Some Australian c photos

These items are not available as accessories or even options. Both exist on the i-Tech trim level as standard equipment installed at the factory. We actually have no options at all other than choosing the base or i-Tech trim levels and colour, beyond that it's just the accessories at Toyota Prius C accessories

 

I went away for the weekend, which presented an opportunity to capture a different angle.



(Click to enlarge)

 

I think you'll find it's on the right side.

 

So, uh, after I picked up my car from its 6 month service, I remembered I leave the Trip Monitor function on in the GPS, because, well, why not? Kinda fun to see they took it on a little 2km road test after servicing it like they are supposed to. Wasn't quite expecting to see it pick up a 72.7 km/h peak in a 50 km/h area though... oops.



I guess he didn't get 5 bars on the ECO Score display, but at least the friction brakes work.

 

I drove down to Australia's capital city Canberra on the weekend and also on the way back I came via the coast and took my c onto unsealed roads for the first time, so I think a couple of photos are in order.

Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

While in Canberra I paid a visit to the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, run for NASA and JPL by our CSIRO. The facility is nestled amongst the hills behind Canberra and as you approach, a sign requests you to turn off all transmitting devices, which I duly pulled over to do.



Along the road and adjacent to the visitor car park stands the preserved DSS-46 antenna. DSS-46 is a 26 metre antenna that was originally located nearby at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station where it supported the Apollo missions amongst others, claiming the limelight when it was used to relay live images of Armstrong's first steps on the moon.



Why did they use this antenna? The problem was that the image being sent to Houston via the Goldstone facility in California was upside-down. It had something to do with the design of the cameras making it easier for the astronauts to use the cameras upside-down, which then had to be corrected through the use of a reversing switch at the tracking station. Goldstone had not set their switch correctly, but Ed von Renouard had set it correctly at Honeysuckle Creek, meaning the pictures were corrected leading Houston to use that feed. Here's the actual switch on display in the visitor's centre.



Admittedly the tribute page to Honeysuckle Creek tells the story slightly differently, but we get the point.

Honeysuckle Creek was decommissioned in the early 80s and the antenna was moved to its current position in Tidbinbilla where it remained in service until late 2009. DSS-46 has been designated a National Engineering Heritage Landmark by Engineers Australia and has been preserved as an engineering monument.

Meanwhile, to the other side of me stood DSS-43:



At 70 metres diameter, DSS-43 is the largest steerable parabolic antenna in the Southern Hemisphere.

Leaving Canberra via the coast, I had to pause to drive around my favourite national park and state forests which meant I had to leave the sealed roads for the first time. They were roads I am familiar with and I must say for the most part were in fairly good condition, though there were certainly some sections that were tricky, particularly steeper sections where rainwater has carved deep channels in the road and they clearly had not been regraded recently. I was relearning very rapidly the importance of picking your line very carefully on such roads and judging the best location and trajectory for veering across those channels where necessary.

The c performed admirably. I had a couple of bottom scrapes which can be attributed to driver error. I took a few photos, but none of the worst of road sections because I don't like stopping there and obviously full concentration was on driving.

Leaving the bitumen for the first time:



All alone at the summit:



A favourite spot all my cars get pictured at:



And some of the roads:

 

Are you sure it's not just a badly located change between speed limit zones? On mine the overspeed indication is purely visual based on changing colours of the speed limit designation, ie. first the numbers turn from black to red, but if it thinks the difference is greater then the whole disc turns red and the numbers turn white. Is yours different? Mine only shows these states if I am travelling faster than it thinks the speed limit is, typically due to bad map data.

Other than that, the map data is just offensively old and newer maps that will work with our devices is not available. The GPS system in our c is based on and old version of iGO primo. The whole unit is made by Fujitsu Ten... it has a lot of similarities (though also many differences) to their AVN827GA, but ours is a modified version for Toyota. Although the maps are on the SD card, there is no way to get updated maps to work (and people have tried), nor any way to update the system itself. Toyota would have to provide updated maps and they do not.

 

I didn't really want to start a new thread for this, but a local security company has chosen the c for their night patrol vehicles. They plan to have 150 of them before the end of the year.

Southern Cross Protection secures Toyota for their fleet



I quite like their decal design (not to mention their vehicle colour choice). It is evidently an Australian base model, which is no surprise. This will definitely make the c a visible addition to our streets!