Second flight: 13 hours from Singapore to Amsterdam.

More good food and service from Singapore Airlines. I don’t know how people manage to sleep on planes. But it wasn’t until after we landed that we discovered that the head rests extend 🤦. Just after breakfast, we descended into the Netherlands. At security, when asked for our reason for visit, Tom replied “olliebollen”, but the officer didn’t look amused. While waiting for our bags at the carousel, we checked on our home. The doorbell camera showed our front yard and the sounds of birds singing. Marvin the Mower’s all seeing eyes showed the back yard. We surrendered our apple and banana and entered the country. Now to find our rental Tesla Model Y from UFODRIVE.

After thirty hours in planes and airports, we spent the next two hours trying to sort out…

…our hire car. But it was mostly my own fault. We used the UFODRIVE app to try to locate the car. We headed towards the pin shown on the app’s map, which is difficult because it doesn’t show your relative location. After a long walk to the other end of the car park, I couldn’t find any signs for UFODrive, or anyone who’d heard of them. It turns out that the pin just gives a general intended location. It was also hampered by no internet connection on my phone. I had bought a roaming pack from my Australian carrier, Belong, but it didn’t fully activate for a couple of hours after landing. I eventually found some public wifi and used the UFODrive app to contact their support. They pointed out that I had booked the car for 12 noon, not 8am as I had thought 🤦. They explained that they don’t deliver the car to the airport carpark until just before pick up time. They gave me the option to come collect it from their Amsterdam city location. So, our first EV trip in the Netherlands was in a…

I managed to drive on the right hand side of the road, sleep deprived and all.

It’s weird having the driver’s seat and the car console flipped over to the other side, like some mirror universe. I managed to keep the curb on my right (instead of left, in Australia). That method works fine, until you come across a roundabout, where it’s the reverse of the already reversed method. Our cousin, Nico, had by that stage come out on his bike to guide us the last few hundred metres. He facepalmed as he watched me hesitate at the last roundabout and then proceed the wrong way around it. Fortunately, we were in a quiet neighbourhood, with no one around. Until then, I had managed many other roads and a few roundabouts, so I’m blaming my brain glitch on jet lag 😉. We parked 100m from our cousin’s houseboat, in a quiet neighbourhood street. It has several EV destination chargers next to parking spots! Amazing. Our Tesla has 90% charge, so I don’t want or need to take up a charging spot yet. The UFODRIVE car comes nicely cleaned. It includes a CCS type 2 cable (suitable for…

We now live on a boat, in a canal, in The Netherlands.

Apart from living in a windmill or a pair of giant clogs, I can’t think of anything more appropriate for our time here. As a bonus for its Australian visitors, this boat is named “Boomerang” 🪃. We thought we were to stay in the houseboat of our cousin Nico, but he had generously arranged for our own boat, two births away. It’s fully fitted out with kitchen, living area, power points, shower, toilet, fridge, stove, washing machine and bedroom. The living area includes a powered opening sunroof. We’ve parked our hired Tesla in the next street, with options there for on street charging.

Our last Australian coffee and meal, in Melbourne airport, after long walks through check…

…in and security. Francis started registering as an additional driver for the UFODrive car rental (from Amsterdam), following the instructions to take a selfie with one eye open. Must have been funny to onlookers. First flight leg: Melbourne to Singapore, seven hours, on Singapore airlines. It’s true : they are “a great way to fly”. Food and service was excellent. It took us a while to find the power point between the seats to plug in Tom’s laptop to do some work. A couple of hours in Singapore Airport to rediscover that we have legs, with a brief stop at the sunflower exhibit and coffee shop. The robot barista was intriguing, but we didn’t try it. Back into another plane, destined for Amsterdam. Thirteen hours. We will survive!

And we’re off! Europe, here we come.

First step in our EV road trip is a lift from our home in Emerald to Melbourne Airport. We didn’t want to leave our car at the airport for eight weeks. We happened across GoBlue, which is a newer company than Uber and Lift. They promote ethical values such as all EVs (no fossil fuels) and better conditions for workers. They gave us about 30% discount off our first booking. The driver arrived 15 minutes early, so I offered him our home charger. Might as well charge when parked anyway. The drive to the airport was smooth, quiet and fume free. Excellent driver. Personally, I would flash high beams to clear cling-ons from the right lane, rather than tailgate 🫣. Getting through the airport was okay, but a bit tiring. I had a tube of honey in my carry-on that I had to surrender to security. Rookie mistake. It was 400mL – exceeding the 100mL fluid limit. I managed to skull down my half full water bottle, but I couldn’t drink 300mL of honey 😉 . Charging: We left our Tesla at home, plugged…

Next week, we’re off on another big road trip! W

e think it will be about 5000km, over six weeks. We’ve never traveled these roads before, or checked the EV chargers along the way. It’s about the same distance as a return trip (from our home in Emerald Victoria) to Rockhampton or Uluru. It’s only slightly more than the double trip we did in May to Cessnock to pick up Mum for a visit to Emerald, and return. As usual, we’re not sure of our exact route, and we haven’t advance booked any accommodation along the way. To add some challenge, we’ll drive the entire trip on the right hand side of the road! As you might have guessed by now, this trip will not be in Australia. This is our first EV road trip overseas and Tom’s first time in Europe. We’re hiring a Tesla Model Y Long Range in The Netherlands, where we’re staying for a couple of weeks with Fran’s cousin (thanks Nico ☺️). Then we’re driving roughly south east through Europe, visiting Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Switzerland, to Italy, with the return trip possibly including…

When the storm hit last night, in Emerald Victoria.

We thought the rain and thunder were noisy, but then the hail started.

It’s been wild 36 hours here in the Dandenong Ranges. Y

esterday afternoon, the power went out in our town of Emerald. We heard it was due to a fire somewhere. We sent out a few texts to our neighbours to offer our battery backup power. We ran our heavy duty extension lead over the fence and set up a power board on the front porch for phone charging. A few hours later, the grid was back up and running. But, the pending storm warnings made us cautious. Sure enough, an hour or so later, the storm hit. Heavy rain, pounding hail and strong wind. Marvin the robot mower happily sits charging out in the rain. But I didn’t fancy the chances of his camera eyes surviving the hail stones. I used the iPhone app remote control to drive it under our pergola, while the ice golf balls bounced on the lawn. Sure enough, the grid connection died again during the night, probably due to storm damage to power lines and other infrastructure. In the morning our neighbour reconnected to our power supply. We inspected the hail stones that had formed a layer on our…

Brunch at Kuranga Native Nursery, in Mt Evelyn Victoria.

The avo toast was spectacular, with cherry tomatoes, pesto and shards of dehydrated Vegemite. I didn’t know that was a thing! We wandered around the native nursery plants and garden ornaments. This was both inspiration and procrastination for the gardening we needed to do at home later. Charging: Our home system is set up to charge the car using the lowest demand option. This means that it never charges during peak demand (such as dinner time), so has no negative impact on the electricity grid, or our power bills. Since we have solar panels on our home, most of the time it just uses free sunshine to charge our car. Today, as you can see from the screenshots, it charged the car during the morning and afternoon sunshine. During the middle of the day, while we were at brunch, it exported the maximum allowed 5kW to the grid.

Charging an EV is easier than filling a car with petrol.

We can now just plug in and walk away. Payment is all automatic. Takes ten seconds of my time. We’ve always been able to do this with Tesla superchargers and with any home charger or power point. But third party fast chargers that require payment have required using an app or tapping a card to start charging. But now, Evie Networks has listened to customers and enabled “auto charge”. We can just park, plug in and walk away. The charging station recognises our car, and knows our payment details. To enable auto charge, we had to do one manual charge, and verify who we are, as you can see in the screenshots. We were in Yara Junction for a walk along the Lilydale Warburton rail trail, and brunch at Nancy's of the Valley. Great day out. Having the option to return to a fully fuelled car is a bonus!

The sun held out despite the clouds hanging on the mountains, as we wandered along the…

…rail trail near Yarra Junction in Victoria. The trail goes all the way from Lillydale to Warburton, but we only did a few kilometres of it. Brunch at Nancy's of the Valley was delicious. Scrambled eggs, mushrooms and spinach kept us going all day. Friendly staff and atmosphere. Charging: Our Tesla only had 60% battery when we left home. We could have fully charged overnight, but we prefer to charge from solar during the day. It’s heaps more than we need for a day trip. Yarra Junction has a new Evie Networks fast charger. We tested it just to try out the new “auto charge” feature, where you can just plug in and walk away. No need to use a card or app or anything, just like a Tesla Supercharger. I’ll post separately about that.

Today we earned over $200 for supplying electricity to the grid!

We’re in Emerald, Victoria. We chose Amber Electric as our energy retailer, since they pass on the wholesale electricity price, which can change every few minutes. You have to be a bit of an energy nerd (like me), but you can make money from supplying power to the grid during peak demand, and even get paid to use power during high supply. Knowing the price is high makes you acutely aware of consumption, preferring to instead be paid to export. Boil water for a cup of tea, or get paid 20c? Okay, not quite that extreme. 😉 A cold morning and evening (high energy demand), combined with not enough cheap renewables in the grid, means it’s powered mostly by fossil fuel (gas and coal). The wholesale electricity price spikes, which pays a small fortune to anyone who can supply some power, including power companies, and householders who have a battery 🔋💰. If you’re an energy nerd and want to try Amber’s wholesale electricity pricing, you can use our referral code to get a $30 discount:…

Brunch at The Laughing Fox Cafe in Emerald.

Eggs Benny with salmon for Tom, and a veg loaded omelette for Francis. Then a short walk along part of the adjacent Eastern Dandenong Ranges Trail, past Hogan Park, along the Puffing Billy Railway to the wide open Pepis Park fronting the wetlands. Beautiful day out. Charging: Same old story: The car is always charged and ready to go, powered from the solar panels on our home’s roof. Free energy from the sun ☀️.

He’s such a good boy! 🐶 🤖. The lat

est addition to our household, Marvin the mower, has done an impressive job so far. It’s a Mammotion Tech Luba 2 3000 robot mower, from Robotech Australia. I just tell Marvin to mow a particular area of our yard, and off it toddles, looking like Wall-E, to do its job. It’s fully automatic, detecting obstacles, returning to charge when necessary, and sending me a notification when finished. Hardware setup was pretty easy. Plug in the camera eyes, position the recharging pad, assemble the transmitter pole and stab it into the ground. More detail on our hardware setup in our previous post: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/v9veusE28yA1CqL3/ The RTK transmitter pole needs to have fairly clear view of the sky, but seems to work fine where I put it, with some light nearby vegetation. To program the yard mowing areas, I tapped in the app to add an area, then remote controlled the mower around the area boundary, while walking beside it. Francis laughed, took a photo, saying I looked like a…

We bought a new EV! It’s all wheel drive, includes full self driving, with proximity…

…sensors and just a front facing stereo camera. But it takes about four hours to fully charge and the acceleration is pretty slow 😉. It’s a Mammotion Tech Luba 2 robot lawn mower. We could have bought it online direct from Mammotion, but opted to buy it through a local service centre, Robotech Australia, just in case we need support or maintenance. Our lawn is about 1500 square metres. We bought the Luba 2 AWD 3000 model, which is rated to mow 3000 square meters, allows up to ten mowing areas, and handles extra step inclines. The base model does 1000 square metres, and allows less separate mowing areas. There are also 5000 and 10000 models. I followed the fairly simple hardware instructions to screw in the camera (which looks like Wall-E), screw the charging station into the ground, and assemble the transmitter (RTK) onto a pole. We have named the robot “Marvin” (the mower). To misquote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Brain the size of a planet, and all they want me to do is mow…

Blurred reversing camera?

Wipe the winter road grime off the rear camera with a water soaked tissue. Fixed! Follow us for more high tech car maintenance tips! 😉

A jaunt through the Dandenong Ranges to Kallista Deli & Cafe.

We split an eggs Benedict for breakfast, followed ten minutes later by half a burger each for lunch. Breakfast and lunch done! Great service and delicious food. Food (everywhere) is so expensive now. We walked through town, down to the Kallista Tea Rooms, and watched the sulphur crested cockatoos watching the customers eating their scones. We’ll have to come back here to eat some time. Inspired by the scones, we popped back through Kallista Deli & Cafe to grab some cakes to take home for afternoon tea. Tough day 😉. One quick stop at the John’s Hill Reserve Lookout on the way home. Charging: Not much solar lately. It’s been mostly raining for a week. We just leave the car plugged in while at home, so the system can charge it whenever the sun peeks through. Over the last few days and nights, the grid had over 50% supply from renewables, which has lowered the price considerably. We took advantage of these periods occasionally to charge the car. More renewables means cheaper electricity!

After a beautiful morning drive in the Dandenong Ranges, with our last stop at John’s…

…Hill Reserve Lookout, we decided to head for home, about 20 minutes away. It was 6°C outside but warm and toasty in the Tesla. Our house was going to be cold 🥶. If only there was a way to heat it up remotely, before we got home, like we can with the Tesla 🤔. Fortunately, there is! We bought a Sensibo remote control. It communicates with the air conditioner via infrared, and communicates with our phones via the Internet. It even works with our ten year old Panasonic air con. So, we can be in bed, or many kilometres away and say “Siri, turn on the air conditioner”, to have a warm lounge room waiting for us. We can also control the temperature, fan speed, schedule and so on. We could even set it up to turn on the air conditioner automatically when we’re within 20km from home, via geofencing. Nice 😊 We opted for the “Air Pro” version, which also monitors air quality. I’ve noticed that it sometimes shows a spike in airborne particulates, which I suspect is when neighbours fire up their…

Heading home to Emerald from Wagga Wagga.

A quick wee stop in Swanpool and again in Yea. We really should synchronise bladders. Toilets seem to be the greatest need on a road trip. Apple Maps only shows public toilets up the other end of town in Yea, but we discovered one at the (appropriately named) Yea Wetlands Discovery Centre. The guy at the counter was very friendly and helpful, answering questions about the place. The walk around the wetlands is about half an hour – perfect while parked at the Tesla Superchargers 80m away. We’ll be back to check it out, but we only stopped this time for five minutes. Charging: No charger in Swanpool. The Tesla Superchargers in Yea are great. Right near cafes, and as we discovered this time, the Wetlands centre. We just charged while plugged in for the five minute toilet break. That gave us more than enough fuel to get home, where we plugged in for free solar charging. Total time holding the “pump”: ten seconds.

One of our favourite places to stop for lunch: Marmalades in Yea.

Home made pie and sausage roll, with salad and rosemary chips. All delicious. After our morning loop-de-loop of the Dandenong Ranges, we only got as far as Yea by lunchtime, on our way to Wagga Wagga. Charging: The Tesla’s navigation to Wagga Wagga planned for us to charge at Wangaratta. But when our stomachs said “lunch time”, we tapped the charger icon, tapped Yea supercharger, then add to trip. The Tesla adjusted course and started to precondition the battery for faster charging. The charging was so fast that it was done when I was only half way through my lunch. So, I had to duck out to quickly move the car out of the charging bay.

We left the graduation ceremony at the RAAF base, turned right, when we should have…

…turned left. This gave us an unexpected 40km half hour exploration of the back suburbs, Gobbagombalin (where our RAAF graduating son and young family are moving), the Murrumbidgee River, Gumly Gumly (our motel), plus the local EV chargers. Charging: On the way from Emerald to Wagga Wagga yesterday, we only charged when we stopped anyway for rest breaks. So, we arrived with only about 25% charge. We figured we’d charge up today while exploring the local area. We stopped briefly at the ultrafast Tesla v4 superchargers. It charged us at 153kW, close to our car’s maximum of 170kW. The charger is capable of twice that speed. It’s out the back of a hotel in a car park with a locking gate. The Tesla navigation tells you the gate access code, in case you need it. It’s a short walk across the road to fast food such as Macca’s, but the area is pretty suburban, rather than a nice rest stop. We moved on to the 50kW NRMA charger next to a park on the Murrumbidgee River. Slower than the Tesla…

Prep for our road trip to Wagga Wagga for a couple of days

- Pack clothes into the duffle bags into the boot. Check. - Pack some cereal and snacks. Check. - Fill the thermos with tea. Check. - Pack a pair of shoes and laundry bag into the trunk (front trunk, since there’s no engine taking up space). Check. - Remove smelly rubbish from the kitchen and put the bins out. Check. - Fill the car with “fuel”. (Charged for free from solar during the past few days). Check. - Service the car (fill up the washer fluid is all there is to do). Check. - Check the tyre pressures. The app tells us that the sensors say tyre pressures are all good. Check. - Check engine oil, radiator fluid… nah, just kidding, no engine bits to wear and tear. - Take Archie (our cat) to Catshack for care while we’re away. Check. - Stop for a coffee at Grants on Sherbrooke, on our way back through the Dandenong Ranges. Check. Great. We left not too much later than planned, and we’re on our way to… Hang on. I think I left something on at home. Oh yes, the heated towel rail! I…

We checked in at The Australian Homestead Motor Lodge in Gumly Gumly, a suburb of Wagga…

…rb of Wagga Wagga. They name everything here twice 😉. Cute, friendly motel, with on site restaurant, good value meals. The motel backs into a paddock of cows that were quite curious and came to say hello, looking like a band cover photo. We visited the RAAF base to watch one of our kids graduate after nine weeks of intensive training. Impressive synchronised marching and the sounds of a fly by overhead. The car that brought the dignitaries was unfortunately not an EV, so dowsed the crowd in fumes as it drove off. Charging: The motel has no EV charging or car access to power points. But there are several public charging options in Wagga. We only stopped briefly in Holbrook on the way here, so just charged for a few minutes, which was fine.

Evening walk across Cardinia Reservoir.

9°C required puffer jackets. Mostly still air left the water very calm to reflect the sky. The kangaroos barely noticed us as they grazed through dusk. We noticed a sign for Cardinia Micro Hydro Electric something, which I presume means that they add some power to the grid. Half the cars in our car park were EVs. Charging: We charged at home, from solar panels on our roof, and some from the high percentage of renewable today in the grid, which dropped the price to 9c per kWh.

Friday night, pizza and movie at home.

Pick up from Lauritos Pizza, in Emerald, in the Tesla, transporting it in the “frunk” (front trunk) to keep the takeaway smell out of the cabin. Charging: The solar panels on our roof at home topped up the car to 100%, and the home Powerwall battery, ran our home appliances and exported a bit to the grid.

After talking about it for a week, we pursued Fran’s Dutch heritage by driving down to…

…the Mornington Peninsula for some Olliebollen from the Lekker Lekker van. Olliebollen is kind of like a bread and butter pudding, without the butter or custard. Perhaps a cousin of the donut. Deliciously more-ish. The van is only there on Wednesdays. When we arrived, they told us they were closing in 15 minutes. In a panic, we ordered two dozen Olliebollen, then worried how we were going to eat them. That turned out to be not a problem. Together with our friends Krissy and Tim (who had also counted down to this day), we managed to polish off almost all of them. To be fair, Krissy only had one, but including her makes us sound less gluttonous. Charging: Our Tesla had automatically charged to 96% at home from excess solar and late night cheap renewables (wind power) in the grid. That was more than enough for today’s trip, several times over. We noticed a free public charger at the Mornington Central shopping center car park, near our destination. We plugged in to charge there, since we…

Beautiful day trip down to Loch, in Victoria.

Finally had a chance to check out Lucy Hersey’s Studio Gallery. She makes her own paints from nature, such as powdered rocks. Impressive works of art, in distinct color themes matching the landscapes. After lunch with friends, Suzanne and Ron, who met us half way in their BYD Atto 3, we took the dogs for a bit of a walk around town. We drove the long way out of town, via Cape Horn Lookout,. Then a drive through a long straight section marked as 40km/h due to “roadwork” that is not actually happening today. Charging: We left home with the car charged up to 90% from our home. Cost us nothing, due to our solar panels. More than enough for the 170km round trip, Sentry Mode and dog mode while parked. We came home with 44% remaining. No public EV chargers anywhere in or around Loch, which is a lost opportunity for the town.

Dog Mode engaged. We’re minding our sister Helen’s dog, Clare, for a few days. Our

cat, Archie initially hissed a few times at the interloper, but seems to have now accepted (or at least tolerated) her. We took this fine old doggie out for a drive to Loch. We limited the G forces of acceleration and cornering so as not to plaster her on the back seat. We had a delicious lunch with friends at the Loch & Key cafe, while Clare slept in the car, in air conditioned Dog Mode comfort. We checked on her a few times using the in-cabin Sentry Mode camera. Then out for a long walk around the town of Loch.

A trip from our home in the Dandenong Ranges down to Jan Wilson Community Centre in Noble…

…Park. Why this random destination? Because they accept soft plastics for recycling, and we have a huge pile of it. We’ve been storing our soft plastics for over six months. On road trips, we would try to bring any soft plastics back in our car’s frunk. It’s not going to change the world, but I couldn’t bear adding to the problem. Supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths used to accept soft plastics for recycling through Red Cycle. But a couple of years ago, that system collapsed, with a backlog of plastic with nowhere for it to go. We’ve seen some follow-up on The Chasers War on Waste, but no resolution yet that we’ve seen. Fortunately there are several locations around that do take soft plastics for recycling. A quick Google search found a few around us in the eastern edge of Melbourne: https://www.greaterdandenong.vic.gov.au/soft-plastics We were heading to Noble Park anyway for an appointment, so we packed our huge pile of soft plastics, nearly filling our boot. Rant: So much…

An afternoon jaunt along the Hillside Walk at Gembrook Park.

Tall gums, many wombat holes, dense bush opening up along the hillside and picnic areas. Charging: The car is always ready to go, charged up from electricity in our garage, powered from the solar on our roof.

Time for some exercise. We walked along the East Dandenong Ranges Trail, which passes…

…through Emerald Lake Park, just down the road from our home. We walked to Cockatoo, about a 10km round trip. Lots to see along the way, including Puffing Billy Railway, tall fern trees and eucalypts, bridges, numerous fairy doors and even a couple of dinosaurs. The staff at Brunch on McBride in Cockatoo kindly made us a cuppa and sandwich, ten minutes before closing. We debated whether to catch a bus back home, but it seems you need a Myki card, and can’t just tap on with a phone credit card (like we could in NSW). The walk back was beautiful, but the few hills were testing. Charging: An electric car produces far less greenhouse gases than a petrol car, after about 38,000km. Walking produces even less. But we felt every puff of CO2 exhaling as we walked along the trail today 😉. Our Tesla stayed at home, slowly charging from the solar panels on our roof, on an overcast day.

We decided on the chilly nine degree Melbourne day to venture out into the fresh air and…

…get some exercise. On the Tesla’s navigation, we found the Alfred Nicholas Gardens, in the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria. Leaving our nearby home in Emerald, we followed a windy road through Sherbrooke, missed a turn, then continued along as the Tesla’s navigation re-routed us without judgement through another few kilometres of windy roads. The scenery of fern trees and giant eucalyptus is spectacular, so we didn’t mind the diversion. The car park across the road was a bit of an adventure with new arrivals guessing if any places were left. The gardens are magical! Government owned, free to explore, complete with a lake, waterfalls and absolutely stunning greenery. Added bonus that people can bring their dogs along to explore and receive pats!! Highly recommend. Charging: All powered from our home charger and solar panels. But we could have just plugged into a normal power point.

We got an upgraded car today, for free!

Our Tesla Model 3 RWD 2022 now has vision assisted parking. It uses the eight cameras to plot a 3D model of the world around the car, while parking. It shows close objects in orange and red, to alert to proximity. It makes us better aware of obstacles that vision can see, but sonic sensors can’t, such as high gutters that would scrape the car. Since we also have EAP (Enhanced Autopilot), the auto parking is also updated with the 3D vision. When I stop the car, I can tap on the Tesla screen on an available space in the car park, and the car will park itself. I tried it once today, and it seemed much faster than the previous ultrasonic sensor based parking. All of this upgrading just happened overnight, when the OTA (over the air) update downloaded via the Internet. This is one of the things that Tesla does particularly well – ongoing updates to the car’s features at no extra cost.

Our Tesla warned us on the way from Bombala to Cann River, the other day, that low tyre…

…pressure was impacting our range. The low tyre pressure is due to the persistent cold temperatures. So, I figured I best do something about it. I opened the electric tyre pump that we bought nearly two years ago at some car accessory shop. It’s been sitting in the boot since then, along with a can of tyre sealant, in case of a flat. I plugged it into the 12V socket in the car, set the target pressure to 41psi, and pressed the start button. It rumbled along, pumping up each of the tyres and automatically stopped at the set pressure. Simple. After a thirty minute drive, I checked the tyre pressures on the Tesla screen. All good. Slightly higher, as expected, due to warming up a bit while driving. I can now count three things in two years I’ve had to do to “service” the car: pump up tyres, replenish wiper fluid, replace the wiper blades.

Stopped for cuppa, cake and a break at Cann River.

Sad to see that Squire’s Cafe burnt down in the past few weeks. Cann River Bakery was very busy. When we returned to the car, a retired couple were looking at the Chargefox charger (next to the Tesla Supercharger we were using). They were wondering how the whole EV thing worked. I explained that we just plug into the Tesla Supercharger and walk away. Or with the other brands, we plug in, then tap a card or a button in an app, and walk away. They asked a lot of questions. They’re thinking about getting an EV for running around town. I explained that they can just plug the car into any power point at home, and charge from their home solar panels. Onward west through Gippsland. Stopped in Bairnsdale for a quick lunch and rest stop. Then finally to home in Emerald, Victoria. Charging: This is probably the closest call we’ve had in all our travels. When we left Bombala, the Tesla predicted arriving in Cann River with 7%. At one point along the drive, the Tesla navigation predicted we’d…

The bare feet were feeling the 3.5°C this morning as we packed the car in Bombala.

First stop 100m away for coffee and an egg and spinach roll at Kitchen Eightyate. Tom spotted Bombala Lookout on the navigation a few minutes away, and couldn’t help himself for the photo opportunity. Then onward south towards Cann River, past the “no fuel” sign. Charging: Since we disabled Sentry Mode last night, the car still showed 27% battery charge this morning. By the time the battery preconditioned (warmed up), we grabbed coffee and visited the lookout, the charge was down to 24%. It estimated arrival at the Cann River Superchargers with 7%, but that was reduced along the way to be 1 to 3%, due to climate. We kept using the car as normal, with air conditioning, heated seats, phone charging etc. We did reduce speed a bit, partly due to the wet road and partly to increase range. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have diverted to the lookout. Or we probably should have topped up in Narooma, before this trip away from civilisation 🤔. Stay tuned to see if we made it! 🫣

Heading from Batemans Bay (lunch break) towards Gippsland, Tom thought it would be a…

…great idea to try a new route through Bombala, instead of our typical drive near the south east coast through Bega and Eden. Francis scrambled to find some accommodation along this diversion, as the sun set. Only one option appeared: The Imperial Hotel in Bombala. King bed, fridge/freezer. Shared bathroom, which turned out to be okay, since there was only one other guest, whom we didn’t even see. We ordered the special to share for dinner: grilled chicken, satay sauce and veggies. So yum. Had a chat with the cook. Love country pubs. Charging: Our last charge was in Batemans Bay. There are no fast chargers or destination chargers out here. We have to make it through to Cann River Tesla Superchargers tomorrow. We arrived in Bombala with 27%. The Tesla navigation predicts we’ll get to Cann River tomorrow with around 5%. We turned off Sentry Mode tonight to conserve what we can. Parking on the street meant no chance to charge overnight. There is a caravan park up the road, in case we…

Lunch break in Batemans Bay at Deli on Perry. Delicious “deli bowl” to share.

When I hopped back in the car, a friendly local EV driver (Peter?) handed me an invitation to their local SHASA (Southcoast Health & Sustainability Alliance) EV meet up. https://www.facebook.com/share/vaWv2aawF6YU9BY1/ We briefly compared stories of driving to Cairns. Charging: Plenty of charging options now in Batemans Bay. We opted for the Evie Networks chargers in the parking lot under the shopping center. Interesting layout with four bays in drive through configuration. We arrived with 6% charge, as predicted by the Tesla navigation. The car was fully charged by the time we finished lunch.

Having failed to secure coffee at Silos Estate, we dropped into the next town south, at…

…Hyper Hyper Coffee in Nowra. It seemed like a popular place. While waiting, we asked an older man about it. He said “I’m 82 years old, and this stuff is what’s keeping me alive!” High praise indeed. What goes in, must come out. So, we stopped again in Ulladulla, at the sea pool for the toilets. Onward to Batemans Bay for lunch. Charging: PlugShare shows no fast chargers between Berry and Batemans Bay, but several are showing as under construction. We will arrive in Batemans Bay with 7% charge. We’ll fill up the battery while we fill our stomachs.

Beginning our Sydney to Melbourne return leg late yesterday, we only made it to Gerroa…

…NSW for the night. We stayed in a nice cabin by the creek in the Discovery Park Gerroa. Toast and cereal for brekky. We poured a thermos of tea for Tom and then set out in search of coffee for Francis. We headed for Silos Estate, just south of Berry, since it has Tesla Superchargers and serves coffee. We are heading south, but Silos Estate is on the north heading side of the highway. The Tesla/Google navigation had us doing a loop on the overpass, but it turns out we could have just turned right into the estate. Silos is on a beautiful outlook. We parked, plugged in and walked over to get coffee. But they don’t open until lunch time! 😫. Customers have been down since Covid, but they hope to expand hours again. So, we hopped back in the car and drove off, using a U turn bay in the highway to head south again. Charging: We haven’t charged since we left Erina yesterday. We included a message in our on-line booking at the park last night to ask if we could plug into a power point. We…

Another free car upgrade: adaptive high beams.

The sun had set on our way west from near Bega towards Bombala. We generally prefer to find a place to stay before dark, but this time of year the daylight is shortening, and we discovered there aren’t many accommodation options out here. High beam headlights help us travel along the unfamiliar road in the dark, lighting up not only the path ahead, but on the sides, such as helping us keep a lookout for wildlife that might dart onto the road. When we pass the occasional other vehicle, we of course don’t want to blind them with our high beams. Until now, the Tesla would automatically detect the oncoming car and dip the high beams, just like we would do manually. The latest software update 2024.14, was sent to our Tesla a few days ago. It included several new features, one of which is adaptive high beams. Now, instead of dipping the whole high beam lamps when there is an oncoming vehicle, it only dims the pixels of light that are aiming at that vehicle. It moves the black patch of…

Stopped for the view (and toilet) at Bulli Lookout, on our way from Sydney to Melbourne.

Final goodbyes last night and this morning to a few of our kids.

Breakfast at Terrigal Beach. Lunch in Canterbury Sydney to finally visit my longest bestest friend Rachael. The Tesla’s frunk is overflowing with laundry, shoes and soft plastic recycling to take home. After all the visiting, we’ll only make it as far south as Gerroa tonight. This will be our fourth trip in two weeks between Melbourne and Sydney. Charging: We managed to grab some free charge at Erina Fair last night while shopping, and just avoided the yellow blockades. So, we didn’t need to charge at our accommodation last night. We’ll probably charge again tomorrow on our way further south from Gerroa, while having lunch somewhere.

A rare chilled day, taking a walk and coffee on the rocks at Avoca Beach NSW.

Yesterday we caught up with some family at the recruitment ceremony at ADF in Newcastle for one of our kids. We drove down to the Central Coast and had dinner in Terrigal with some more of our kids. Tomorrow, we’ll have one last breakfast catch up before heading back south towards our home in Emerald Victoria. Route: we’ll see where the road takes us. Charging: We left Newcastle fully charged from the destination chargers at our accommodation. We topped up a bit today from the solar panels at our accommodation in Erina. Zero stops required to refuel.

On our way today from Goulburn to Newcastle.

Time for a toilet stop and stretch in Seven Hills. I tapped the charger icon on the Tesla screen and one of the options it showed was 10km ahead along our route, in Seven Hills, which seemed likely to also have toilets. I tapped that location, added it to our route. The Tesla realised it was a charger and started preconditioning the battery (for faster charging on arrival). Lots of road works out here on the highway. I found it difficult to determine which of the lines on the road were removed and which were the new ones, in the glare of the sun on the road. At one point, a ute in front of us was straddling two lanes until some other cars behind alerted them to the misalignment. Somehow our Tesla’s Autopilot managed to make sense of it all and kept us in the correct lane. Super impressive. Mum’s Apple Watch didn’t charge last night in the motel, so we plugged it into the USB-C port in the car. Onward to the NSW Central Coast, then Cessnock, and back to Newcastle for tonight. Charging:…

Nice place to stay, during our interstate road trip, last night at Best Western Plus…

…Goulburn. Easy bottom level floor access for Mum. On site morning coffee for Francis. Charging: This is how destination charging at accommodation should be. Simply plug in, walk away. No app or payment needed. Highly recommended.

On our way today from Yackandandah to Goulburn.

A quick stop for toilet and a drink at Oliver’s in Gundagai turned into a half hour wait for a smoothie. When the order first came out, it wasn’t what we ordered so we asked to check that it was ours. The staff got a bit loud and rude and suggested we reorder, which we did, but it all just took too long so we eventually canceled. I nearly lost my thermos lid again, in the roof of our car. I spotted a new Porsche Taycan at The NRMA chargers. Not bad. Later, driving up the hill towards Breadbaline, a four wheel drive was pouring diesel smoke all over us, In order to get up the hill. We overtook and emerged to see the rainbow leading towards the wind turbines. 🌈 There is hope we can eliminate pollution from our roads. Charging: This time we used the Tesla chargers at the back. There were several non Tesla cars charging out the front. We were only going to charge for a few minutes, but the Oliver’s delay meant we were fully charged when we left.

Happy Mother’s Day!

We woke up at Motel Views Yackandandah to a gorgeous morning overlooking the valley. Being Mother’s Day, toast in the motel room wasn’t going to suffice, so we took Mum down the road to Two Sisters on High for a huge delicious feed of scrambled eggs and all the trimmings. We pottered around the knick knack and antique shops, as Mum gave us an education on all the old worldy gadgets. Charging: We charged last night at the Yack fast charger in town, while we had dinner. Sentry Mode ate 5% of our charge last night, watching over our car. So, we left town with 95%, on our way north again.

After brief meetups with some family on the NSW Central Coast, we returned Mum home to…

…Cessnock. After a cuppa and a couple of odd jobs we said goodbye. The three of us had a blast on our EV road trip from Cessnock NSW to Emerald Victoria and back again. Finally, we drove east to Newcastle, to stay at 291 on King. It’s a bit fancy but welcoming. I walked down the road to grab takeaway dinner from Bella Italia. Charging: The hotel installed destination chargers just a couple of weeks ago. I applaud their initiative. I was surprised that these destination chargers require your own CCS “Type 2” cable. This might be the first time I’ve actually needed to use our cable. I’ve used it many times before, but not out of necessity. I imagine that most travelers who would book here would be unlikely to have their own cable. Reception does have one spare cable to loan to those who don’t have one, in exchange for a security deposit. With either your own cable or one borrowed from the hotel, it just seems unnecessarily fiddly. The chargers require downloading and connecting using…