Up at 7am and ready for an 8am start from Hay. We drove to Balranald and were pleased to see that NRMA had replaced the charger that was not working when we stopped in Balranald last year. Even though the Plugshare app indicated that Balranald was all working, when we arrived it wasn’t. I phoned the support number each charger displays and was told that they had some problems with this charger yesterday and that it was not working. He was quite supportive and searched out the next charger for us which was at Euston. We had plenty of charge to make it that far so were not too worried. As we left, a couple in a Xpeng arrived thinking the charger was working and we were able to pass on to them the message we received from NRMA.
When we arrived at Euston, the couple in the Xpeng arrived at the same time as us but came in from a different direction so were able to get access to the one charger available. It wasn’t a problem because one of the drivers who was already there was finished so we didn’t have to wait too long.
We hadn’t seen an Xpeng before, had heard about them and were very impressed with it. They were also driving to Adelaide and planned to get there the same evening because that was their home. We planned to stop once more so we could arrive at around midday.
Our next stop was at Mildura in a parking lot in what seemed like the centre of town. We retrieved the $10 folding chairs we purchased at TopTen in Canberra from the back of the car and set up under the local trees. While there, I phoned as many caravan parks as I could find on the WikiCamps app. All were booked out. So we decided to keep driving until we could find a motel in which we could spend the night.
Our SOC was getting down to the 20%s when we saw a sign advertising the Waikerie Hotel/Motel and decided to give that a go. It turned out that they also had cabins for cheaper that a motel room so I booked one of them. And to top it off, they had chargers available. To use the chargers, one had to have a Type 2 cable. We have brought one with us on all our trips and never had to use it. But we did this time and plugged the car it. They are slow chargers, charging at the same speed as our Zappi charger at home does, so it stayed plugged in all night and was 100% SOC in the morning.