Posted by So this was another trip that didn’t go to plan, but was still a lot of fun.
The plan was to head over to the West Coast for three days and do my previously thwarted paddle trip up Lake Macintosh, but this time I was heading over in forecast rain and snow conditions, but with the hope that things would be slightly better the next day when I would actually be on the water (spoiler – they weren’t).
So I headed off from Lauderdale with a full charge in my BYD Atto 3 (but with a kayak on the roof racks), and after a stop at Banjos – Brighton to grab some breakfast and a roll for lunch, I headed towards Derwent Bridge via the Elderslie backroad route.
I arrived at Derwent Bridge just before 10am, with only 19% charge left in the battery, noting that given this is only about 180kms distance and the BYD Extended Range Atto 3 is meant to have a range of 480km, this is pretty poor, but I’m used to it, and wasn’t too surprised given the real world range is about 300kms, and throw in the kayak, very cold conditions (it ranged from 4 to 8 degrees celcius), and the winding and steep roads … 200kms is what you get.
Very glad that the charger was working (I always check this one before I leave on the ChargeFox and PlugShare App as I wouldn’t have been able to make it to the next charger), I plugged in and then settled into the front seat of the car (it was raining / hailing outside) to join a work briefing from our Secretary around the future of State Growth.
Fortunately that meeting went for about 50 minutes, and while I could have left after about 30 minutes with plenty of charge to get to Queenstown, the extra 20 minutes got me close to fully charged again. Also time perfectly as just as my meeting ended, another EV turned up . Charge time 58 minutes, 42.4 kWH costing $27.56.
The next section over to Queenstown was magical with snow starting to fall just as I left Derwent Bridge and continuing to do so for the next 30 minutes.
I pulled into Nelson Falls and wasn’t att all surprised to find it absolutely pumping. I even tried to get up the motivation to head up to Nelson Cascades, a nearby offtrack walk, but after spending 20-30 minutes only making it about 400 metres upstream, I decided I just didn’t have the motivation for the push today in the rain, so headed back to the warmth of my car.
I reached Queenston just after 1pm, so put the car back on charge and (again in heavy rain) headed into town to buy a few more supplies at the IGA. I also decided that my plan to camp the night at Lake Macintosh wasn’t going to be any fun (it was 2 degrees outside and pouring with rain / hail) so I booked into the Loco Cottage in Tullah (which appeared to have an EV charger) before heading onwards.
All up, that took me about 30 minutes, so I get another 24 minutes charging in (17.4kWh and $11.31). One thing to be aware of when charging in the rain and cold is that the windscreens really fog up quickly, so had to let them defrost enough to see before I could leave.
After a brief detour out to Lake Macintosh to make sure I could get to the boat ramp this time, and suitably satisfied that I had made the right decision not to camp (it was freezing), I headed back to my lovely (and highly recommeded) accomodation at Tullah.
It did indeed have a Zappi 7kV AC CCS charger outside the accomodation, so after a nice dinner at Tullah Lodge (which was absolutely deserted) I plugged in and recharged the vehicle overnight. I think I had about 60% charge left when I plugged in.
The next day, after breakfast at Platypus Cafe, I headed back out to Lake Macintosh, and even got changed into my paddling gear, but then as I was standing shivering on the boat ramp with rain swells heading towards me, I just couldn’t get the motivation to launch, and so I jumped back in the car and headed home deciding to do the loop via Cradle Mountain, Sheffield and back home rather than retrace my steps.
I’m glad I did as there was quite a lot of snow around the Black Bluff / Cradle Mountain area, which was pretty cool.
I stopped at the NRMA EV Charger near the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm ($22.86 but no stats), where I basically stayed long enough to wander over to get a latte and check a few emails, before heading on. I think I was at about 80% charge when I left.
I then did a final top up at Oatlands ( 8 minutes, 9.3kWH $6.51) which I ended up not needing as I got home with 25% battery charge, but I was at 43% charge when I got to Oatlands and I just wanted a bit more given the high consumption I had experienced at the start of the trip.
So, another great trip, even if I didn’t get to do any kayaking. I did get to catch up on lots of podcast episodes.
From an EV charging perspective, other than the Derwent Bridge stop which would have been a hassle if I didn’t have that meeting to sit in on, I was able to easily integrate my charging into my driving schedule with minimal inconvenience.
All up the trip was roughly 700kms and cost about $68 in direct charging, plus of course a charge at home before hand and afterwards. To be fair this probably added another $10 to the cost (noting as we head into winter, I’m using more off peak charging than solar charging).
I share these stories so people can understand that there are pros and cons to driving an EV, but if I can drive my EV with a sea kayak on top, through snow, hail and rain around Tassie’s roads … so can anyone else.