Snowy Mountains Trip - Day 9

Day 9 - 3/5/2011 - Tumut
Today we decide to have a quiet day in Tumut and catch up on a few jobs and recharge the batteries.  As a result we had a nice slow start to a beautiful misty morning. Hopefully this meant that we once the fog cleared, there would be plenty of sunshine to fully recharge the batteries.

Because of the low battery voltage at the start of the previous night and due to our energy conservation efforts, ie in bed by sunset, I don’t think the battery voltage got below 12V overnight.  As soon as I got up I set my second set of 2x70W solar panels up to catch as many amps as possible.  When the fog cleared and the sun came out I was only getting about 2-3amps through the 2x120W panels due to the shade from the trees.  As soon as I plugged in the extra panels and orientated them into the sun, I was getting about 15amps from all panels with the majority coming from the 2x70W panels.  It took until about 3pm before the voltage reached 14.4V.  I was feeling a lot more comfortable that night knowing that the voltage was right back up again.

We went for a drive into town, parked the car and walked down the main street.  Not quite the same “cosy” atmosphere as Tumbarumba and the street definitely wasn’t as “hustle bustle” with people like it was in places like Young - but it was nice enough.  Lots of elderly people out having coffee in the Cafes - not a lot of younger people about - wonder if its a town where the young people are leaving to find employment elsewhere?

Tumut

While in town we went to the local butcher to stock up on meat and Coles to stock up on other essentials.  The afternoon was spent chasing the sun with the solar panels and taking some more photos of the local wildlife.

There were local geese that would swim or walk upriver in the mornings to spend the day wandering around the van park and at time making themselves at home under peoples annexes, and then swim downstream with the current in the afternoons.