First stop, at Zarby’s Cafe’, heading back south from Hamilton Island and Airlie Beach.…

…We discovered this cute diner, with good food, a couple of weeks earlier on our way north. We arrived 20 minutes before closing time, but the staff were kind enough to make us a delicious sandwich and chips. The couple who arrived after closing had to settle for Pringles for lunch 😢 😉.

Charging:

We also remembered that Zarby’s has a destination charger – meaning that it’s slower than a fast DC charger but is well suited for when you’re stopped at a destination for an hour or more, such as for lunch.

We hadn’t needed to use it on our previous visit, so this was our first. It uses the Exploren app, which is rare but we’ve used it before, elsewhere. I plugged in the car, then tried to use the app to start the charging. Other apps like ChargeFox and Evie just check your location. But this app also wants you to enter the station ID, either by scanning a QR code, or typing it manually. I tried both several times, but it kept failing to recognise its own ID. I rang the support number, and got voicemail. They soon rang me back. I explained the issue. They suspected some server issue at their end. I asked them to SMS or email me when they got it working (so I could go eat my lunch). They asked me to email photos, which I did. I didn’t get any reply from them. We didn’t end up charging. Not a great experience. But we’ll just charge when we next stop somewhere.