Category: geo

We have a ring road here in Melbourne, but it’s not much of a ring – more a half finished peanut shape, but it gets the job done I s’pose. Not like this one near Taranto in Italy, now this is what I call a ring road… it’s massive!

Actually, this whole area seems to be obsessed with circles and ellipses. There are circular lakes here, here, and a whole bunch of elliptical ones over here.

The circular road is some kind of a vehicle testing ground the Nardò, Proving Ground, (their site has a map explaining what each part of the facility does), but what’s the excuse for all the round lakes?

How many of us have dreamed that one day we’d have a real, full size jet aircraft of our own to live in?… OK, not that many! Still, given the relatively high concentration of wierdos per square inch in the US, you would have guessed it would happen there. This is a Boeing 727 in someone’s front yard in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Bruce Campbell has built a website to document his obsession, called airplanehome.com, but from the photos on the site, it looks very little like a home and very much like a cross between a film set and my father’s garage. Still, whatever rips your cord!

Here’s an interesting one: this is the first time I’ve ever seen a housing estate laid out on a hexagonal grid. I imagine it would be as confusing to drive around as Canberra ;-). This one is near the Jarama Motor Racing Circuit in Spain. There are cars on the circuit, but no sign of a crowd. Maybe a practice session or a club race?

You’ve got to admire the level of self importance enjoyed by the staff of Australia’s only nuclear reactor, Lucas Heights. Apparently, there are calls to censor the google satellite images of the reactor [ ABC News Online ] as they may be used by terrorists.

The precedent has, it seems, been set by the blanking out of the roof of the White House (though they left the Pentagon untouched), so naturally the next logical step is Lucas Heights! Never mind that you can plainly view the rows and rows and rows of military hardware at any number of bases in the US.

So you’d better get a good look at it now. I think this is the top secret cooling pond – for staff!

Actually, it took me a little while to find this one. Funny, because I’ve driven past it quite a few times and it stands out like a sore thumb among the rolling green hills of Canberra. It’s the Nasa Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Station. Nasa have a very informative site about it.

In a sobering aside, it’s worth noting that many of the nearby hills are bare from the devastating bushfires that struck the area in 2003.

No, it’s not that dish. Parkes is still not in high res, but as soon as it is, I’ll let you know. This dish is the Nasa Satellite Earth Station in Carnarvon, in the north west of Western Australia.
Built in 1963 for the Gemini program, there’s a nice ground shot of the dish here.

Yay!, googlesightseeing have posted another of my suggestions. This time a cool spiral thingy in new zealand that turns out to be some kind of a scuplture. They’ve got more information about it and a couple of links on their site, or if you’d rather go straight to the map, here it is.

Up until now, pretty well all my googlemaps posts have been related to the cool things that turn up in the photos – I’m a very visually motivated person!

However, I’m also a web developer, so it hasn’t slipped my notice that google have created a very flexible API for people to hook other information into. The results are absolutely incredible, try these three as a starting point.

• Australian Points of Interest
• The WeatherChaser
• super UK info map

If you want to keep track of these amazing developments, check out this fantastic site, googlemapsmania which catalogues many of the best of these tools – known as ‘mash-ups’.

Edit: yoicks! they’ve linked back to me. That’ll give the stats a blip!!

Over at googlesightseeing.com I think they must be getting sick of me. They posted Australia’s Parliament House, which, among others, I suggested. However, in the spotter credits they say “woowoowo (again!)”. What’s that all about?

Anyway, I’ll show them! While we’re in the Nation’s C we’ll stop by a few other sights:

• The National Museum
• The Telstra Tower on Black Mountain
• The Australian Institute of Sport

But I think the real charm of Canberra on Googlemaps is how organised it all is – everywhere you look there are beautiful circles and angles and public spaces!

I was talking to a friend today about the Queensland theme parks. The Gold Coast is the holiday destination of choice for 7 – 14 year olds for one reason… well, four reasons: Seaworld, Dreamworld, Movieworld and Wet’n’Wild.

Dreamworld is my choice for action and rides and my favourite is the Tower of Terror, casting it’s clearly visible shadow across the park. A few facts: 380 feet high, 100mph top speed (from zero in 7 seconds – 4.5G’s). Yes, it’s a buzz!

While we’re on the topic, I’ll point you to Movieworld, Wet’n’Wild, and the wonderful Seaworld.

Here are the famous Horizontal Falls in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. I’ve never been there myself – hope to one day!

This particular spot is where the massive tides of the area get jammed through a rather small gap, creating a Horizontal Waterfall. When the tide turns, the water ‘falls’ back in the other direction.

At the time the satellite took the photo, it was looking a bit tame, things get more serious in the middle of the tidal run. Some nice photos here.