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Deventer's slowly sinking church
Coffee and then lunch in Deventer (in The Netherlands). An old church in the center of town is slowly sinking on one side. Beautiful old shops, streets and a large canal. Distracting toilet wall art. We checked out of our accommodation in Nunspeet this morning. We packed a breakfast to go for Tom, since he was in a work meeting in the Tesla (with colleagues in Australia). We were immediately reminded of the narrow town streets when we realised that the reversing semi trailer in front of us blocked the only way out of this section of town. Nico and Tom parked the cars and spent the next twenty minutes directing traffic while the truck driver reversed a few hundred meters around tight bends.
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Coffee in Oude Haven, before home
Final stop, in Oude Haven, District 00, for coffee and an explore, before returning to our boat house in Krommenie.
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Walking the alleyways of Elburg
Explored the streets, alleyways and canals of the fishing village of Elburg. Semi public urinal next to the car park. But I want that desperate.
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A short hike in Veluwezoom National Park
a short hike through the Veluwezoom National Park. Long haired cows, but we didn’t see the expected deer. We had just missed peak heather bloom, but some purple remained. The lookout is barely elevated, so I climbed onto the brickwork to photograph the family. I viewed the Dutch sign through Google Translate, but it was pretty standard instructions. Topped off with lunch at the onsite cafe. Lots of bikes and cycle paths.
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Ice cream in Nunspeet, and double-decker bike racks
A wander through the town of Nunspeet to get an ice cream. Sandra showed me how the double storey bike racks work at the commuter station. I marvelled at the housing styles, with tall roofs, embedded with extra rooms and probably skinny stairs. Some thatched roofs using dried reeds (I think), which I’m told increase insurance costs due to fire risk. Lots of houses with solar panels. There’s a deer park in the middle of town, which seems to be for the use of the neighbourhood. Cute. And, of course, cycle paths everywhere.
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Popping over to Aachen for lunch
Let’s pop over the border to Germany 🇩🇪, for lunch, as you do. And we’ll check out the Aachen Cathedral while we’re there. Wow. Huge. Old. Shiny. Car park: Small. Grey. Just enough room for the Tesla Model Y.
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A-frame cabins back in the Netherlands
After lunch in Germany 🇩🇪, we crossed back into The Netherlands 🇳🇱, driving north to Nunspeet. We’re staying at a kind of cabin park, in one of the neat A frame buildings. Steep stairs and tall buildings seem common. Most have solar panels. Our resident cook and cousin Nico keeps dishing up delicious meals, like this bolognese. I still can’t get over the morning option of various sugar on bread.
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A day trip into Maastricht
Day trip into nearby Maastricht to pick up Sandra (who caught the train from Amsterdam) and to explore the town. I (Tom) temporarily lost Francis and Helen, and was wandering up and down the street looking. A waiter noticed me and asked “what have you lost”, looked down and said “your shoes?”. After a couple of quizzical or disapproving looks from cafe patrons, I went back to the Tesla to grab my shoes. But, when again squeezing through the eating strip, an older lady moved aside and quipped in Dutch something like “after you, shorts”. For the record, many people were wearing shorts. I can’t win. Croquettes (again) for lunch, with a salad, at one of the many cafes. Yum. With the scarcity of public toilets, we’re learning to make use of the cafe facilities. The first big language error wasn’t mine, surprisingly. Francis, who knows a fair bit of Dutch from her childhood household, somehow managed to end up in the men’s toilet. She emerged to ask me what I was doing in there. I just…
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Country roads east of Maastricht, in a Jaguar i-Pace
The four of us continued our day trip out in Nico’s Jaguar i-Pace, through the country roads east of Maastricht. Even way out here, there are bikes and bike lanes everywhere. The roads have clear markings for the bike lanes each way, leaving the middle to be shared by cars. It’s a very tight squeeze in places. And then, they throw in the tractors! Second stop for “vlaai”. A traditional sweet pie from this province (Limburg). Cherry was delicious.
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Mornings on a houseboat
September 13 - 18: A short 50m walk along the canal each morning to breakfast, on the houseboat of our generous hosts/cousins Nico and Sandra. There are canals, creeks, bridges and dykes everywhere. This dyke has a path with a constant stream of pedestrians, bikes, e-bikes, electric motorbikes, and some petrol powered (which seem so antiquated, noisy and smelly when they go by). Breakfast is usually home baked bread, cheese, thin sliced cold meats, various “cultural” sugar toppings for bread. Nico built the houseboat on to of a rectangle U shaped concrete shell. It floats just from the water displacement (Archimedes principle), not foam. They have two electric cars: A Jaguar i-Pace, and a Fiat 500 (pictured). They charge from the outlet next to their houseboat, right on the canal.
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The American war memorial near Maastricht
So many fallen soldiers at the American war memorial. It's hard to imagine how terrible it would have been to live in the Netherlands and neighbouring countries during Nazi occupation, or to spend years fighting to kill fellow humans. The show “Masters of the Air” depicts the bombing runs of US soldiers from the UK over Europe. I expect that some of the people who died in that show are buried here. One of the final scenes shows the US Air Force dropping food packages to war torn and starving residents in the Netherlands, a story which Francis’s mum experienced first hand.
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Lunch in three countries in a day
Final destination today: the intersection of The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. We had lunch in Belgium and patted a dog (of course), found a toilet in The Netherlands and checked out the forest in Germany.
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A failed-charging cautionary tale
A failed charging story. We’re heading off on a road trip through the Netherlands for a few days. We’ve been parking near our boat home, but hadn’t yet made use of the nearby charger. When I finally got my act together to plug in our Tesla, I couldn’t find any tap option on the machine for the payment card that UFODRIVE provided. I tried the QR code on the charger to get the app, but it isn’t available for an Australian AppStore account. I checked the UFODrive app for another nearby charging station. I tried to share the location with the Tesla (like I can do from the Tesla app), but it doesn’t offer that option. I shared to Apple Maps and watched my iPhone as I drove around looking for it, but couldn’t find it. Some hours later, when we were about to depart, Nico (a local) pointed out that there was a tap to pay panel on the back of the machine 🤦.
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Borrowing Nico's Jaguar i-Pace
On our way from Krommenie to Maastricht. We picked up Nico’s Jaguar i-Pace. Very swish. 0 to 100km/h in about 3.5s. Luxury interior trim. Neat console. It has fast DC charging but only does 3.6kW AC charging (compared to our Tesla’s 11kW). It’s about twice the cost of our base Tesla Model 3 at home. Jaguar had it for a few days to replace the battery. This is the first real example I’ve seen of someone actually needing to replace their EV battery, despite all the hype about it from naysayers. Fortunately, it was all covered under warranty. Our first stop was in Breukelen at a service center. Well, we actually stopped at two of these, because of mixed up convoy instructions. Next to the Shell petrol station here is a FastNed charging bay, with solar panels on the roof. Most service centres seem to have these, which is terrific. It kills me to stop for fuel like this. Stopping specifically for fuel (charging) is something I try to avoid. I prefer to just charge when I’m parked for some…
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Lunch at La Place, watching wind turbines
Stopped for lunch at La Place. Tasty fresh food and smoothies. Cruising along the highways we see many wind turbines, and some coal power stations. Each wind turbine takes a very small piece of land, and can be surrounded by cows, picnic areas etc. The coal plants sit in a bit of an industrial waste land. Coal pits poor toxic dust into the air, and burning it creates more. It’s great to see the transition away from the polluting fossil fuels.
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Scandinavian-style huts in Gulpen
We arrived at our accommodation in Gulpen, near Maastricht, our home for the next few days. Cute Scandinavian style huts, surrounded be green rolling hills. Steep stairs. Some huts dug into the hillside, with vegetation on the roof, like a Hobbit town. Our first lost in translation moment. At dinner, Francis ordered a lemonade, which was interpreted as red cordial. The after dinner mint came with its own gavel, to break it up for us all to share.
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The windmill village at Zaanse Schans
Out for a drive in our rental Tesla, to the windmill village at the Zaanse Schans. Fran’s sister, Helen, has joined us, flying in from Australia yesterday. Their parents immigrated to Australia from Holland when Helen was seven and Fran was two months before birth. Our cousins opted out of the touristy outing. As tourists ourselves, we loved it. Interesting to see the wooden cogs and engineering used to harness the wind power to roll 3000kg stone wheels. Our own 2000kg wheels (the Tesla), waited in the car park, charged up earlier from the much larger wind turbines that dot the Netherlands. We were surprised to find that the only public toilet here has a couple of attendants to ensure that you pay by credit card to go through the turnstile. I can’t imagine that the €1 entry fee covers the overhead of ensuring that you pay. It’s just weird.
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Spotting Marvin's Dutch cousin, 'Henk'
Continuing our day trip with a stop for lunch at a marina. Delicious Dutch crocettes and a salad. We wandered along the wharf and spotted Marvin’s (our robot mower) Dutch cousin, “Henk” the Husqvarna mower. Now that’s confidence, mowing on a dyke, next to a canal. I am missing the Tesla app. The UFODRIVE rental car does not come with connection through the Tesla app or with a Tesla card. Instead, everything must be done through the supplied UFODRIVE app. It is not a proper native mobile app, with strange and slow UI navigation. Today it took several attempts to unlock the car to drive it, while I was in it.
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Up the dyke stairs to Volendam
Final stop on our day trip through some tourist hot spots. We parked the Tesla in the neighbourhood streets of Volendam, then climbed the stairs between the houses in the dyke (I guess from below sea level) to the tourist strip overlooking the marina. Poffertjes (tiny Dutch pancakes) were quickly consumed.
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Making olliebollen with Nico, finally
When we entered Netherlands border security a few days ago, they asked my purpose of visit, to which I (Tom) answered "olliebollen". Now that purpose has been fulfilled! Nico taught Francis how to make it. The literal translation from Dutch to English is “oily balls”. It is like deep fried bread pudding, or hot cross buns, but more delicious. Francis befriended a neighbourhood cat, which then managed to make its way to the deck on the house boat, much to Nico’s dismay.
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An electric Fiat 500 to a Dutch nature reserve
Our host/cousin, Sandra, took us for an afternoon drive in her electric Fiat 500, out to a nature reserve where we came across a few deer, a burnt orange wrapped Tesla Model 3, some automated weed grabber (to clear the lake), and a pancake house. I am learning to use Google Translate to look at signs to automatically translate the text. Clever app. Sandra bought her Fiat 500 EV second hand a month ago. She loves it. It’s a compact two door that still managed to leave a Porsche for dead at the traffic lights.
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Trains, bikes and salted herring in Amsterdam
We drove our rental Tesla Model Y from our boat house to a nearby station, and caught the train into Amsterdam. It really is the city of bikes. And canal boats, and trams, and peanut butter, cheese, mayonnaise on chips, salted herring with pickle, weed, and a fancy cookie. And so many bikes. Did I mention bikes? Many more than cars. If the bikes were replaced with cars, they would not fit. Much better use of space, and better health. People of all ages riding bikes, carrying kids, food, cargo. People dressed well, just riding bikes. The Holocaust memorial was quite sobering. It stated one purpose to remind us to never do that again. It’s very said that we haven’t learned that lesson today.
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13 hours to Amsterdam, with extending headrests
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.
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Two hours sorting UFODRIVE, after 30 hours of flights
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…
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First time driving on the right
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…
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Living on a Dutch houseboat
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.
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Last Aussie coffee at Melbourne Airport
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!
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Off to Europe, via GoBlue to Melbourne Airport
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 😉 .
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Planning a 5000 km road trip — through Europe
Next week, we’re off on another big road trip! We 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,…
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When hail hit Emerald
When the storm hit last night, in Emerald Victoria. We thought the rain and thunder were noisy, but then the hail started.
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36 wild hours on battery in the Dandenongs
It’s been wild 36 hours here in the Dandenong Ranges. Yesterday 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…
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Brunch at Kuranga Native Nursery
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.
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Charging an EV is now easier than filling petrol
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!
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Walking the Lillydale-Warburton rail trail
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.
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Earning $200 from the grid in a day
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…
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Brunch at The Laughing Fox in Emerald
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.
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First impressions of Marvin the mower
He’s such a good boy! 🐶 🤖. The latest 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. 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 lone lonely loner walking his dog. When I returned Marvin to the starting…
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We bought a Mammotion robot mower
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…
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High-tech tip: wipe the reversing camera
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! 😉
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Breakfast and lunch at Kallista Deli & Cafe
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.
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Preheating the house from John's Hill Lookout
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…
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The synchronised-bladder problem on the way home
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.
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Marmalades in Yea, our lunch favourite
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.
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A wrong turn out of the RAAF base
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.
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Packing checklist for a Wagga trip
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…
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An Aussie Homestead stay in Gumly Gumly
July 9-11: We checked in at The Australian Homestead Motor Lodge in Gumly Gumly, a suburb 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.
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An evening walk at Cardinia Reservoir
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.
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Lauritos pizza, transported in the frunk
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.
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Olliebollen on the Mornington Peninsula
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.
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A studio gallery in Loch, with paint made from rocks
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.
Formerly: Tesla Tripping
Come along on our EV road trips around Australia and Europe, and follow as we progressively electrify our home in Emerald, Victoria.
Join us on the road. We set off in late 2022 and drove eastern Australia in our Tesla Model 3 — Sydney, Dubbo, Armidale, Brisbane, Cape Tribulation, then down through Queensland and back. We've since upgraded to a Model Y.
We've kept exploring — Uluru, the Snowy Mountains and Gippsland, and a longer run through Europe in 2024. There's plenty more on the map, so come along for the next leg.
At home in Emerald, in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges, we're progressively electrifying everything: rooftop solar, a home battery, a hot water heat pump, air conditioned heating and cooling, and EV charging straight from the sun. We're going fully electric, off the gas.
Got questions, or insights of your own? We'd love to hear them — please drop a comment on any post.