The Napier Taupo Rd

It didn’t rain or freeze at the Eskdale camp and we had a good night’s sleep.  We set off for Taupo just before 9am. There are two fast chargers on the way and plenty of hills to suck the battery dry.

We cruised along between 50 and 80+ kph, depending on whether we were going up or down a hill. Jim tried to keep the power demand to two or three power bars and regenerated whenever possible.  The display on the e-NV200 has a horizontal power bar, which on the left shows maximum regeneration, then a little to the right is the zero regeneration/zero power marker, then further right are the power consumption bars where the more power you burn, the more bars are displayed.  Keeping to just two or three power bars is like driving in an fuel economy competition.

A typical e-NV200 display where the horizontal line shows the power coming or going.

There are a number of hills to burn up the battery capacity, but we regenerated plenty too.  We were down to 37% battery capacity at our worst, but were sitting at 50% by the time we hit our first charging point at Te Harato.  The charger there sit about 100 yards/meters up a side road and is well sign posted.  It’s owned by a power company and is right under their transformer.

The power companies charge 40 cents per kwh unit, which is a great rate compared to ChargeNet, who charge by the unit and time and we have paid more than a dollar per unit when we have charged over 80%.  At home we pay less than 30 cents per unit.

It took 30 minutes to charge from 50 to 90%.  Ideally we should only charge to 80%, for optimum battery life, but we need the range, and the battery will enjoy the 80% retirement home, when we get to Waiheke and pamper it with all slow charges to 80%.

Then we headed to the Tarawera Cafe about 25km away where we were going to charge off a caravan plug, for an hour.  However the cafe people were so hopeless and so busy, that we never did find a charging plug and continued on to the Rangitaiki Cafe.  We had been through the worst hills, but didn’t realize it and it was a good run with a reasonable amount of battery left over (30%).  

While we charged up, we had morning tea/early lunch and coffee.  From Rangitaiki to Taupo, it’s basically all down hill, so we made good time and regenerated along the way.  We arrived at the camp just after midday.  Jim asked about a cabin because we thought it might rain, but they were all full.  We found out that there is very little accommodation anywhere in town, but don’t know what’s on, other than it is the school holidays.

We set up camp and went for a 10+ km walk around the block.  Stopped for a low calorie jam, cream and scones lunch, then staggered up the hill to the Aquatic Centre. Along the way we browsed through some charity shops.  The Family Store here has a large space and lots of stock.  At the Aquatic centre we had a pleasant spa in a thermal pool and then staggered back to the van.

As this is being written, there is the gentle sound of rain on the roof, so tomorrow could be a damp start.

From yesterday.

Can you see Woodville? 

It's somewhere down there in the fog.

At the Te Harato charger and, below, across the road.

The start of the Waikato River as it leaves Taupo.