The weekend with some fun despite poor weather

 Hi,

Made some bread on Thursday night - yay! The weather was really bad heading into the weekend. No tramping for us.

Sourdough Thursday night

Friday I got up and did some housework. Got so much done. Shower is now spotless. Luxed. Washing done. 2 loads!

Then headed to La Cloche with some cardboard and newspapers to get some lunch for me and Andrew. Yeah - that sentence made more sense in my head. 

Andrew had an op at the start of the week to fix his hand. And I needed to make a volcano. Andrew has been so bored that the prospect of watching me make a volcano in papier mache was better than TV or a book.

We ate some yummy food and then made flour paste and I created a volcano. Mostly. This is for Shane at work to make a mini golf course for our planning week. Hahahah.

Friday iced latte from La Cloche with Andrew

Volcano takes shape

We stayed for tea - Mike came out on the 6pm train and ordered burgers for us all. Picked them up and enjoyed some YouTube with Sally and Andrew before heading home.

Smudge owning the cat tree

Refinement of the volcano

Refined the volcano on Saturday a bit. Went foraging for paua shells at Makara beach in the freezing cold to adorn the inside of the kete Iona made for me. We were on the beach for 10 minutes and my face was numb with the cold. Hahah.

Drove home via the back road and Mike was not pleased with the narrow roads there. Hahah.

Putting jackets and hats on to forage on the beach

Kete with kai moana shells

Up Sunday early to drive out to collect Andrew and head to Ohakune for the day! Yes. I know. Mike was keen to know how the EV handles long road trips. We started with a full charge. Grabbed Andrew. Went over Haywards. Stopped at Waikanae bakery. 

Sunday morning - we are off!

Negotiating the streets

Waikanae bakery

Tararua range has a decent dusting of snow

Andrew played with the car's infotainment screen and found a navigation mode that showed our expected range on the navigation map along with some (not all) of the public chargers. We stopped at Bulls with 60km remaining and charged at the community hall for about an hour 20. Grabbed some food at a cafe. Explored the lovely hall a lot. We chatted to some lovely women working in there. A beautiful building designed by Chris Kelly from Aus.  Apparently he did the Wellington library too.

Bulls community centre - Mike takes the stage

"This is how you do it"

Looking back at the hall

Peach teats!

Then off to Ohakune where we charged up behind New World. Mike had some issues with the elderly, clunky charger there. We had to park sideways across two parks to make the really short cable reach, and the charging session kept stopping and needing a restart. With just two public chargers in Ohakune, Friday night snow trips are going to be tricky.

Anyway we explored TCB ski shop and had some lunch while the car charged up.

The Ohakune charger refused to give us more than 80% charge so we left to go to Z Waiouru to charge for a bit. We probably had enough to get back to Bulls, but wanted to see how this charger went. The charger worked well but the conditions were bleak, with icy rain and about 3 degrees. We stayed in the car there.

From there we got to Levin on just under 50km range - the car's rangefinder map went red as we entered the outskirts of Levin! - and used the Z charger there. Went to Kiwi Grill, just up the road, for some really delicious old school fish & chips / burgers / toasties and ate in the shop while we waited for the car to charge up. Got to 70% and headed home.

Levin charging

8 hours' driving - 590km - 120kWh of power used

By the numbers:

Where	Start	End	Duration	Rate (c/kWh)	Cost	kWh
Bulls Chargenet	10:55	12:08	1:13	90c	$30.63	34.0
Ohakune Chargenet	13:46	14:32	0:46	85c	$21.03	24.7
Waiouru Z	15:07	15:36	0:30	79c	$8.27	10.4
Levin Z	17:43	18:22	0:40	79c	$18.29	32.2
TOTAL			3:08		$78.22	101.3

590 km

8h driving time

4 charges

3h 8m charging

101.3 kWh charged (120kWh total used)

$78.22 charging fees

Plus RUC ($76.00 per 1000km) $60.80 = total cost $139.02

Versus the Forester, at $2.57/L for 95 petrol, would have cost $205.60.

Dropped Andrew home and then got to our place where I made another sourdough.

Sourdough Sunday night

Moxley was suddenly alert when
a Cuscus turned up on the screen

Then she curled up and relaxed

And laid on top of me after
I'd got up to sort the sourdough

Big weekend. Off to bed. Slept so well - had no idea it was waking up time until Mike got up. He rushed off to the bus and I did a few things. Push ups for one. Day 6 of the push up challenge.  128 needed today.

Have a wonderful week ahead. My parents will be coming into Perth soon on their cruise. Woot!

Love,

Angela