Four hours of Autopilot to Avalon Airshow

Fully Charged + Off-Grid Living 2025

The “Long delays” prophecy was fulfilled today, when it took us four hours (from home) to get into the Avalon Airshow. Very happy to have the car’s Autopilot take care of most of the driving, along the highway and then through the walking pace bumper to bumper final few kilometres.

The car park was quite a dustbowl. By the end of the day, our hair, skin and clothes had a mixture of car park dust, aviation fuel fumes, and a touch of sunscreen. Mmmm.

The show was amazing. Even understanding the physics, it’s still unbelievable how we can get tonnes of metal to zoom around the sky.

We spotted a few electric buggies transporting VIPs, one electric bus, and even an electric powered tank and fighter jet (see the photos to figure out the twist 😉).

But, still dozens of diesel buses and a few petrol buggies, pouring too many fumes into the packed crowd. But, hey, I think the aircraft exhausts may have overshadowed it all. And of course the “wall of fire” opening act that created an apocalyptic wall of black smoke (pictured).

We mainly went to meet up with two of our adult kids, who had driven from Wagga Wagga and flown from the Central Coast.

Charging

We left home with about 96% battery, charged up yesterday from solar. Tonight we’ll just plug the car back in to charge up again from solar tomorrow. Love it.

11 comments

  1. 4 hours!!! Did you get there 10am? Were you parking in the general parking area or the Park and ride carpark?
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    1. Dallas Drew Park and ride. We just went where the signs told us to go from the highway. No options. We prepaid $65 for the parking, then hopped on a bus for the final 2km.

      We left home at 8:15 and got to the entry gate at 12:30.
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      1. Tesla Tripping Ok thanks for the info.
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      2. Tesla Tripping but the $65 was for onsite parking
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      3. Christopher Aynsley Yeah, the definition of “on site” wasn’t clear

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      4. Tesla Tripping you were better off anyways. They made us drive so far and it took us nearly 2 hours to get in and out of parking. When we left at 630pm we just sat there till 7 before we even moved to the road.
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  2. Oh us too. Only two hours to get onto thr highway.
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  3. In the days when I used to drive there with friends, we would pack a portable BBQ and cook in the car park while waiting for the traffic to empty out! Now* I just fly down and get the train/bus.
    * but not this year☹️
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    1. Anura Samara Leaving at about 4:15pm was actually pretty quick for us. Getting in there was the long haul.
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      1. Tesla Tripping I n]don’t remember arriving was ever an issue. But we’re talking about decades ago now, and someone else was driving. I’m a big fan of the train/bus approach - I can buy tickets ahead, and there are staff everywhere to direct you.

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      2. Anura Samara I stopped to asked one of the high vis car park staff where to go, but he replied “I don’t know anything about the parking” 🤪
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