Litchfield National Park, NT: range-perfect for EV tripping

Entering Northern Territory on Highway 1 from WA

Much to our shame, neither I nor Co-Pilot knew of Litchfield National Park until a Territorian EV fellow-traveler saved us from missing out on this glorious region of Northern Territory, which deserves to be on every EV road-tripper’s bucket-list.

Litchfield’s easily accessible and perfectly pristine waterfalls running into Hollywood-film-worthy water holes are a big tourist drawcard. In late August, just past the peak point of tourist traffic in NT, however, crowds are not overwhelming. The view is wildly enticing as you plunge into the crystal clear Wangi waterhole – while secure in the knowledge that your car is parked just a couple of hundred metres away.

Litchfield is memorably quirky – you might even say ‘totally bats’! Tolmer Gorge hosts thousands of Orange Horseshoe Bats and just off Wangi Falls, in the monsoon forrest, ‘endangered’ Ghost Bats hang upside down, screeching in the dappled light – perhaps trying to draw attention to the plight of the planet.

Even more fascinating are the Litchfield white ants. Our way through northern Western Australia had been lined with termite mounds of various shapes, sizes and colours. But Litchfield is uniquely endowed with these distant cousins of the cockroach, as the ranger informs us, at a talk at the world’s one and only Magnetic Termite Mounds Viewing Platform! Called ‘magnetic termites’ or the ‘Bushman’s compass’, these astounding architects who have been building here for several million years, are still befuddling human scientists by constructing their mounds with a precise north-south orientation!

And if you are more into the arts, you just have to see the magnificent creations of the Cathedral Termites.

A work of figurative sculpture? Or Cathedral Termite mound, Litchfield

Getting There

As Highway 1 runs into Northern Territory from Western Australia (WA stories here), the gestalt change is palpable.

Immediately, the speed limit rises to 130 km/hour having been 110 all the way in WA. The road surface has more visible damage and there is an unfamiliar road sign, which turns out to be a ‘temporary road hazzard’ warning. There are an awful lot of these along the 180 km road from the WA border to Timber Creek – our first stop and first EV charge in Northern Territory.

There are no fast chargers between Kununurra in WA and Katherine in the NT, a distance of over 500 kms. The stop at Timber Creek Caravan Park is probably the best option for an EV coming in from the West and heading to Litchfield. If you book a room for the night, you can charge your car on a caravan socket, without any additional cost. The compound gates are locked at night, providing a sense of security.

But for an EV we would probably not have stopped at Timber Creek, which turns out to be a particularly charming introduction to NT’s small town accommodation, with its own croc-feeding hour each evening, and a rowdy bar, firmly separated from the dining room for reasons, that become obvious as the evening becomes more ‘spirited’.

The higher speed limit in NT is not welcome from our point of view. Through WA’s Pilbara and Kimberley regions, faced with undependable fast chargers, and trying to make the most of each charge, we have got into the habit of leaving at dawn, driving at a leisurely pace until the volume of traffic increases, making lower than normal speeds untenable.

So, Day 2 in NT, we leave before 6 – a time to meander, enjoying and watching out for the marsupials which are smaller and more plentiful here. With the sun in my eye, even at 80 km an hour, I manage to surprise a couple of large pheasants. It is not till nearly 9 that I see the first truck coming up behind us. But by now, it feels safe to pick up speed, as the marsupials have mostly disappeared back under the foliage and our range anxiety is soothed by the closeness to Katherine where a DC charger, our first in NT, awaits.

I have to confess, it is fun to drive at 130 km/hr (even a tad more when overtaking), but only if you don’t mind running over a small lizard or hitting a tiny bird. Speed kills, even when it does not kill a human.

Accessible

From Katherine onwards, charging is a breeze. There is a fast charger again at Adelaide River, which is only about 50 kms from the entry to Litchfield National Park. So, the 530 kms from Timber Creek to Litchfield is a pretty chilled drive.

Banyan Tree Resort (it used to be called Caravan Park) feels like something out of 1980’s Ubud. If you book a room you can charge your car at a caravan site for $20 a night.

At Banyan Tree Resort, they know what to do with ICE cars

There are several other accommodation options close by, where charging on powered sites should be possible – though like everywhere else some of these places are more accommodating of EVs than others.

Still, I left Litchfield with some regret. We missed seeing the Lost City, which you can only reach with a 4WD. Nor did we have the time to hike the Table Top hiking trail, which takes 5 days, connects the four main water holes in the park, and sounds absolutely divine.

But for all else in Litchfield Park, EVie (our trusty Kona Electric) was the perfect machine. You can enjoy Litchfield National Park in your EV with absolutely no cause for ‘range’/‘charger’/any-other anxiety the popular media currently attributes to EV driving.

Patience is a Virtue when driving in the Top End of W.A

On 28 July Premier Roger Cook reminded us ‘how lucky we are to live in Western Australia….’ adding that ‘our EV network was just recognised in Time Magazine’s Top 100 World’s Greatest Places 2024.’

https://www.synergy.net.au/Our-energy/Projects/WA-EV-Network

Indeed if this picture was current reality, with 14 DC charging stations in the 1800 kms between Karatha and Kununarra, the road would have have been sweet indeed for any EV. However, I suspect, that these days even Time Magazine depends on government press releases for its click bait and puff pieces.

Had a real journalist done even the most cursory checking on-line, or even just on the Plugshare app, they would have found that some of the chargers on the map above, have been installed but not yet ‘comssioned’, others have been broken for months, others still, commissioned or not, are whimsical and will work some of the time and not others.

Northern W.A

We left Perth on our lap around Australia aware that the roll out of the WA EV Network in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions was having some difficulty but hopeful that reality could not be running too far behind that fabulous bit of publicity in a world-famous magazine.

We took some precautionary action as well. We wrote to the the man in charge of the WA EV Network project, the Environment Minister, congratulating him on the successful Time Magazine PR and alerting him to some problems with the Network. In particular we noted that the EV charger in Port Hedland was inaccessible due to construction being undertaken by the Port Authority and those at Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek, needing urgent repairs, having been vandalised several weeks prior.

As we drove slowly north, the problem loomed larger. We emailed and called pretty much everyone who could possibly have any influence on any charger and probably many who had none!

Briefly the issue is this: between Karatha and Broome, a distance of over 800 kms, there are currently no consistently working DC chargers, even though there are at least three chargers along the way, which have been functional from time to time. Nor is there a dependable fast charger between Derby and Warmun – a distance of over 700 kms – as the one in Halls Creek has been broken for many weeks now and at Fitzroy Crossing things are, well, a tad mysterious…

Chargefox

Here is what happened. Having failed to get the vandalised charger at Fitzroy Crossing to cooperate, we rang Chargefox, the provider in this instance. But the Chargefox operator could not locate its serial number on her documentation. Nor could she find Fitzroy Crossing on her map!! I offered to send her photographic evidence to prove that there was indeed a place called Fitzroy Crossing in WA, and that it contained all the material signs of a charging station with a Chargefox logo on it. But to no avail.

However, a little after hanging up on the Chargefox lady, our persistence was rewarded. After about half an hour of holding the card this way and plugging the car in that way, with advice from an ‘EV-angelic’ friend, who has driven more miles in his EV than anyone else in Australia, the whimsical charger suddenly roared into life and delivered as fast a charge as our Kona is capable of taking!!

Chargefox continued to be unhelpful. At Kununurra, they did eventually find the relevant charger, but it took a good quarter of an hour to locate the charger, as Chargefox had registered it under a wrong serial number! They were, in any case, unable to help much beyond agreeing that there was indeed a charger where we said it was.

You would think the Kununurra charger would be hard to misplace as it is located right in front of the office of Horizon Power, the WA state-owned company responsible for building the WA EV Network.

The location that turned out to be a boon for us, as were able to walk into Horizon, find Ron-the-Mechanic, who was able to call people who actually knew what they were doing. In a little while someone who might be called Archangel Michael, was able to do some magic from a long way away and bingo, the charger was back in action.

Once we had finished charging, however, Chargefox had no difficulty locating the charger and sending us the bill within 30 seconds! ‘Curiouser and curiouser’ (to quote Alice in Wonderland).

Grateful for the help from Horizon, we were able to make the most of our time in Kununurra, our final stop in WA, taking in the massive Lake Argyle, just 70 kms from the fast charger and the Mirima National Park, which some say is like the Bungle Bungles in miniature.

Pink hills and blue water at Lake Argyle

Like much of the Kimberley, the Bungle Bungles are beyond the reach of a 2WD car. But Mirima, the secret valley, 10 minutes drive from Kununurra town centre, is quite a wonder. For me the rocks in Mirima are reminiscent of the Ellora temples in India, carved out of caves, and dating back to 1000 CE, some centuries before the birth of Greek civilization, but barely the blink of an eye compared to these rock temples belonging to the Miriwoong people, made in the earth’s own time.

Yes, Minister

In Broome, on 15 August, after we had badgered the Minister’s office, and called anyone in Horizon who would listen, we got a lovely letter signed by the Minister. He confirmed what we knew: that some chargers had been vandalised and others though built (and some even connected to a power source) were ‘yet to be commissioned’. He was, he concluded ‘very proud of the work his government had done.’ Yes, Minister. But Minister…

‘Slow is in my blood’

Faulty Fast Chargers should not prevent anyone going to most places where cars can take you at the top end of WA. Anyone road tripping with an EV knows the work-around: slow down! Drop your speed and you can do longer distances per charge. And when faced with undependable fast chargers be prepared to stop overnight at caravan parks to charge up on their powered sites.

Speed, in any case, is nobody’s friend. All along Highway 1 around Western Australia, messed up cars and carcasses remind you to take your time, slow down.

Kimberley, the remote far north of Western Australia, where we have been driving in the last week or so, is one of the most sparsely populated places on earth, with less than 1 person in 1000 sq kms. Even Mongolia has more than twice that density of population!

When you think about how few people live here, the consequent skills shortage, the distances that any equipment has to travel to get here, it is a wonder that we have any specialised, uber-modern technology of speed, at all. Here, on this road, on the edge of a vast wilderness, surrounded by rocks formed by the slow rhythm of geological time, there are so many reasons to go slow!

As Leonard Cohen says ‘I always liked it slow/ Slow is in my blood.’

Exmouth: Electripping the Northern Way to Ningaloo

Sunrise at Vlamingh Head Lighthouse, Exmouth

Many West Australian beaches are ‘world famous’ for their sunsets. But there can’t be too many places in this wide country (4000 kms east to west) where you can see the sun rise and set from exactly the same spot.

Exmouth is a tourist mecca for many reasons. Its population of 3,500 can soar to 20,000 in high season.

About 15 kilometres north of the town centre, the Vlamingh Head lighthouse sits on a tiny 74 metre-high hillock. At sunset, cars are cheek by jowl all the way up and down its curly driveway, jostling for a space to see the sun go down.

At dawn, as I silently slip EVie into place, there are just 3 cars, hoping for a cloudless horizon.

At 6:42, the sun peeps out of the strip of ocean, just visble beyond the east coast of the promontory. For a little time, it seems to glide up the horizon, coppery, like a harvest-moon. Then, in a flash, a glowing orb leaps out of the waters east of the pointy beachhead, floods the narrow wedge of land, sends a beam of light into the water across the headland, and dazzles everything in its wake. Sun rise at Ningaloo – priceless…

The drive from Karijini to Exmouth went precisely to plan, with three dependable chargers on the way: Tom Price (25 kw), Pardoo (50 kw) and Nanutarra (150 kw). There is a more direct route from Tom Price to Nanutarra, but with a long unsealed stretch, it is a lot slower.

The little town of Exmouth has everything you need to explore Cape Range National Park, including a bank of four fast chargers, convieniently located in the car park at the tourist information centre.

After sunrise, you can slide quietly back down from the lighthouse towards the beach and follow the turn of the only road, heading south, along the line of the Ningaloo reef, into the Cape Range National Park. This is the northernmost section of the Ningaloo World Heritage area.

First stop after day-break, the Observation Bird Hide in Mangrove Bay. To someone whose idea of mangroves are the fearsome Sunderbans in Eastern India, this one looks like a beautiful miniature – almost manicured with a clear lagoon in the middle surrounded by the distinctive mangrove root system. Bird calls fill the morning air. But mostly, the birds are hiding or darting past at the speed of light, and the jumping fish are just silver flashes in the pond.

There is so much to do along the 88 km stretch of road from the charging station in Exmouth to the Yardie Creek Camp site at the southern end of Cape Range Park. There seems to be a beach for every watery activity ever imagined. You don’t need to be brave enough to swim with the whale sharks (I wasn’t), or pay some exorbitant amount for an organised activity further out to sea (but plenty available if that is your pleasure).

You can spend the hours of high tide at Oyster Stacks, snorkling amongst the corals with hundreds of magnificently coloured fish; walk around the Mandu Mandu Gorge trail, then cool off riding the current at Turquoise Bay – and, don’t panic when a huge fish or sting ray floats in on the same current right underneath you! In season, you can see whales breaching from beaches on both sides of the promontory. At Mauritius Beach, at sunset, they might put on a mesmerising show with an ensemble of surfers as corps de ballet – it’s magic if you happen to be there!

When tired, just idle on any beach in the park and marvel at the massive waves crashing on the horizon – breaking against ‘Australia’s largest fringing coral reef’ and ‘the world’s only large reef located so close to a landmass.’

Yardie Creek Campsite is the furthest from Exmouth fast charger

Cape Range Park provides a perfect opportunity for camping with an EV as you are never further than 88 kms from the WA EV fast charging station in Exmouth. Every one of the 500 wilderness camping sites is booked out 6 months ahead, the day the bookings open! We missed out.

Yardie Creek Road is a smooth and scenic drive: with the ocean flashing in and out of view on one side, and on the other, the gentle rise of the Cape Range (just over 300 metres at its highest), closing in and sliding away. It all seems too accessible.

Yardie Creek Road beteween the ocean and the hills

And then suddenly it is not. The sealed road comes to an abrupt end at the Yardie Creek camp. To get further into the Ningaloo National Park you need wings or sails or at the very least, a 4WD.

A final walk takes you up the Yardie River, which like the road, comes to a stop suddenly, without quite reaching its natural destination, the ocean – it just pools there, its journey suspended…

Later, talking to some locals I learn that the river only reaches the ocean during rare major flood events. Perhap this is metaphor, a warning, about longings: the river’s for the ocean and mine for the way ahead, which leaves the sealed road, changes to gravel and a few metres ahead, into sand dunes.

But surely, we are not foolish enough to think we can go wherever we want, whenever we want? We know: every vehicle necessarily has its limits, every road some end.

Slow Road to Karijini

Karijini, Western Australia’s second largest National Park: the sun is a smudged vermilion marriage mark on the earth’s forehead – my Bengali iconography evokes a bride’s shyly sweet morning after the wedding night before. The sound track is the song of unknown birds. The fragrance on the cold morning breeze is an unfamiliar presence for this urban dweller from the Australian coastal south.

Years of hoping, months of planning, three days and 1600 kilometres of driving has brought us from Fremantle on the south-west coast of Western Australia to the ‘glamping’ spot in the Karijini Eco Retreat.

Read any travel magazine and you would think it is impossible to get here without one of those humungus 4WD diesel-fed vehicles. The travel editor of a WA-based newspaper dismissed my plan of driving to Karijini in at electric car, with his smirk barely hidden behind a curt email ‘Good luck with your EV in outback WA!’

Over a pleasant dinner at the Cheela Plains Station, our last stop before Karijini, I pin down a friendly grey nomad, almost by definition driving a 4WD dragging a motor home. He pays over $250 for every 500 kilometres or so. And that is not including the environmental cost of fumes from thousands of ICE cars in and out of these ancient and fragile landscapes.

According to recent government figures 650,000 people visit Karijini each year. It takes a lot of cars to transport all those people!

EVs are not a final solution of course, but with no tailpipe emissions, they are a move in the right direction for pleasure travel.

‘How about it then – a trip around Oz, taking in the national parks?’ I had asked Co-Pilot. He had said ‘why not?’

I could think of many reasons. I wanted a pleasant trip to beautiful places, not some adventure story of breakdowns and heroic rescues. The Plugshare app showed fast chargers, thin on the ground once you headed north from Perth. The WA government’s planned WA EV network is getting built – but we are not quite there yet.

Also, I was a bit concerned that our two-year-old EVie (a Hyundai Kona Electric 2022, Extended Range) will develop an inferiority complex, sitting between the Big Cars in an over-crowded caravan park, struggling to suck enough electrons from a Caravan socket overnight.

On a good day, with a full tank, EVie has a projected range of 480 kms – but open roads, high speeds and bad weather can easily reduce that by 20%. Yes, Range Anxiety is rearing its ugly head again. What if some of those chargers are broken? ‘We’ll call a friend’, said Co-Pilot.

‘Friends’ refers to … ahem, shall we call them EV-angels? Some 30 or so EV drivers have completed the 13,000+ kilometre drive around Australia – some of them more than once. Several live in our neighbourhood in and around Perth and have been generous with their time, advice and encouragment. Our first leg is straightforward: a 450 km drive to Geraldton. And there is a fast charger about half-way at Jurien Bay.

But EVs cannot prevent human errors. 150 kms into the journey, a sinking realisation – my iPad is not with me! The thought of surviving 80 days without my digital companion is unthinkable. We turn back adding an extra 300 km to our day and an extra hour and a half of charging time. Not auspicious.

Definitely the best when you running late and need a charge!

We make Jurien Bay about dinner time: the fast charger is avalable and conveniently located across the carpark from a friendly fish and chip joint! There used to be an Ampol charger at the station across the street – but has been broken for 6 months (Non-functional chargers might turn out to be a bit of a theme – but let’s see.)

Day 2, Geraldton to Carnarvon is smooth. And Overlander Roadhouse, run by a Samoan woman and staffed by a group of awesome Vietnamese Australians, offers unexpectedly good food and a fast WA EV Network charger.

But somewhere along the way an 18-inch crack has appeared on the windscreen.

By the time we reach Carnarvon, the one windscreen repair place in town is closed and remain stubbornly shut the next morning. Though it is reassuring to learn that locals think ‘if you ain’t got a cracked windscreen you ain’t driven in the Pilbara.’

From Carnarvon it is 700 kms to Tom Price where we are booked for the night – it will be less than 2 hours drive into Karijini the follwing morning. We are almost there.

But not quite. The plan was to charge at the newly installed WA EV network charger at Minilya, 140 kms along the way. According to the Plugshare app, it has been working some of the time, even though there is red tape around it clearly asking people to keep out! For us it would not work🙄

Co-Pilot tried pleading. I tried abuse. C-P rang the operator. Man at the other end sounded unconvinced by our assertion that anyone had been able to use it. Officially, the charger is ‘not yet active’ – no amount of ‘but we are desperate’ would move him. Next charger: Nanutarra, where we arrived having driven 368 kms on a single charge with just 22 km in the tank and frayed nerves. Neither of us felt like driving another 300 kms to Tom Price.

We stopped for the night at Cheela Plains Station just in time for a magnificent sunset. We got the last room and, yes, they could add us in for dinner.

A perfect place to spend an evening on the way to Karijini, EV or ICE

We are almost there – one sleep, less than 200 kilometres and two perfectly dependable, free chargers provided by Rio Tinto – our next sunset will be at Karijini.

As they say (may be they don’t yet, but soon will): EVs are great for going places. But they won’t compensate for human follies.

Crossing the Nullarbor! Or not?

You to the Universe, aka, Face Book: ’We are planning to drive Perth to Sydney, and hopefully back again, in our new Electric Vehicle (henceforth, Evie). Any advice?’

First responder : No! Mate!! Seriously, Don’t do it.

Like Donald Trump we ignore reasonable counsel against self-destructive stupidity. Eventually more supportive advice flows in and we find at least three real people who have really done the distance.

So begins the planning for the 5000 km drive across the flattest, longest, straightest road in the world with less trees, people and EV charging stations per thousand kilometres than most places you care to name. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor_Plain)

Unlike this blogger’s usual sojourns on foot, this trip is not going to be 100% guilt-free as many of the charging stations, where we will figuratively ’fill up’ the car, have fossil fuel generated electricity. (See https://www.mynrma.com.au/cars-and-driving/electric-vehicles/our-mission/are-evs-better-for-the-environment). Still, by most calculations, our environmental impact for this trip will be less than half of a petrol-guzzling, ozone ripping, air-polluting jalopy (I learnt that word from doing the Guardian crosswords and just had to use it).

Some say a previous Hyundai electric car was known to burst into flames for no apparent reason – but that was several generations (of cars) ago and we are assured by the dealer that that model is in no way related to our own Evie, who is a slick, white, 2022 Kona, with an enviable reputation for doing 480k on a full tank (i.e. 100% charge), on a good day. The equivalent more posh brand car costs 25% more.

She is cheap to fill up. For our test run, about 650 km Fremantle to Augusta round trip, we spent less than $15 on charging.

But there is a whole other language to EV ’filling up’ that ICE owners know nothing about. (If you don’t know what ICE is, I’m pretty sure you drive one! ICE = Internal Combustion Engine, in other words, most of the cars on the road.)

The most important question for an EV owner is ‘how long does it take to fill my car?’ The answer: how long is a piece of string? You will get a different answer depending on the type/model/year of car owed by the inquirer + the type/model/year of car owned by the responder + the charging station where this conversation takes place + the various cables that you should have bought but did not, plus 21 other variables I cannot remember.

Walking Buddy, WB, now re-classified as FM (Fast Mover) has read thousands of documents and composed a 400 page manuscript titled ‘Number, Length, Strength, Shape and other Variables of EV Charging Plugs and Cables: Essential Considerations Prior to your Long-Distance Motoring Adventures.’ As this is an open-ended discursive thesis, the work ends with no recommendations on what one can actually do to ensure availability of power to your car on the Nullarbor!

In any case, I really wanted the plug called Pig-tail because it has a cute name, but FM insists that name nothing to do with efficacy. In the end, the nice people from Hyundai HQ in Sydney stepped in to save the day (and a beautiful friendship) by offering us a full set of charging cables. HOWEVER, there’s a catch. These will be available at Port Augusta, which is after we have crossed the most remote stretch of the road.

Meanwhile we are setting off with a ’granny charger’ (which sounds slightly obscene and takes more than 30 hours to charge the car from 0-100), a type 2 (not to be confused with diabetes) and something called ’3-phase-5-pin’ (I-give-up) that FM has borrowed from more knowledgeable EV owners, which, used wisely, hold the promise of charging for just four or five hours most days. But hey, it’s not a race (as our coal-fired ex-PM once said).

Still, I wonder what will happen if Evie runs out of puff in the middle of nowhere (which is what the 2000 km between Perth and Port Augusta is)? FM has armed himself with an extra-long cable, which weights so much, I think it could be 100 kilometres long. But even so, the prospect of walking into a town with one end of an extension cable in your hand is hardly appealing!

Experienced EV drivers say, if running low on battery you should drop the speed to 40 kmh. That will extend the distance you can go before your next charge. At that speed, we should be in Sydney in 3 or 4 months.

Bryce Gaton, a respected expert on all things EV and Kona-owner, is crossing the Nullarbor east to west. He recommends patience!

https://thedriven.io/2022/06/16/are-we-there-yet-electric-road-trip-to-perth-reveals-state-of-ev-charging-in-australia/

So, we’ll go Leonard Cohen slow:

I’m lacing up my shoes
But I don’t want to run
I’ll get there when I do
Don’t need no starting gun

Please stay tuned for more slow-mo blogs, so you’ll be the first to know when we are stuck somewhere without a plug point within a 100 km radius!!!

#electriccar, #hyundai,