On our way from Emerald Beach in NSW to the Gold Coast in Queensland.

First stop, for coffee, in Grafton. The town billboard shows jacaranda trees in bloom, and the town lived up to the promotion.

We parked in the shade of the library carpark, at the free NRMA charger, next to John in his BYD, with a curious looking orange bonnet. He was returning from Canberra, for bike events, to Brisbane. I think he said he’d done the whole trip for zero dollars, including using NRMA chargers, which are mostly still free.

I listened with envy as he mentioned that at some events all the BBQs were taken, but he just plugged his induction hotplate into his car to cook. The BYD has “V2L” (vehicle to load), whereas Tesla does not (except the Cybertruck). A power point outlet from the car would be very handy.

An hour or two later, we stopped in Casino to get lunch. Fran opted for a healthy salad sandwich. But Tom was seduced by the pie, mash and peas 🥧.

We again parked next to the standout BYD with the orange bonnet. It was our old mate, John, again. I didn’t see him until we left and I heard him call as he drove by “farewell, my bare footed friend”.

It’s very dry out here, with several fires burning not far away.

Charging:

In Grafton, there is only one charger at that spot. John said he would be charging for a while. We were just going to walk to get coffee and then drive away. We didn’t really need to charge. But he kindly offered to plug in our car when he had finished. He messaged when we were at the coffee shop, so I opened the charging port remotely using the Tesla app. By the time we walked back, the car had added charge for us to be on our way.

In Casino, fortunately, there are two NRMA chargers, which increases our “odds” of having one available by much more than double, statistically speaking. We were fully charged by the time we had finished with lunch and shops.