Cabin with an EV charger

September 15 - 20: Our home for the week: a cabin 15 minutes walk from the beach, complete with an EV charger in the carport. Our visiting (now local) daughter Erin, and her friends Keke and Sienna kept the pace lively. Ingenia Holiday Parks Byron Bay has cabins, powered sites, camping, camp kitchen, cafe (coffee!) pool, in a beautiful setting of grass and subtropical trees. The staff are friendly, offering to replenish any supplies as they zip around on their service buggies, which are fully electric, with a noticeable absence of noise and fumes as they move around the park. At least one of the staff, I suspect the manager, has a n EV. It’s a black Tesla labeled “Lola”, often parked at reception. The reception parking area includes two EV charging spots with destination chargers.

Dusk at Urunga

Please turn off your engine while parked

On the trip up to Byron Bay, we ordered ahead groceries from Woolworths. We followed Woollies’ instructions, which ask us to park in the “Direct to Boot” bays, turn off our engine and message to say “I’m here”. The car park is underground, and mostly sealed, so exhaust fumes have few escape routes, including the lungs of shoppers and staff. We waited quite a while, which is fine – I’m just grateful that they bring the shopping to our boot – a godsend after a long drive. The big SUV in the waiting bay next to us just kept their engine running. Eventually, I put on my best friendly voice and asked them to turn off their engine. I pointed out that Woollies asks us to do that, and all their exhaust was just filling the confined area, including going back through their own car’s open hatch to their child in the back seat. They gave some mumbled acknowledgement “oh yeah”, hopped back into the car, closed the hatch, but kept their #%£* engine running. I just don’t understand how oblivious…

Banana fritter and a Tesla test drive

We’ve passed The Big Banana many times, but this was the first time I’ve stopped there. It’s grown over the years to include a toboggan ride, water slides, ice skating, laser tag and a lot more. But we’re far too sophisticated for all that 😉. All I could think about in the drive up was getting a banana split, which changed to a banana fritter and banana smoothie when we reached the important decision at the counter of Bananas Cafe. In the car park, I noticed a Tesla Model 3 and Y with a QR code on the side, and a label “Self-Serve Test Drive”. It seems that you can just walk up to it, scan the bar code, and take the EV for a test drive. Clever idea, since I guess many people see the EVs parked at the superchargers and wonder what it would be like to drive one. Years ago, I think we first saw EVs charging at the chargers behind Olivers in Gundagai and wondered the same. A couple of years later we took a Tesla for a test drive, and were so impressed that we ordered one on the spot.

Valla Beach and The Big Thong

Checking out The Big Thong at Valla Beach. As you might expect, there is actually a pair of “thongs”, but different designs. I wonder if “Big Thong” actually refers to the shape of the inlet/lagoon. Enticing blue water, with a strong current in places. We sat for a while to chill, but didn’t dare get out any snacks, given the kookaburra warnings, backed up by a keen eyed feathered hunter who followed us around. Last night we stayed at nearby “The Bungalow”, a converted garage. Beautifully done, backing onto a nature reserve, which sometimes has kangaroos, but not today.

Just plug in, because you never know.

Nearing the end of today’s driving, we pulled off the highway to visit the town of Urunga. A walk along the waterfront to the iconic boardwalk. We have walked it before, but not today. Bellies beckoned, so I grabbed some “emergency shoes” from the frunk so we could get into the local pub for dinner. We did our usual trick of ordering one meal to share, and were glad we did when we saw the size of it. And, of course, the pub cat found Francis.

Over 200 km streak self driving, all the way to charger carpark

Solar shade canopy charges the car

Raymond Terrace has become a favourite stop on our trips north. Plenty of amenities such as food outlets, and plenty of Tesla superchargers. The parking spots are nicely shaded, and that shade is from solar panels that of course help to charge the cars. It seems like such as simple solution to fuel up and provide shade at the same time. After having some lunch in the shopping centre, we returned to the car, to do some work and admin on our laptops, plugged into the car’s USB ports, indirectly charging from the solar panels. Did I mention the solar panels?

Norah Head Lighthouse

Heading off from Norah Head, our accommodation for the past three nights. Beautiful flat in a home, complete with an electric Weber BBQ like ours at home. Lunch yesterday with Mum at the Cessnock Leagues Club, after doing a conga line at the front steps. Nice place, but the Keno (?) announcements are too noisy for conversations. Brekky at Norah Head Beach Haus, followed by a photo with the lighthouse. Car packed with a portable cot for our new grandbaby, at our next stop in Thornton, near Newcastle. We noticed that the Hexham bypass is finished – looking good.

Northern Central Coast

Hopping between Tuggerah, Budgewoi and our accommodation in Norah Head. Great to see Amber and her new (used) Tesla Model Y.

How to charge a non Tesla EV from excess solar?

That’s it. That’s the whole question. Detail below for anyone interested. A friend asked me a simple question this week, and I have been chasing the answer ever since. John picked up his first EV a month ago, an MGS5, and he and Anne already had solar and a battery on the house. His question: when the battery is full and the sun is still shining, all that solar is going to waste. How does he get it into the car instead? I take our own setup for granted. The car, the Powerwalls and the wall charger all come from Tesla. They all just talk to each other, so charging on solar is a switch in one app. The Amber app adds more on top of that — Ready-By has the car at the charge I ask for, by the time I ask for it, at the lowest price it can find. John has an MG, a SAJ inverter and battery, and the charging cable that came in the boot. They don't talk to each other. The cable is 8 amps The MG cable only does 8 A, not the full 10 A a standard power point allows and the Tesla mobile charger…

Bankstown Superchargers

Quick stop in Bankstown to use the amenities. Then on towards the Hunter Valley, passing an all electric Woolworths delivery truck and an all electric Porsch Taycan. Opposite ends of the vehicle spectrum coming together.

Bargain motel in Marulan

For an overnight stop on a road trip, it’s hard to beat a motel. We won’t be staying long enough to take in the sights. We just need a clean room, comfy bed and a warm shower. Marulan Motor Inn delivered all that for $103. Friendly staff. Walk across to the restaurant for dinner, or next door for fast food like KFC (I resisted). The sink did fail the tall water bottle tap test, however 😉. I didn’t notice, until after I parked, the sign requesting guests park front in. I suspect that’s to prevent rooms filling with exhaust fumes, which of course our EV doesn’t do. Next morning, I assigned some work tasks to Claude AI on my laptop, and left it running on the backseat in the car, plugged into USB power, as we ventured out again along the highway.

Yass Superchargers, in search of services

Our Tesla was planning for us to stop next in Goulburn, but we weren’t going to make it. Unfortunately, the trip planner doesn’t factor in the human bladder. We told it to stop in Yass, at the Tesla Superchargers. There doesn’t seem to be a nearby public toilet, so we ducked into the pub next door. EV chargers don’t generally have services like windscreen squeegees or air hoses, which is a shame. Fortunately, we carry both with us, so we cleared a layer of bugs off the windshield. Back on the road, past the wind turbines that gave us the power.

Bright to Holbrook, with FSD interventions

We don’t really plan our day’s trip ahead. We hopped in the car this morning in Bright, entered our destination for tomorrow as Budgewoi, and let the car decide the route. It decided that we’d stop at Holbrook and (I think) Goulburn, to charge along the way. The route seemed picturesque on the map, so we followed along. The views did not disappoint, but no photos of the scenery this time through, sorry. Parked the car at Holbrook. Our windscreen shade got its first use this warming season. I have the car set to keep the car at below 35°C so the snacks don’t perish. And the fridge in the sub-trunk keeps the cold food chilled. Lunch a block away at The Ten Mile Cafe.

Bye bye Bright

Laundry packed into the frunk. Great to see electric service vehicles in the BIG4 Tasman Holiday Park. No noise and smell. Heading north again, probably stopping in Holbrook for lunch.

EV charging is getting cheaper, while petrol prices increase

After a picturesque day exploring Mount Buffalo, I picked up dinner from Mimi’s Tuck Shop in Bright. While parked, I plugged the car in to charge, opportunistically. I happened to glance at my iPhone to see that my EV charging is now cheaper, while oil prices continue to increase. The price to charge at the Tesla supercharger is now 43c/kWh. I recall it being above 60c/kWh. So, it has dropped significantly in the past year. The price of wholesale electricity in general has dropped, due to renewables in the grid. I know that first hand since my energy retailer, Amber Electric, passes on wholesale pricing for my home electricity. Of course, at home, I charge mainly from free solar hitting my roof, but that’s another story.

Bright to Mount Buffalo

We climbed Mount Buffalo today, electrically assisted of course. Plenty of great lookouts along the way. I think it’s over a 1 km climb in altitude. The snow has melted, but it was still 4°C in the late afternoon. Barely any cars around, apart from us.

Bright idea for a road trip

And we’re off again. Heading north to see family strewn from NSW Central Coast to Byron Bay. Driving straight up the Hume Highway is easy, but a bit boring, so we took the back roads along the Black Spur to Alexandra, with packed lunch (thank you Krissy) by the creek, then followed another spur through Tolmie, with a photo op next to a random Tardis.

Up the Black Spur with a birthday cake in the camp fridge

Fran baked a coffee cake in our new oven, to pre-empt Helen's birthday tomorrow. The cake rode to Marysville in the camp fridge in the back of the Tesla, out of sight until the picnic table. First stop was brunch at My Little Kitchen, Healesville. "The best coffee I've had all year" was Helen's verdict, but I'm not sure that her half strength latte qualifies. From Healesville the Maroondah Highway climbs the Black Spur, under mountain ash and tree ferns. It is a slow, winding 30 km, and a quiet electric car suits it. We found the perfect place to park, at Gallipoli Park in Marysville, beside the Steavenson River. The locals joined us. A pair of king parrots liked sharing our strawberries, and an Australian wood duck pair led a duckling along the river bank. We came home the same way, and stopped in the Spur for photos of the car among the tree ferns.

The grid went out and the car kept charging

I happened to see AusNet's email this morning — a possible outage in our street. Then I noticed an alert from our Tesla Powerwall, to say it was running off grid. Nothing in the house had missed a beat. Every appliance had kept running without a hiccup. I tapped into the app to see how it was going. The solar was still funnelling through our system, charging the car up from its 60% low after yesterday's run into the city. Once the car was full, the leftover topped up our Powerwall batteries. When you install a battery and solar, get it in writing that in a grid outage the battery will still charge from solar. It is one of the things on my list of what to ask for in a battery installation. I suspect the outage was caused by a tree on a power line, given how windy it is today, up in the hills. This one only lasted a bit over an hour, unlike others that have gone on for up to nine days, taking out streets of homes, shops and the local petrol station. And then, just as I posted this, a…

Red Model Y and a passing steam train

Mid day drive to nearby Selby.

Watching Puffing Billy cross the Selby Trestle Bridge, showering Francis in steam (harmless) as she sat on the hill, waving to excited tourists. Brunch earlier at Selby General Store & Café. Basic menu offerings, including the best egg and bacon roll we’ve eaten. We were welcomed by the hosts, cute dogs, turtles and fish who were as keen to watch us and we were to watch them.

A month of cooking on induction

We have cooked on gas and on electric elements for years. This is our first month with a Westinghouse full induction cooktop in place of the gas. We had trialled induction on a small scale first. We bought a portable hotplate last year (also Westinghouse), as a spare in our kitchen — on the bench at home, and in the back of the car on road trips. Induction still gets confused with the electric cooking most people remember, a metal hotplate or a coil glowing red, sometimes under glass. Induction works differently — it makes the pan itself the heating element, so nearly all the energy goes into the pan rather than into the kitchen, and the glass beside the pan stays cool enough to rest a hand on. Here is what a month of it has been like. What stands out is how fast and how responsive it is. It comes on instantly, goes off instantly, and changes power the moment you ask. It boils faster than the gas did. CHOICE's testing has induction boiling a litre of water in about half the time gas…

Car camping for the night in Coober Pedy

Red on red at Gembrook Station

Making the most of the sunshine, in Gembrook

A welcome sunny weekend invited us out to nearby Gembrook, while the bed slats dried (another story) and the home battery soaked up the energy. Brunch at Over the Road Gembrook, where we joked with Sarah we were stalking her from Over The Road Emerald. Then a picturesque walk along side the Puffing Billy Railway line, past the cows and horse riding.

Multicultural food tour

A 30 minute drive down to the Dandenong Market Street Food Tour — bolani, falafel, spice platters and sugarcane juice — then home to charge off our own solar.

Sunset charge at Kulgera Roadhouse

Where does the shower steam actually go?

We run the ensuite fan for every shower, and I have wondered where it blows. Last week I took a torch up through the manhole to find out. It does not go outside. There is no duct at all. The fan is part of the combined heat lamp, light and exhaust unit in the ceiling, and it discharges straight up into the roof space. So does the one in the loft bathroom, an older unit doing the same thing, but I think into a tighter roof space. Up there it is timber, insulation and still air, and in winter it is colder than any room below. Every shower we have taken in this house has sent its steam to the coldest, least ventilated part of the building, several times a day, for years. Fixing it properly is not simply a matter of running a pipe out to the eave. The cheap axial fan fitted in most Australian ceilings moves plenty of air with nothing attached to it, and far less once it has to push through a duct — so the fan has to be able to shift air through the pipe as well. The Australian…

Picked up their first EV, didn't make it home

John and Anne's first EV is an MGS5 EV Essence 62. Solar and a battery at home settled the decision, and the Corolla went in as a trade.

Wet windows: the free dehumidifier

One morning the guest room windows had condensation 70 cm up the glass. The same night, in the same house, two other rooms had none at all — and the only difference was that those two had a window open. My first thought was that the wet glass was the problem. It is the opposite. That water was in the room's air an hour earlier. The glass is simply the coldest thing available, so it is where the water goes first. The measurements back it up. Overnight the guest room's moisture level fell, even with the two of us asleep in it and the door shut. Nothing in that room was removing water except the window. The catch is what happens next. Leave it and it runs down to the frame and sits in the corners, and that is exactly where the black spots turned up. We bought a RYOBI window vacuum at Bunnings for $119 — a battery-powered squeegee that sucks the water off the glass into a small tank as you draw it down. Unlike a cloth, it doesn't just move the water somewhere else. Tim Forcey, whose…

Did going all-electric cause our mould?

We spent 2025 and 2026 getting off gas — heat pump hot water, a multi-head air conditioner replacing the ducted gas heater, and finally an induction cooker. Then we found mould on the bed slats. Was it due to electrification? We first found this same mould, on these same slats, in December 2024 — fourteen months before the air conditioners went in, while the gas ducted heater was still doing all the heating. Whatever causes it was here first, and it was here while the gas was. Gas cooking turns out to actually make it worse. Burning gas makes water: roughly 1.6 kilograms of water vapour for every cubic metre burnt. That is on top of the water coming out of the food or boiling water, which happens whatever you cook on. Going induction removed the extra moisture. Not to mention the benzene, which is a known carcinogen. What did change is the ventilation. The old ducted system leaked, and those leaks quietly brought in outside air. Reverse-cycle doesn't leak. Better heating, staler air.…

How to find an EV charger?

A first-time EV buyer asked what the charger app is called. It's PlugShare — free, built on check-ins from real drivers, and the reason we once found a working charger in a town three hours from anywhere.

Flushing wet air out of the house

Warm air holds far more water than cold air. Heat a closed room and moisture is drawn out of the carpet, plaster, timber, furniture and us. Turn the heating off, the room cools, and the air can't hold it any more. It picks the coldest surface it can find: our single-glazed windows, or the slats under our mattress. The fix turned out to be free: open the windows when the heating goes off. Wide open for half an hour reliably removes a third to a half of the moisture the room is holding above the outside air — we've measured that seven times now. But simply leaving a couple of windows open for a few hours, such as overnight, has beaten it every time we've compared the two. Slower per hour, but it keeps working through the small hours when the outside air is at its driest. Our sliding windows turn out to have a catch built into the sill that locks them open a few centimetres and stops them going any further. I had lived with those windows for years without understanding what it was for —…

Our heating doesn't breathe

Last post we found the mould. This one is about where the water was coming from. I assumed the ensuite — showers, obviously. That is a real part of it, though not quite as I pictured. The door stays shut and the fan runs while we shower. It's afterwards that the moisture gets out: the fan goes off, the door opens, and the wet walls, floor and towels carry on evaporating into the house for hours. But it wasn't the whole story, and working out the rest meant unlearning how I thought our heating worked. Here's the misconception, and I held it for years. You switch on the air conditioner. The big fan in the unit outside starts spinning. Air blows out of the head on the wall inside. Obvious conclusion: that fan is pushing outside air into the house, warming it on the way in. Wrong. No new air comes in at all. The outdoor unit and all that white insulated pipework only move refrigerant gas, and the gas never enters the room. It just makes a hot surface inside, and the head blows the room's…

Our winter guest: mould

While changing the sheets last week, Fran spotted green mould on the bed slats. Then black spots on the window sills. Then more on the curtains, and on the underside of the mattress. Up here in Emerald, in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, winter means months of fog, rain and single-digit nights — lovely for the ferns outside, less so for the timber inside. We'd met this mould before — the same slats, the same underside of the mattress cover, in December 2024. We cleaned it off and thought that was that. Cleaning treats the symptom, so this time we went looking for the cause. That decision turned into a two-week investigation that took over the house. We started logging temperature and humidity in every room, several times a day, and we bought two dehumidifiers and a window vacuum along the way. What we turned up were things we didn't know about our own house — behind the tiles, under the floor, and in the ceiling. The surprise wasn't where the water was coming from — showers,…

Off the gas for good

91.16 cents a day for a pipe we no longer used. Cancelling it took a chatbot, a $9.13 fee, and a question about whether the house was being demolished.

Rebate for replacing our gas stove

The rebate is worth about $200. I'll get $120. You cannot claim it yourself — and the app only accepts documents from your phone's photo gallery.

Installing our induction stove

The crew arrived at seven. By lunchtime the gas was capped, the old Smeg was gone, and 40 amps of new circuit ran from the switchboard to the kitchen.

Where does this circuit go?

Ten circuits, one unreadable label, and a 20 amp breaker that powers nothing. What I found by switching off every breaker in the house, one at a time.

Quotes to install an oven and induction cooktop

I thought connecting an oven was an afternoon and a few hundred dollars. The first quote was $3,014 — so I went looking to understand why it's such a big job.

Archie halfway from Sydney to Melbourne

Goodbye, Archie

Today we said goodbye to Archie, our much-loved cat — kitten-era companion, road-trip supervisor, and a big part of our move from Saratoga to Emerald.

Oven bought in March, arrived in July

The docket said “ETA 3 weeks”. It took 106 days, six phone calls, and an oven posted back to the warehouse because nobody read the email saying hold it.

Chasing Puffing Billy's Train of Lights

Chasing Puffing Billy's Train of Lights from Emerald to Gembrook on a cold July night — and setting off a Pet Mode alert 1000 km away.

Day trip to Torquay and Queenscliff

We left our home in Emerald, crossing the mist-ical Puffing Billy Railway for a two hour drive to an appointment in Torquay. What to do after a long drive with a few hours to kill? Let’s take a drive, along the coast, from Torquay to Queenscliff, stopping at a few lookouts along the way. Oh, and a few stops for lunch (The Salty Dog Cafe Torquay), coffee, coffee and dinner (Pholklore).

FSD version 14 first impressions

Updated car software and self driving installed. - Shiny! The car looks so much shinier now. Well, on the screen at least. - It actually managed to reverse out of our driveway, turn, and head the correct way up our one-way street. - It’s fast, maybe too fast. It now has “speed profiles” including sloth, chill, standard, hurry. I think the USA version also has “Mad Max”, but not in Australia, which is ironic. I think my normal driving is somewhere between sloth and chill. My driving around curves is closer to standard. - The speed limit indicator is now near the current speed, which is better UI, and quicker to see both. - It shows your best “streak” – maximum kilometres driven on FSD.

Keeping the camp fridge cold, from my phone

Tesla took away 12V-while-idle power, breaking our camp fridge unless we gave up Sentry Mode. A year on, the fix finally reached the phone app.

Between the sun and moon, on Gippsland Lakes

The shortest path between two points is usually mundane. So, we tapped a random lookout on the way home, and asked the navigation to add it to our trip. The self driving car took us all the way there, and back to our accommodation, except for a couple of abrupt interventions by me to avoid potholes.