Made it to Kaikoura

Before midnight it was raining and then after 1am, the rain stopped, and the wind blew.  Jim had to get out and take down the awning tarp.  He also calculated how to better fit the tarp on the van, and on the way out of town, the next morning, he bought some wood and screw in eyes at Mitre 10.  He asked for one of the sales people to demo a battery drill by drilling some 5mm holes into the wood and then mounted the length of timber onto the roof rack.

Yesterday Lynette noticed that the tires seemed a bit flat.  They are supposed to be 42PSI for optimum range but were actually 32PSI, which would give a more comfortable ride.  When they were set correctly, we noticed that the true 50kph speed read 52 on the speedo instead of 56 for the under inflated tires.  (All Americanisms in spelling are due to the built in spell checker.)  At higher speeds there was no difference and we haven’t figured out what else, if anything, has changed.

Driving to Amberley looked very promising as far as the range was concerned, but once we hit 50% battery capacity, it took very few km to drop to 40%.  The head wind must be having a huge impact.  There were even portable road signs out warning of the strong winds.  When we had charged to 100% in Amberley, the distance showing on the GOM (Guess o Meter), was just over 80km, a sudden attack of Range Anxiety set in.

For the trip to Cheviot, we had to cover 67km, into a strong head wind with the odd unknown little hill.  We decided to lower our speed to 70km and arrived with 21% battery left and 30km on the GOM.  It was a real lesson as to how much speed impacts range.

The Cheviot Motel and Holiday Camp offer charging using a caravan plug.  Nice friendly people and lots of birds of various sorts (peacocks, guinea fowl and pheasants for a start,) and a couple of friendly cats.  The owner told us that the Hundalee hills would chew up a bit of battery power but couldn’t expand on that.  We walked into town for an ice cream while the battery charged.  Temperature was up to 17C, a vast difference on earlier days of the week.

After five hours of charging we were up to 98% capacity and left at 6PM, in the dark.  We cruised into the unknown at 65 - 70kph and were very lucky in that there wasn’t much traffic, so we didn’t have to pull over too many times.  Once we reached the hills, any pretense of a hundred kph road disappeared.  The maximum was 80 and you would be crazy to try that too often.  The more common speed limits were 30 and 50 kph, with many one way, narrow stretches that were controlled by traffic lights.  The lights were stated to be on an eight minute cycle, but we never had to wait that long.  

We tootled through the hills and regenerated power on the down hills and arrived in Kaikoura around 7:20pm with nearly 40km or 38% battery in the tank.  It again proved the value of slower speed.  

After a lovely fish and chip meal at the takeaway shop, Coopers Catch, on the north of the town, we arrived at the camping ground just as they were locking up.  We had phoned saying that we may be late and they had left instructions in the keys box for us.

A couple of the birds at the Cheviot Motel

A large piece of timber says it all. 

Cheviot Museum mural