Bombala + Central Coast 2024

We’ve had a pretty slow start today so far on our road trip north. I

t took less than an hour to pack the car – we’re pretty experienced at that now. But it took another two hours to tidy our house, then another hour to drop off the cat. Then a “drop in for a quick coffee” turned into staying for lunch, at the best barista and chef in town – our friends Kristy and Tim. By the time we actually started on our road trip, the afternoon had also started. First stop for a toilet, stretch, and some carrot cake, in Alexandra, Victoria. Fortunately, a couple of cafes were still open at 2:30pm on a Sunday. Friendly staff and a good vibe at Grant St Grocer and Cafe. Charging: As is typical, when we park the car, we like to just plug in while we’re there. We used the Tesla car navigation to take us to the fast charger in Alexandra and plugged in, just as a BYD Atto 3 left. I figured this would be a good chance to try our Evie Networks card for the first time. So easy! Plug in the car, then tap the card and walk away. No app required. The car charged at just under…

Leaving Alexandra, I noticed “Fawcett Lookout” nearby on the Tesla’s navigation. So, o

ff we went down a side road. The tar soon gave way to gravel. The Google maps driven Tesla navigation gives no indication of road surfaces, disappointingly. The “lookout” turned out to just be the intersection of the gravel road with some farm’s driveway. But it did give us a great view over both valleys. We pressed on, towards Mansfield. The Old Fawcett Road led into Coles Road, and the conditions deteriorated in places. I was acutely aware of the low clearance of our car, and we bottomed out just a couple of times. The pile of gravel in the middle of the road provided the main challenge. But there were also a few sections that started to have an off road rocky feel. Beautiful scenery made it all worth while. The bemused returned waves from a couple of passing ute drivers also gave me a smile. We should probably get a slightly higher clearance car, for roads like this. Maybe a Tesla Model Y.

Down to the core of our mission 😉: to see if my thermos lid is still on the garden stake…

…where I accidentally left it half a year ago, in the middle of Kosciusko National Park. We left our lunch stop in Myrtleford and drove through to Corryong, on the western side of the Great Dividing Range. One last stop there for a quick toilet break and a stretch before takling the mountains. Oh, and a symbolic thermos lid of tea (in our second thermos). It would be dark soon, so we needed to get to Tom Groggin while there was still a glimmer of daylight by which we could search for the missing thermos lid. As you might have guessed and as probability and time would dictate, the first thermos lid was nowhere to be found. We took a photo of the replacement on the stake as a reenactment. It’s now time to move on. We continued east, past Thredbo and Mount Kosciusko, towards Jindabyne where we would stay the night. The mountains are beautiful. No snow on this trek through. Dusk brought out the wildlife along the way. Several brumbies, deer and kangaroos had a quizzical look at our car…

Last night, we stayed in Mansfield, Victoria.

The Mansfield Motel is conveniently a short walk to everything. Friendly reception. Our only complaint was that the hot water pressure was woeful. Oh, and the power points next to the bed touch the floor (why do electricians do that?), so you can’t plug in a power pack for laptop, phone etc. But that’s just being picky 😉. Like most of the areas we’ve been through this week, Mansfield is decorated by beautiful autumn trees, in shades of green, yellow, orange and red. The main street is split, with a park in the middle and a roundabout adorned with flowers. For dinner, we grabbed Indian takeaway from Curry Garden. For breakfast, we had toast and spreads. I mention this so you know that most of our road trip meals aren’t from fancy cafes 😉. After we checked out this morning, we grabbed a coffee at The Mansfield Coffee Merchant, 100m away. We drove off towards Kosciusko National Park, crossing the border into NSW, aiming to get to Jindabyne tonight. Charging: We asked about charging at…

After crossing Kosciusko National Park, we checked into The Jindy Inn last night.

Great place with a balcony overlooking Lake Jindabyne. The room’s fridge had no freezer which meant we couldn’t refreeze our cold packs for our cooler bag. We didn’t bring the giant Kings Fridge on this trip. No microwave oven in the room, so we drove down the road to The Brumby Bar & Bistro to share a Brumby Burger (presumably not made from brumbies). Delicious! The inn included continental breakfast in the dining room. After slightly burning my finger on the reluctant conveyor belt toaster, I enjoyed autumn colour themed fruit salad and Greek yogurt on my cereal. After checkout, we grabbed a coffee from ESS BOARDSTORES, where they were happy to use our lactose free milk, from our cooler bag, since they didn’t stock that option. The cold temperature lowered the tyre pressures, as you can see on the Tesla’s screen. But they soon warmed up as we hit the road. Next, on to Cooma and then Gerringong. Charging: No power points in the car park at the inn, unfortunately. When we drove up the…

Francis explored Birdsnest while Tom explored the back streets of Cooma, including Nanny…

…Goat Hill Lookout. Lunch at The Lott Cafe, then onwards towards Gerringong. Charging: We fully charged last night in Jindabyne while stopped for dinner. No need to charge today, although we could have used the Tesla Superchargers in the center of Cooma.

Brief stop for toilet and a thermos cup of tea at Googong Dam, in the ACT, just outside…

…of Canberra. Nice quiet spot for a stretch. Lots of new housing up the road, sadly with dark roofs and few trees. Charging: We charged last night in Jindabyne. We’re aiming for Gerringong or Thirroul today. We’re disabled “Trip Planner” to stop the Tesla routing us through the Superchargers in Queanbeyan. So, it now shows arrival in Thirroul at -2%. We’ll charge wherever we park next, along the way.

Francis is modeling the latest in fast chargers from Evie.

This ensemble comes with 75kW and sleek lines to suit any occasion. This used to only exist in exclusive fashion houses, but is now popping up everywhere across Australia. After crossing back into NSW, we stopped in Bungendore, for a chemist and coffee. Glad we had the chance for a brief wander through the town – it’s got quite a lot to offer. Charging: The PlugShare app showed a new fast charger behind the Ampol petrol station. It was installed in just the past two weeks by Evie Networks, after two years of planning. When we pulled up, the manager, Josh, came by to watch us plug in, since he hadn’t yet seen how it works. Nice guy. When we returned to the car, it was already charged to 99%. We unplugged and drove off. Total time we spent at the charger: 30 seconds, excluding our chat with Josh.

We again avoided the Hume Highway, from Mansfield through Barwite and Bobinawarrah…

…including a few more unmarked dirt roads, towards Ovens. We planned on stopping for lunch in Ovens at the Happy Valley Hotel. We’ve passed it a few times before on the way to Bright, and have noticed the Tesla Superchargers beside the hotel. We arrived, plugged in, but soon realised that the hotel wasn’t open on a Monday. There were no toilets open either. Faced with bladder range anxiety, we hopped in the car and drove back up the road to Myrtleford. Lunch at the Tu Vietnamese Street Food restaurant was yum. Charging: We aim to only charge when parked, rather than waiting around, so we left the Ovens Supercharger after only five minutes. The Tesla Superchargers are super easy. We just plug in and walk away – no need to use an app or tap a card. Total human time required: about ten seconds. We’ll just charge up when we next park somewhere along our trip, probably Corryong. Unfortunately Myrtleford doesn’t have an EV charger, so we missed the opportunity to charge while parked there…

Last night we checked into Park Ridge Retreat in Gerringong, NSW.

Nice staff and place with a balcony view over the front garden. Bonus destination chargers on site. The fridge had a freezer for our ice packs! But, like many places, the fridge is encased in a cabinet with no ventilation. So, it gets very hot and makes the fridge work extra hard. Charging: The hotel’s destination chargers seem set up well. There’s a flat $25 usage fee. Since we had more than half a tank, it wasn’t quite worth us using it. If I’d planned ahead, I probably would have not charged at the previous stop and instead filled up here. Too many charging options is a nice problem to have.

We took another scenic detour, this time along the coast from Thirroul, stopping for a…

…cuppa, crossing the Sea Cliff Bridge, up to Stanwell Top, and out through the Royal National Park, emerging at Kirrawee for lunch. Charging: In Thirroul, we tried the first pole mounted charger we’ve seen. This one by EVX. It was a bit of a faf really. Apart from requiring our own cable, we also had to set up another app to pay for it. It has the typical destination charger speed of 11kW, which you’d normally get for free at a shopping center or similar. It was worth the experiment, but I won’t bother again. We only plugged in while we had a driving break (the usual toilet, coffee, cake, and a stretch). The place we stopped for lunch, in Kirrawee, conveniently had a bank of Tesla Superchargers. Ten seconds to plug in and walk away. The car was fully charged before we returned. We didn’t need either of these chargers to get to our destination of Erina. But, we prefer to plug in whenever we’re parked.

Tom chauffeured Francis and our friend Nicole from Erina and Umina Beach to The Theatre…

…Royal in Sydney, to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show on stage. There doesn’t seem to be any drop off zone at the theatre, so we ended up in the Wilsons Parking underneath for drop off and pick up. Hoping we don’t get charged two lots of parking when we never actually parked there. While they watched the show, I (Tom) drove off to find a place for lunch and to catch up on some work. I ended up in the Sydney suburb of Zetland at the P'Nut Asian Kitchen, eating satay veg and rice. The underground parking is extensive and has a pervasive smell of car fumes. Even with the aid of roof mounted fan cylinders, the fumes aren’t healthy. We need more EVs. Then the drive back to the Central Coast, starting with viewing the Sydney Harbour Bridge through our Tesla’s glass roof. Nicole asked all about the Autopilot as we drove along, and gradually came to accept that the two blue lines on the screen meant that the car was driving and I was just holding the steering for appearances. She now wants…

We drove from Erina to Cessnock NSW to pick up Mum, to take her back to our home in…

…Emerald Victoria for a few days. First stop at Campbelltown Catholic Club for lunch. We’re not Catholics, but our Tesla spent time at the Tesla confessional booth while we ate lunch. Easy to park out the front of the club for Mum to get in the front door with her walker. She marvelled at the robotic assistants that take the dirty dishes back to the kitchen. Onwards south, past the wind turbines in Breadalbane, to Yass. Stopped for a few minutes for a toilet break and stretch in Yass in Banjo Patterson Park. The autumn leaves are still stunning. Mum plugged in the car to charge and swiped on The NRMA app to start it charging. There’s also a faster multi bay Tesla Supercharger site up the road in Yass, but it’s not near amenities like this park. Onwards south to stay tonight in Gundagai. Charging: We topped up (48%) the Tesla last night at our accommodation in Erina, while we slept. We topped up (85%) in Campbelltown while we had lunch. And again (29%) for a few minutes while in Yass…

May 1 - 5: On the NSW Central Coast, catching up with family.

We filled the frunk with drinks and ice for our first grand child’s first birthday party. Snap CarWash in Erina Fair did another great job cleaning our car, inside and out. At first they couldn’t match our booking, until I realised we had changed to Victorian license plates since our previous visit. Charging: We topped up from 50 to 100% at the Tesla destination chargers in Erina Fair. 11kW and free. They are nearly always busy. Parking there is a bit of a challenge. Several yellow pieces of metal seem intent on scraping the car. There still seems to be not many charging options on the Central Coast. On the last night, before we left on May 6, we charged up 50% to 100% at our accommodation (thank you Margaret) during off peak midnight to 4am, using the 7kW 32A home charger. Super easy.

It’s amazing to see the little kid emerge from my elderly mother when we stopped at the…

…HMAS Ottway Holbrook Submarine. A bit of a wander and refresh for a few minutes on our way from Cessnock NSW to Emerald Victoria. Charging: While parked, we plugged into The NRMA charger next to the toilets and submarine. Might as well grab some electrons while we’re parked. There’s a new Tesla Supercharger bank around here somewhere, which is much faster, but we still haven’t used it yet.

We stopped in at The Coffee Pedaler - Gundagai for morning coffee.

While she waited, Fran made a new four legged friend “Mitsy” who had traveled from Western Australia. Last night we shared a delicious Moroccan veggie bowl at Oliver's Real Food Gundagai. On the way in, Fran formed a conga line with Mum and her walker. When we returned to the car, I had a chat with Mark who was charging his BYD electric van. It was a grey import. Only a 45kWh battery but great for running around town. He was on his way to Canberra (from Adelaide?) with motorbike in the back of the van. We stayed overnight at the “Gundagai Tourist Suites” – motel style units away from the main road. As Mum walked slowly back to the car in the morning, I couldn’t help but show off our remote control car by “Summoning” it through the iPhone to reverse all the way to pick us up. Breakfast was toast and spreads in our room. Just so you (and Mum) know it’s not all cafes 😉. Charging: There are several Tesla Superchargers at the back of Oliver’s. But we used The NRMA / Chargefox chargers out…

Stopped for lunch in Glenrowan and said hello to Ned Kelly.

Great town for a visit on the way through. Followed by a brief stop in Yea before arriving home in Emerald. Charging: Unfortunately no fast chargers in Glenrowan township. There are some back up the road a bit at the service center along the highway. But we prefer to stop in actual towns rather than petrol service centres. An EV charger would be a great addition here. We stopped to charged for four minutes in Yea, just for enough to get home. The navigation warned us of “reduced” capacity at Yea. When we arrived, a couple of Tesla technicians were working on the chargers. They said that remote diagnostics had alerted them to a drop of a few percent in output, so they were just being proactive to tune them up. Excellent! They kept two chargers available so travellers like us could still charge.

We started our return trip north from Emerald Victoria to Cessnock NSW, staying tonight…

…in Yackandandah at the Views Motel. Dinner at the Star Hotel Yackandandah. We’ve had a great few days showing Mum around our home in Emerald, riding on Puffing Billy Railway, spotting plants and wildlife in our yard and the local area. First stop earlier today was at Lake Nillacoothie, near Bonnie Doon. Quiet spot with a row of bright red autumn trees. Toilets were surprisingly okay, except not great disabled access. Charging: We left home with 100% battery, topped up by our solar roof. While we ate dinner at the hotel, we charged at the on site “Yack” fast charger. It’s not as fast as a Tesla Supercharger, but that’s probably good, since it synced perfectly with the time it took us to eat dinner.

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…

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.

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.

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 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:…

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.

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.

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

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…

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…

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.

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…

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! 🫣

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…