Walking the Murrumbidgee levee in Wagga

Wagga Wagga 2025

Out for a walk along the levee bank along the Murrumbidgee River in Wagga Wagga. Beautiful day, warmer now with the sunshine. Lots of people camping by the river, I presume as their homes. Must be so cold at night.

Charging

The simplest and fastest place to charge in Wagga is at the Tesla Superchargers, which is open to all EVs. But, we aim to charge wherever we happen to be. And here, The NRMA has a fast charger, so we chose to use that. A few minor problems with it, though:

  1. It has two CCS2 cables, which is great. But only one parking spot is marked for EV parking. When we arrived, we were the second car after the BYD Dolphin that was already plugged in. We initially parked on the other side of the charger, but soon realised that we were jutting further out into the car park, because the charging station takes a quarter of that parking spot. I think the shorter spot is meant for motorbikes, which explains the extra painted line, but there’s no sign. So, we moved to the spot next to the first car, which is not marked for EVs, but fortunately was empty, and close enough for the cable to reach.
  2. The plug is hard to remove from the socket. I (Tom) tried a few times, but was worried I’d break it. I was just about to ask Francis to help (she has a knack), when the Dolphin driver, Tracy had a go and just yanked it out. Thank you. It was also difficult to push back in.
  3. The NRMA app is pretty bad. The EV charging section seems to be some web navigating Frankenstein’s monster inside the actual app. NRMA – if you’re listening, let us build you a better app: BareFeetWare.
  4. When we plugged in, we were only getting 25kW. I presume that meant that the Dolphin had also dropped from near 50kW to 25kW. They might as well just have one charging cable.

Half way through our walk, the Dolphin had disconnected, so our charging ramped up to 49kW. When we returned, our battery was near full. We disconnected and drove off.

9 comments

  1. For EV charging using the NRMA, think they want people to use the Chargefox app now instead which would explain the horrible UX. https://www.mynrma.com.au/open-road/advice-and-how-to/nrm…
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    1. Quang Nguyen Ah, thank you. I’d forgotten about that.
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  2. Looks a bit warmer than when I went for a walk around the river at 5.30 this morning.
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    1. Greg Lewis 🥶
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    2. Greg Lewis We looked for your MG EV at the RAAF base when we walked around, after the graduation.
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      1. Tesla Tripping it was parked next another that was parked next to a BYD Seal and a Shark 6😁 I was assessing people reversing trailers on the flightline.
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  3. Luckily, the NRMA chargers we have encountered so far have been activated by our Chargefox app, rather than that shocker NRMA created.
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    1. Warren Heydon I had forgotten that we can use the Chargefox app at The NRMA chargers. Thanks for the reminder.
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  4. Your practice of topping up whenever you can resonates with me on long trips. My bladder cannot hold beyond two hours and how easy it is to plug in first before the toilet break. Unlike ICE cars, topping up does not incur any weight penalty.
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