Zeekr Big Lap: Day 17 - Barkly Homestead to Katherine

Day 17 of the Zeekr Big Lap was another epic day covering possibly our longest distance of the trip so far,  825 km from Barkly Homestead to Katherine. Started in the dark at 6am and headed west the 190 km to Three Ways Roadhouse NRMA charger, where I arrived within minutes of Hunter Murray, NT EV legend, who was heading home to Alice Springs from Darwin in his F150 Lightning truck. Coincidentally a three-trailer road train packed with BYD EVs bound for Darwin arrived at the same time.  We had breakfast together chatting about his work installing and maintaining remote chargers and NT life, including something called "bush supercharging". After charging to 100% I headed north at 120kph arriving  at Elliot van park 230 km up the highway to use the 30kW charger installed by Hunter. Here I ran into a couple from the Vietnamese tour group I met in Cloncurry and Barkly and shockingly their lead truck rolled coming into Elliot the day before after suffering a blow out.  Luckily the six people inside suffered only minor injuries, but their expedition from Sydney to Broome was over. The sweet couple offered me tea and noodles while they went through their salvaged belongings. I charged from 57 to 90% in about an hour and headed the 314 km to Mataranka, sticking to 120kph the whole way stopping only at the Larrimah pub to see the pink panther. Arrived at the Mataranka NRMA charger at about 3.30pm with the car temp showing 33 degrees as I charged to 80%. Then only a short 100 km hop to K Town, or Katherine arriving just after 5pm and giving the Zeekr a well deserved car wash. The Zeekr averaged 22.6kWh/100km doing mostly 120kph all day with a bit of 130kph. Such a good car to drive at these speeds, overtaking vans and trucks effortlessly. Big Lap trip total now 7500 km.  Then got my my powered site on the banks of the Katherine River, where dinner was frozen and dried mango from the mango man. Booked two nights of luxury accommodation in a King Premier room at the Darwin CBD Rydges Hotel, so looking forward to some R&R as well as catching up with the NT Australian Electric Vehicle Association crew.  Catch up with my adventures in my daily vlog on my YouTube channel Kangaroo Island TV.  Like and subscribe!