to load) in our Tesla, so we could plug in appliances like a hot plate. A few other EVs on show did have V2L, in the form of a simple 240V power socket. There weren’t many accessories on…

Lunch at Larder & Thyme in Ferntree Gully.

Lunch was so good that we also bought dinner there to take home. Lots of yummy home-style cooked meals available. We had the car cleaned at Magic Car Wash FTG, including removal of months of jeans stain from my white seat. Back to bright white. Charging: Perfect opportunity to charge while parking, at the nearby JOLT Charge at Ferntree Gully Station. We upgraded from Jolt’s free 7kWh per day plan to the $10/month for 10kWh included free per day plan. Initially the app showed the charging in “special” gold, but now seems to be back to green. The PlugShare app also went through a weird update for a couple of weeks where the “Charging Now” check-in option was removed. Can’t fathom why, since that’s half of the usefulness of the app. Thankfully, they later restored that option.

We’re off to the Melbourne Electric Vehicle Show tomorrow (Saturday September 23). W

ho else is going? If you see us walking around, come say hi 👋. $32 for the “two for one” tickets deal, plus booking fee.

Day trip, part 2: Continued on our day trip, from Healesville through Wright Forest, to…

…Emerald and Puffing Billy.

Day trip, part 1, starting in Healesville, including a walk around the lake at the…

…Healesville Sport Complex. Charging: We charged at the new Evie Networks charger in Healesville while we had a wander through town.

Another day, another portable office location.

A stretch and some portable office time at a reserve, reclaimed from an old quarry.

Another road trip, looking at houses along the way, in Belgrave, Badger Creek and…

…Marysville. Charging: We didn’t really think about charging. No chargers in Marysville, except a kind offer from Kool Bass. We did charge up from 34% to 37% on our downhill regen from Marysville State Forest, on the way to Lake Mountain

Lunch with some dear friends at Proserpina Bakehouse in the Dandenong Ranges.

The food is always beautiful and delicious. Charging: When planning lunch in the Dandenongs, we usually default to Proserpina, because we can charge while parked there. But, I think we’ll need to cross it off our charging list 😢. The Tesla destination charger has a green light (after you turn on the power switch), but the app says no power. I tried the reset switch a couple of times. I asked staff who said that it “doesn’t work with Teslas”. I showed them the PlugShare log of several vehicles (not just Teslas) that said they failed to charge. They said they’re waiting on a fix (I think “from Tesla”, which doesn’t make sense to me). They seemed very vague. I had the same problem months earlier. It doesn’t seem to be a priority. We had heaps of charge anyway, but we just prefer to “always be charging” when the car is parked. On the return trip back down from the Dandenong Ranges, we recouped (regenerated) about half of the charge we had used to go up ☺️

Another day trip to look at potential new homes.

First stop Mount Evelyn, then Alexandra, in Victoria. The house in Mount Evelyn has an impressive view over its curved driveway. In Alexandra, Francis befriended the four chickens: Henny, Penny, Jenny and Karen. Stopped at Beechworth Bakery, Healsville for pies and what I would label as a custard burger, but is apparently called a “bee sting”. One of the most beautiful drives we’ve done, incorporating the Black Spur Drive. Charging: We didn’t charge the night before 🤦‍♂️. Since we arrived a bit early in Alexandra and had to wait somewhere anyway, we plugged into the local Evie Networks charger for a few minutes. I didn’t bother charging on the way back, since we had enough to get home. We arrived back in eastern Melbourne with about 10% battery, which meant we couldn’t enable sentry mode while it was parked on the street overnight. The next morning I charged up at JOLT Charge in Ferntree Gully. I miss having my own garage with a charger.

A quick stop in Euroa to empty some urea, and give the car a final charge before…

…Melbourne. We admired the shiny Model Y compared to our road dirtied Model 3. When the owner returned we had a good chat about EVs. She has only had it a few months. She had recently driven with her father to Shepparton when the Tesla navigation told her that Euroa was her only charging option and she’d have to drive at 30km/h to make it. Stressful. I pulled out the PlugShare app to show her the other non Tesla chargers in Shepparton and explained that they have built in CCS cables that plug straight into your Tesla etc. I couldn’t bare thinking of her limping along the road again. I also explained that the charging stall at the far end is reserved for EVs with a trailer. Charging: Same old simple story. We had entered our destination into the Tesla navigation. It directed us to stop along the way in Euroa. So, we stopped, and plugged it in, walked across the road to the toilet, came back, unplugged, drove off. No credit card, waiting in line, or breathing in fumes while holding a…

We arrived for lunch and our last charge in NSW before crossing the border.

We had a chat to Keith and his wife (sorry, forgot your name 🤦) who were plugged in when we arrived. They’re retired and drive between Melbourne, Canberra and Mildura visiting family. Next stop Euroa, on our way to Melbourne today. Charging: After not charging last night at our accommodation in Junee, and The NRMA charger in Wagga Wagga tied up for an hour, we aimed for Holbrook, arriving with about 9% battery charge. Keith had already plugged in, but unplugged at about 90% and headed off after we chatted. We charged up while grabbing lunch.

Woke up in Junee and drove one block to the Junee Licorice & Chocolate Factory, for…

…breakfast and coffee served with, as you might guess, licorice wrapped in chocolate. Then a quick visit to the homewares/gift shop upstairs, including fur lined crocs. Then we drove on towards Wagga Wagga. We needed to get back to Knoxfield in the east Melbourne suburbs today. Charging: I regretted not charging last night at our accommodation. When we arrived at The NRMA charger in Wagga Wagga, it was in use by a model Y. Fortunately the driver had checked in via PlugShare so I could see that he would be there for an hour, which was too long for us to wait. The next options for fast chargers are at Tarcutta (which would have been a slight diversion) and Holbrook, where we headed, with projected 10% battery on arrival.

Arrived in Junee, after driving along the Olympic Highway from Bathurst.

Burgers for dinner at the Jail Brake Inn, by the light of the full moon and road trains. Sleeping at Junee Tourist Park. Charging: We asked about charging at the park and were told we could use a power point from the cabin. The good news is that the mobile charging cable reached from power point to car (without an extension cord). The bad news is that we couldn’t close the door, and the night was too cold to leave it open. In retrospect, I should have moved the car to next to an outdoor power point, but I didn’t bother.

Stopped at the Bathurst chargers.

We used the time to catch up on some laptop work, powered by the car’s USB-C ports. We stayed overnight at the local The NRMA holiday park. Cute gold rush town theme. 10% off with NRMA membership. Charging: Free charge thanks to The NRMA charger, next to the row of paid Tesla chargers. Almost all EVs (except those with a Chademo connector, such as the Nissan Leaf) can now use any of these chargers. But we checked in on PlugShare with a comment to say that we could move if someone needed the NRMA charger. But we were the only car there the whole time.

We drove from The Blue Mountains to Oberon, where we were pulled over by the police.

It seems that our registration has expired! We were kicking ourselves 🤦. The reminder would have been posted to our business address, which we only check every few months, because we are road tripping. But we should have had a calendar reminder for it anyway, or at least just realised. We collected the car on August 31, 2022, but I guess Tesla registered it a few days beforehand. The officer was very kind. No fine, but he told us we couldn’t drive anywhere until we renewed the registration. Easy to do, on-line, right? It took us ages to find the CTP (green slip) policy number, since Tesla has organised it originally. NRMA Insurance website told us it was undergoing maintenance. We used the chat feature to get help, which suffered slow responses and the support staff also experienced the maintenance issue. Thanks to The Hub Pizza for sustenance while we sorted all this out. Eventually all done, just as a hail storm rolled into town. We copped some small hail on the drive or towards…

Driving from Bathurst to Junee along the Olympic Highway.

First, a comparison of scone topping styles for morning tea. Beautiful scenery. Countless fields of green and yellow (canola). Stopped by the Blayney Wind Farm next to Carcoar Dam Camping Area. Lunch in Cowra while the car charged. Another diversion to the Bethungra Spiral Railway Lookout – I wish there had been a train due then through the tunnel and around to the top of it. Charging: Another free charge from The NRMA, this time in Cowra. Perfect amount of time for a stop for the toilet and lunch.

We started road tripping from The NSW Central Coast, back towards Victoria, initially…

…heading west through Wiseman’s Ferry and the Blue Mountains. We stopped for afternoon tea along the Hawkesbury River, just before the ferry. Thanks to Bron for the delicious home baked cookies. An hour later at the Hawkesbury Lookout, a tried to sneak in another cookie, but it was whisked out of my hand by a swooping kookaburra. It soon realised that it wasn’t meat, but was hesitant to give it up to a magpie that didn’t care. It’s a bird eat cookie world out there! Charging: All charged from the day before from solar panels while parked in the garage of our generous host, Margaret.

We stayed the night in the NSW Blue Mountains.

In the morning we meandered along the spectacular Blue Mountains Drive, creatively bypassing the first closed section using the Tesla’s huge map to drive around the valley cliffs. Charging: Our accommodation listed as having EV chargers available, but when we arrived they told us we need to buy/borrow a $30 card as a flat fee for charging. We declined. I later found the chargers with a Chargefox sticker on them; opened the ChargeFox app, connected my type 2 cable; and paid through the app, about $10 for top up overnight to 100%. I suspect these chargers don’t get much use because the host staff don’t really know how they work. Earlier that evening, I also did a 10 minute Evie Networks charge, since I was parked anyway, in Lawson while getting a takeaway dinner.

I test drove the new MG4 with one of our kids, Ben.

The MG4 was announced in Australia back in March at the Fully Charged Show in Sydney, but only became available in the past couple of weeks, widely applauded by reviewers. Review from our 19 year old: Yeah, it’s good, but not as good as the Tesla [Model 3]. The front looks good, but the back could be sportier. One pedal driving is easy. Lots of interesting options to try in the screen display. It has more impressive acceleration after about 30km/h than from a standing start. It’s currently the cheapest EV sold in Australia, starting at $38k plus on road costs. Plus you get whatever incentives are available in your state, such as free stamp duty and $3k cash-back in NSW. If your employer or business buys it, then they get the $3.8k GST refunded (as tax input credits) and you save about $5-10k on income tax (by paying no fringe benefits tax). At the end of the day, it could effectively cost you more like $25-29k. Note: Talk to a real accountant instead of taking my pondering as…

Staying for a few days in Erina, on the NSW Central Coast.

Finally gave the car another thorough clean, thanks again to Snap Car Wash. We did a double take on the sign on the back of a Red Bus Services bus, which seems to be asking the public whether goats should be driving buses. Charging: Thanks to our generous friend and host, Margaret, we were able to charge from solar panels and a wall charger. We used the Charge HQ app to automatically adjust the charging rate to match the available solar production.

The real reason we headed back to NSW was for Mum’s 80th birthday, in the Hunter Valley…

…but we had to keep it quiet. We all pitched in for an EV for Mum – well, an electric motor scooter. We couldn’t get the box to the Model 3, so I pulled the contents out, which all fit in the boot. Tom drove the scooter up the driveway, with Fran following in the Tesla, much to the amusement of all, and the surprise of Mum. It is amazing how simple the motor scooter is. Basically an electric motor on the back wheels and a battery in the middle. We wouldn’t dream of having a petrol burning version of this. As we were departing, we ran the Tesla light show, where it blares out music from the boom box, while dancing windows, mirrors and the hatch in sync. And of course the youngest got to try the fart seats, summon and go cart video game. And lastly, a sneaky stop to go “awww” at some alpacas.

We met up with Keith, David and Lindsay at the Campbelltown Tesla superchargers.

Lindsay and David are just past midway through their “big lap” of Australia clockwise from Perth in their Model S. They showed us their epic collection of charging adapters and cables that fill their trunk. We grabbed a drink and late lunch in the adjacent Catholic Club and warned each other about the too high speed humps when exiting the car park. Next stop: NSW Central Coast Charging: Our charging was done during the introductions, before we entered the club. So, we just moved the car to an empty car space.

We stayed last night in a cabin/caravan park, along the Princes Highway, just south of…

…Ulladulla. We had a budget $104 cabin, but later discovered the small town shop themed cabins nearer the beach. Very cute. Just a short walk to the beach, “at your own risk” (not really that bad). Spagbol, veg pizza, salad and tiramisu for dinner from Tony’s Italian Restaurant in Ulladulla. The local cockatoos seemed to be all "on line" having a big meeting. We stopped for a coffee at Gerringong Cafe And Deli, on our way to meet up with some other Tesla trippers at the Tesla supercharger in Campbelltown. Charging: We asked at reception and they suggested just plugging into a power point at the cabin, which we did. Fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

Driving around the south and north of Batemans Bay, checking out the views, towns and a…

…few houses for sale. Stopping at Melville Point Lookout in Tomakin, Observation Head Lookout. Charging: Free change at one of the two The NRMA chargers in Batemans Bay, while we had lunch.

After staying off grid at Potato Point, we drove to the nearest civilisation (ie coffee…

…outlet) in Bodalla. We were lucky to catch the (slightly late) 10am feeding of the calves and the strutting rooster. Charging: There is one Tesla destination charger on site. It’s fairly slow (20A, 4.8kW), compared to the typical 7-11kW, but it’s still twice the speed of a standard power point (10A, 2.4kW). Hey, it’s free!

We stayed in Potato Point, north of Narooma, just across the channel from Tuross Head…

…om Tuross Head which we had visited a couple of weeks earlier. There’s something about kangaroos: so uniquely Australian, gentle but strong. Literally warm and fuzzy, but don’t underestimate them. They are everywhere, here. The grass is full of land mines for bare feet 😉. The holiday park is off grid. Run on solar, but I don’t think any batteries, so I think they have to run diesel at night. The powered sites are limited to 6A. The cabins have no microwave or electric kettle. Such a beautiful, peaceful spot. We could almost move in. We drove around the area for a couple of days, looking at a couple of potential houses (and grabbing coffee) in Tuross Head, and getting dinner in Narooma. I caught up on some work, and we just chilled. Charging: We just used the battery charge we had grabbed at the Narooma superchargers. We didn’t charge at the park, since they are off grid. We probably could have charged from their excess solar during the day, but it wasn’t worth the bother.

Driving through more of the NSW south coast, through Tathra, and Wallaga Lake.

Charging: Easy plug in to charge at Narooma’s Tesla superchargers, while we grabbed some groceries from Woollies.

Stopped for lunch at Squire’s Cafe - Cann River, heading east. W

e were here, in Cann River, just a couple of weeks ago, heading west. Stopped in at the service station to remove a fresh layer of bugs. Charging: Ready to go again in seven minutes at the Tesla supercharger. Since we were still eating, and there were plenty of free charger stalls, we let it keep on charging too 100%. Easy.

Arrived in Bairnsdale at the NRMA cabin/caravan park.

Dessert was chocolate mousse from OzMex Restaurant 😋. Charging: We messaged the accommodation ahead of time to ask if we could charge there while parked. They suggested we use one of the empty powered sites immediately opposite our cabin. Topped up at 15A (3.6kW) to 100% and ready to go in the morning.

Breakfast in Daylesford, dinner in Bairnsdale, Victoria, over 400km apart.

We’re off to look at some houses on the far south coast of NSW, starting in Tuross Head. It was a last minute decision, when we stopped for lunch in Knoxfield, to just keep going. Autopilot took care of most of the highway driving. A quick charge and loo stop in Moe, and a drive past the carbon spewing coal fire power plants, which will hopefully be phased out soon. Charging: We just entered our destination into the car’s navigation. The car pinned the needed chargers along the way, starting with Moe. We just arrived, plugged in and walked away (to the toilet). Simpler than petrol. ☺️

We drove down to Lake Daylesford with a cheese hamper from Winespeake for dinner…

…followed by the Borealis AU #borealisau light show. Lasers onto mists of rain fog and dry ice, with a mystical sound track background. Erie and beautiful.

In between house inspections, we grabbed lunch at The Convent Daylesford.

They were booked out, but Stephen was kind enough to call us a few minutes later when a table freed up. After a walk along Lake Daylesford, I searched through the main street of town for a cafe that served scones. You would think that they would be everywhere in this place, but no! In the end, it turns out that the only person serving scones here, is me! With help from Bakers delight Daylesford and Coles Daylesford for the ingredients.

Off to Daylesford for the weekend.

You guessed it – looking at potential homes. We drove by a few houses, through Spring Hill, Trentham, then back to Daylesford. Beautiful region. Probably a bit too consistently wet and overcast for us, however. We stayed at Hotel Frangos, for sleeping, a dinner, and brekky. Lovely country hotel, friendly staff and friendly dogs (not part of the hotel, I think). The car park has an iconic metal gate, but it’s quite narrow, and we just managed to escape bottoming out on the dip. Francis took precautions against the Italian meatballs. Charging: We arrived with just 6% battery (as predicted by the navigation), and the usual warnings to charge now, because it’s cold! There’s only a slow (22kW) DC charger in town. But it’s in a prominent spot in the main street, which catches a lot of interest from passers by, and hopefully demystifies the whole EV thing. We also saw a Mini Cooper and a Kia Niro charging there. It took about 2.5 hours for us to charge up from 6% to about 96% (our battery is…

New tyres for our Tesla Model 3, fitted at Tesla in Mulgrave Victoria.

Booking through the app was seamless, as always. I asked previously, via the app, if I could have a loan car while they serviced ours, but they were all allocated. When I arrived, however, I asked again, and said I’d sit in the waiting room until they found one. A few minutes later, a Model Y became available. This was the first time I was able to pair my phone with the loan car, which makes using it much easier. The process created a new profile, linked to my Tesla account, which later also appeared in our Tesla Model 3, so I will use that profile from now on, to share my preferred settings between cars. The air con in the Model 3 has a “recycle air” button. But the the Model Y also has the “biohazard defence” button. I think it helps when sitting behind diesel spewing utes taking off at the lights 😉. While waiting, I set up office in the Model Y in nearby Jells Park. The tyres cost $427 each (Michelin Pilot Sport 4). The car has driven nearly 39,000km. At my request, they fitted the…

Visiting Ferntree Gully

Brunch at lorna cafe. Hair courtesy of Ruby Red Salon. Walk around the Tim Neville Arboretum, including public herbs, it seems. Replacing the Tesla’s supplied 128GB USB drive with a 1TB drive. Eight times the capacity for Sentry Mode recordings and dash cam recordings from the eight built in cameras.

Slightly overdue for another tyre rotation (16,700km since previous check, but due at…

…10,000km intervals). So, I booked one in via the Tesla app, which quoted $71.28. Mobile service came to me. Amar, the Tesla technician, was very friendly, efficient and helpful. All his tools were in the trunk and frunk of his Tesla Model S service vehicle. He showed me that the tyres had unevenly worn, so the inside tread (on the right in the photo) was below spec on all tyres, requiring the replacement. He said he could cancel today’s call-out (so, no cost to me) and book in a tyre replacement at the Tesla service centre (big cost). I asked him to make it so. Follow up: See the post about the subsequent actual tyre replacement at the service center, here:

A short trip out to Lillydale (Victoria) to look at some houses and to grab a baked…

…potato for lunch by Lillydale Lake. We didn’t find a house, but Francis nearly adopted a couple of the house cats.

We drove from Lakes Entrance, back to Scoresby, in eastern Melbourne.

We popped in through Gembrook to look at a house. The air hand dryer in the park in Gembrook had a familiar brand name. It bucketed rain at one point along the Princes Highway, which seemed to wash off all of the bugs. It pushed the AutoPilot to the limit, but it managed to keep on steering us through the lane. I suspect the rain impacted our range a bit. Because of the rain, we looked for somewhere sheltered for lunch, and headed into Traralgon shopping centre. We tried, but failed, to find the chargers there, until we were leaving, so didn’t bother. Shopping centers should have better signs and arrows for visiting EVs to find them. As we were leaving, David and Sam flagged us down in the car park, showing a picture of us from our posts. Sam commented to Dave “He’s got bare feet!”. I’m not sure if that’s how they identified us 🤔. We chatted a bit about our travels, their off grid setup in Rawson, and small town politics. Thanks for saying hello! Charging: We started the journey with…

Arrived in Lakes Entrance, Victoria.

We had been thinking about the Big Bear Donuts from a week ago at the donut van in Sale. So, in transit today, Fran preordered donuts from their shop in Lakes Entrance, for pickup at the Tesla navigation’s predicted arrival time. High pressure driving! We may have a problem 🍩. We stayed in a great cabin at the Eastern Beach Holiday Park. I caught up on a little bit of work (and wine). We chatted to the couple in the cabin next door, who also had an EV. They were on their way from Tasmania to family on the NSW Central Coast, in Empire Bay, just across the water from where we used to live. Charging: I asked Kathy at reception if we could charge the car from one of the vacant caravan sites, right in front of our cabin. She was very helpful and friendly, saying this was their first EV charging request. She rang the owner to check. I scheduled charging to start after 10pm, to reduce the peak load. At 15A (3.6kW), it was pretty perfect to have us ready to go in the morning with a full…

Starting our trip back from Tuross Head in NSW to Victoria.

First stop at a service station to clean the windscreen, and _not_ buy petrol. A quick stop in Bega for a coffee and free top up electric charge. A rest stop in Timbillica to expel the digested coffee. Our first time stopping at Cann River, to use the new Tesla superchargers and try out the pies (recommended by Daniel Rond). Beautiful and convenient place to stop. The charging was finished before we were.

Day trip from Tuross Head to Narooma, on the NSW south coast.

Beautiful clear water under Narooma Bridge. Thai lunch special by the water’s edge. Watching the sea lion and stingray near the boat ramp.

More cruising around Tuross Head.

Made our gourmet peanut butter and banana on toast for brekky. Bought coffee from the local Lure Cafe Tuross. Found different office views from which to work. Stalked the local kangaroos at dusk.

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