Poisson

I've had the RX450h for six months and never really stretched its legs. So SWMBO and I took a long weekend and drove from home in Perth to Esperance and return. It's about 700km one way and takes about 9 hours, allowing time for a few breaks and a little bit of sight-seeing along the way.

We found that a lot of the service stations in the country towns we passed through had run out of premium (95 RON) so we were forced to use 91 RON for most of the trip. The car seemed to run fine on the lower octane and we averaged around 9.2 L/100km which wasn't too bad at all.

The weather was lousy most of the way, but the farmers are praying for rain, so we didn't mind too much. we had a few hours of bright sunshine in Esperance so we hit the beach - there is some really amazing coastline to be seen, but we saw most of the better places through heavy rain.

We got a lot of bugs and a fair coating of dust. Some pictures at this address

RX330inFL

Sorry to hear the weather did not hold for your trip. Looks like your ride came back with a good coating of the Outback on it. Your gas mileage, 25.56 miles/US gallon, is about on par with the same generation RX350. Out on a long trip like that you really do not get to take advantage of the hybrid capabilities which are more noticeable in city stop and go traffic. As you were probably not climbing any major elevation changes and were more than likely not heavily loaded with luggage you were probably OK in running 91 RON for the trip. Not really stressing the engine.

Thanks for posting the pictures. Only way some of us here in the States will ever get to see some parts of your country other than the occasional documentary...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/a...rst-years.html

SB2013RX

Ditto.

Great views. I have to ask. Did you fish the beach? Just an avid fisherman drooling over what may be in the surf. Sounds like you had a great trip.

Poisson

Not into fishing myself - I don't have the patience. But my bro-in-law spends a lot of time on the south coast and always gets a big haul. Apart from the fish there are also sea lions, humpback whales and great white sharks in the local waters.