Brettus
Prominent Member
Afternoon all,
I'd been wanting to do it for ages but it was either being repaired or the work schedule didn't fall right but finally I was up for a trip to the office and the weather was suitable enough to do it.
Working from home is nice but the time comes a couple of times a year to "show face" and attend the office and so began the first real road trip. To Belgium
My pre-flight essentials were getting ABRP (thankfully a trial was available) and connecting the dongle I got when I first bought the car.
I also signed up for a month of Tesla membership as that was going to pay for itself rather quickly.
I checked the forum for advice on headlights and they're supposed to have those naff lens sticker things but I also saw the follow up advice of "just crank em down and it'll be reet"
So I did just that knowing I wasn't going to be driving much if at all at night anyway.
8.5 hours driving and a le shuttle crossing to the continent later I rocked up at my hotel. 2 charge stops were needed, one down near Luton at a nice garden centre that thankfully was still serving breakfast baps and the second I got at Calais before I got back underway properly. A total of around £25 rapid charging for the 340 or so miles.
I got to use the office chargers to recoup my charge losses and enable the use of ALL the horses again while commuting during the week so I left on Saturday morning with a full battery and headed for Brussels to see the Atomium (Loved it)
Then I headed back toward the North coast for a little cycling along the beachfronts with the ebike I'd brought along for the ride. Sadly it seems the British weather had found me so it was absolutely lashing down and set to continue for several hours so I cut my losses, paid the hostage fee for an earlier Le Shuttle train (I was supposed to come back Sunday after sleeping in the car in a nice sleepy seaside town, not in monsoon season though!) Charged at Dunkirk as ABRP prescribed and headed for the tunnel, the train was delayed because of earlier issues, but I think I played a blinder as I was waiting for my tag to be called I was poised in the car park and set off a couple of minutes early and got waved right through onto the last few spaces on the previous train
Popped my head back out in Blighty to glorious sunshine
Feeling much better after my plans were wrecked I decided I'd tick the other thing off my bucket list while in the area and headed for the White Cliffs for a quick picture and to say I'd seen them with my own eyes.
I only walked to the first viewpoint as the light wasn't going to be getting any better that day so it was as good as it was going to get unless I stayed over.
Then I had to flip the mental coin as to if I find a spot to bed down for the night now I'd not be doing it in a monsoon OR do I just head for home and my own bed.
The latter won out and it was 19:00 or so when I departed the South coast and two charges (Lakeside shopping centre and Northampton Tesla) later I was set to arrive home sometime after midnight. Then it all went Pete Tong... M6 down to 1 lane with a bunch of traffic took ages to get through then the last nail in the coffin was the A41 being shut in the middle of effing nowhere with badly signposted diversions that sent me on a very roundabout way. (I'm sure there was a better one if I'd been less sleep deprived and took a few minutes to plan rather than heading off down the road pointed and figuring the sat nav would work it out (no, all three apps kept insisting on getting me back to the A41 as that's the logical route to take up there, what are you an eedjit?
I made it home by 01:30 VERY grateful to see my own bed but the (almost) week in work had been fun and the driving around had been great.
The car was perfect, the charging was zero problem and the stops were pretty much never longer than I needed them to be. I was always the one holding up proceedings with munchies or whatever so the car was ready before I was.
I'm running the numbers shortly to sort out total charges and costs and pence per mile of course as I'm a nerd but it was comfortably affordable.
I'd been wanting to do it for ages but it was either being repaired or the work schedule didn't fall right but finally I was up for a trip to the office and the weather was suitable enough to do it.
Working from home is nice but the time comes a couple of times a year to "show face" and attend the office and so began the first real road trip. To Belgium
My pre-flight essentials were getting ABRP (thankfully a trial was available) and connecting the dongle I got when I first bought the car.
I also signed up for a month of Tesla membership as that was going to pay for itself rather quickly.
I checked the forum for advice on headlights and they're supposed to have those naff lens sticker things but I also saw the follow up advice of "just crank em down and it'll be reet"
So I did just that knowing I wasn't going to be driving much if at all at night anyway. 8.5 hours driving and a le shuttle crossing to the continent later I rocked up at my hotel. 2 charge stops were needed, one down near Luton at a nice garden centre that thankfully was still serving breakfast baps and the second I got at Calais before I got back underway properly. A total of around £25 rapid charging for the 340 or so miles.
I got to use the office chargers to recoup my charge losses and enable the use of ALL the horses again while commuting during the week so I left on Saturday morning with a full battery and headed for Brussels to see the Atomium (Loved it)
Then I headed back toward the North coast for a little cycling along the beachfronts with the ebike I'd brought along for the ride. Sadly it seems the British weather had found me so it was absolutely lashing down and set to continue for several hours so I cut my losses, paid the hostage fee for an earlier Le Shuttle train (I was supposed to come back Sunday after sleeping in the car in a nice sleepy seaside town, not in monsoon season though!) Charged at Dunkirk as ABRP prescribed and headed for the tunnel, the train was delayed because of earlier issues, but I think I played a blinder as I was waiting for my tag to be called I was poised in the car park and set off a couple of minutes early and got waved right through onto the last few spaces on the previous train
Popped my head back out in Blighty to glorious sunshine
Feeling much better after my plans were wrecked I decided I'd tick the other thing off my bucket list while in the area and headed for the White Cliffs for a quick picture and to say I'd seen them with my own eyes.I only walked to the first viewpoint as the light wasn't going to be getting any better that day so it was as good as it was going to get unless I stayed over.
Then I had to flip the mental coin as to if I find a spot to bed down for the night now I'd not be doing it in a monsoon OR do I just head for home and my own bed.
The latter won out and it was 19:00 or so when I departed the South coast and two charges (Lakeside shopping centre and Northampton Tesla) later I was set to arrive home sometime after midnight. Then it all went Pete Tong... M6 down to 1 lane with a bunch of traffic took ages to get through then the last nail in the coffin was the A41 being shut in the middle of effing nowhere with badly signposted diversions that sent me on a very roundabout way. (I'm sure there was a better one if I'd been less sleep deprived and took a few minutes to plan rather than heading off down the road pointed and figuring the sat nav would work it out (no, all three apps kept insisting on getting me back to the A41 as that's the logical route to take up there, what are you an eedjit?
I made it home by 01:30 VERY grateful to see my own bed but the (almost) week in work had been fun and the driving around had been great.
The car was perfect, the charging was zero problem and the stops were pretty much never longer than I needed them to be. I was always the one holding up proceedings with munchies or whatever so the car was ready before I was.
I'm running the numbers shortly to sort out total charges and costs and pence per mile of course as I'm a nerd but it was comfortably affordable.
