Google Sightseeing

Location: Pierce City, Missouri. Date: Unknown. A young man cycles along the same street as the Google Street View car. Can you guess what happens next?

Oh YEEEEAAAAAHHH!! At the exact moment this image was taken, mid-falling-off, it looks like the guy spots the camera and realises what has just happened. Presumably he’s thinking “Oh sh*t, that’s the Google Street View car”.

I bet he felt so cool right then.

Locations: Missouri / Categories: Street Views

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In the far south of Italy there is a medieval hill town called Craco which was abandoned due to the instability of the ground it had stood on for centuries.

Historians believe a community was first established in the area in the 8th century, though most of the notable structures in the village date to the 12th and 13th centuries – including the castle tower which is visible for miles around.

In the early part of the 20th century, poor farming conditions in the region prompted many in the region to join thousands of their countrymen in a wave of emigration to the United States.1

Craco was originally built on a rocky outcrop for defensive reasons, but over time, weathering of the unstable rock and soil became dangerous, particularly when coupled with seismic activity in the region. Starting in the late 1950s, a number of landslides made parts of the town unsafe to the point where the 1800 residents had to be relocated2 to a nearby town now known as Craco Peschiera.

The original village of Craco consists of two distinct areas – the upper section is still abandoned, but there are still people living in the lower section.

Street View gives us several stunning looks at the village from the surrounding countryside:

… along with closeup views of some of the abandoned buildings:

Despite being uninhabited, there’s a surprising amount of activity in the abandoned part of the village, with regular festivals taking place in connection with the many Churches. Craco has also been used as a location for the filming of several films, including Quantum of Solace and The Passion of the Christ.

More information can be found at Wikipedia.

This post is part of an occasional series where we visit some of the world’s most interesting abandoned places.

1. There’s an association of descendants active in New York. ↩

2. In researching this article I came across information that gave the date of abandonment as the mid-1960s, early 1970s, and even the early 1990s. I chose not to include a specific date! ↩

Locations: Italy / Categories: Abandoned, Buildings, Movie Locations, Street Views, Towers

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In grand Dubai-esque fashion, Ordos City in Chinese Inner Mongolia rises from the desert to proclaim the glory of mankind’s accomplishments. Its glittering high-rise buildings and grand government projects are skirted on all sides by smooth unblemished pavement and endless rows of modern street lamps. There’s only one problem…it’s practically uninhabited.

Founded in 2001, Ordos City was rapidly developed on a swath of uninhabited desert along the Yellow River. Fuelled by a booming Chinese economy and over £100 billion of public and private investment, enough housing and infrastructure were built to accommodate 300,000+ residents. Nearly a decade into its existence, Ordos City is home to barely 30,000 inhabitants1 and consequently, a lot of empty homes and offices:

As well as a host of grandiose public works projects which remain either under-construction or extremely under-patronised:

Despite its post-apocalyptic feel, Ordos City has not suffered the same plummeting housing prices as in Dubai and much of the west. New construction continues and housing developments seem to have no trouble finding buyers. Here we can see the scale of the new infrastructure for continued development in the Kangbashi district of Ordos City:

The key to all of this growth in the face of global recession lies in the tremendous level of wealth found in the more populous coal and natural gas-rich areas of Ordos Prefecture. In fact, income data suggests that the local GDP per capita, £14,000, is more than twice that of Beijing and may be one of the highest in China. Though housing investors seem to be in plentiful supply, it will be interesting to see if anyone ever chooses to inhabit the homes they purchase!

For more information about Ordos City watch this informative Al-Jazeera reportage

1. And the lightest traffic in China! ↩

Locations: China / Categories: Abandoned, Buildings, Deserts, Monuments, Weirdness

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Fans of single-malt scotch whisky associate single malts from the Isle of Islay in Scotland with bold and peaty flavors. Not every whisky produced on the island is heavily peated, but that’s the signature flavour of the distilleries along the southern coast. The Isle of Islay is located on the Western edge of Scotland, just north of the sea barriers of Ireland, yet it is the southernmost of the Hebrides. Islay is home to eight active distilleries (with a ninth in production) and whisky tourism plays a major role in the economy of the island.

Google Street View offers glimpses of some of the most-famed distilleries in the world, while also providing some sense of the land—and water—that makes their products so unique. Also, some of these distilleries have top-notch signage and branding.

Let’s start with my own personal favourite: Laphroaig. Unfortunately, the Street View car committed the brutal error of not turning down the path onto the distillery grounds, but you can clearly see the distillery sign.

Should you find yourself on the Isle of Islay: make that turn!

Less than a kilometre to the East is the famed Lagavulin. I would say that Lagavulin is my favourite single-malt, but a bottle of Lagavulin 16 year (at least in the U.S.) costs more than twice the price of a bottle of Laphroaig 10 year—and that’s just not practical for some of us working folk. Luckily, Lagavulin is right on the main road (A846) and we can see much of the grounds:

And the distillery sign on the building:

And a tour of the distillery in progress:

Just a kilometre to the east of Lagavulin is the Ardbeg distillery. It’s also not right on the main road, but we can get a pretty good view of it—complete with grazing sheep, chimneys, and the sea.

And here’s the sign for the distillery:

The main inlet of the Isle of Islay is the Loch Indaal. On the southeastern shore of the Loch, we find Bowmore, the capital of the island and home to one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland. It’s still a relatively small operation:

And here’s the distillery gate:

On the northern coast of Loch Indaal is a recently revived distillery: Bruichladdich (pronounced Brook-laddie). Bruichladdich has maybe the best distillery sign in the world:

Look at that still! Looking directly across the street from Bruichladdich provides an excellent view of Loch Indaal.

On the eastern shore of Islay, near Port Askaig, we find the distilleries of Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain. Caol Ila is right on the water and from the street we can see their excellent distillery sign, complete with oak barrel:

Bunnahabhain is situated in an ecologically rich area, and the distillery has a beautiful view of the sound and the Isle of Jura:

The Kilchoman distillery is way over on the western shore of Islay, the most westerly distillery in Scotland. It’s also one of the newest, having been founded in 2005. You can barely see the distillery from the road.

If you’re in the neighborhood, the small town of Kilchoman is also home to a spectacular old graveyard and abandoned church.

The newest distillery on Islay is in Port Charlotte. The project is owned by Bruichladdich and they are taking a serious approach to perfecting their craft with the new distillery.

Each of the whisky-producing regions of Scotland is full of history and unique geography. The Isle of Islay and its peaty whiskies are just one of the many wonders of Scotland’s whisky industry.

Locations: Scotland / Categories: Buildings, Natural Landmarks, Street Views

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Recognising our literary passion, technical knowledge, and expertise in the online mapping field1, the web’s 57th most popular website, HubPages, have asked Alex and me to join their expert panel and judge entries to their latest contest “HubPages Marks the Spot”.

Contestants are invited to write a 300 word geo-located guide about local attractions or holiday destinations using that week’s theme, and they could win up to $500.

The contest starts on September 1st and full details and entry requirements are available on HubPages.

1. And nothing to do with the fact that we agreed to do the gig for a couple of T-shirts and a mug. ↩

Categories: Site News

You're reading an entry from Google Sightseeing, which is copyright © 2010 Alex Turnbull & James Turnbull and must not be reproduced without permission.

Last week a top-secret Russian shortwave radio station, UVB-76, began broadcasting a coded message for only the fourth time in 28 years. Today we’re exploring another shortwave system within the radioactive zone surrounding Chernobyl, The Russian Woodpecker

The Russian Woodpecker was an over-the-horizon (OTH) radar system used during the later years of the Cold War. Broadcast towers used for its shortwave signals are still in place near Chernobyl.

The Woodpecker nickname derived from the loud and repetitive signals being broadcast. They were so powerful that they interfered with radio signals and telecommunications around the world, from their beginning in 1976 to when they ceased at the end of 1989 when the Soviet Union started to collapse.

There were various conspiracy theories about the source of the sound, from the orthodox (radio jamming or submarine communications) to the bizarre (global mind control or aliens). However, NATO forces quickly realised that it was an OTH system, and were even able to photograph the massive arrays of 150m tall antennas, which they dubbed the Steel Yard, and nearby buildings, which look quite overgrown now.

The proximity to Chernobyl means this location is likely permanently abandoned, though local amateur radio enthusiasts have been known to rig their own systems up to the antennas!

Officially named Duga-3, the system was completed by a receiving facility approximately 60km away from the transmitter. Unfortunately this area is only covered by very low-resolution imagery.

A second Duga-3 system was installed in Siberia – again a pair of facilities 60km apart, though most of the installations have been dismantled. However, if you zoom in, there appear to be large collections of military vehicles at both locations.

This system was intended to cover any gaps in the original system’s OTH radar detection of incoming missiles from the USA.

These systems followed on from prototypes Duga-1 and Duga-2 which were built and tested in southern Ukraine. Little evidence of these systems remains, but there is an interesting circular formation nearby.

Can anyone find any other top-secret shortwave systems elsewhere in the world?

Learn more about the Russian Woodpecker at Wikipedia and Passing Strangeness.

Thanks to Mada.

Locations: Russia, Ukraine / Categories: Abandoned, Structures, Towers, Weirdness

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As a moderately frequent flyer, I enjoy looking out for fire and emergency training locations at airports. It’s fascinating because, for anybody who is even vaguely nervous about flying, the sight of a twisted and charred fuselage is probably the last thing they want to see as their plane accelerates down the runway! Here are a few of the best that I’ve been able to find on Google Maps.

Glasgow airport in Scotland have their fire training centre conveniently located next to a road, giving us a great look at it from Street View.

From this we can clearly see that, while some airports may use abandoned or decommissioned planes for training, in many cases it is merely a ‘plane-shaped object’ that can withstand repeatedly being set on fire – though convincing enough to upset a nervous flyer, particularly if it happened to be ablaze as you taxied past! Nearby is a small collection of old and wrecked cars – perhaps used to practice extractions?

At Zurich Airport there is an old DC-8 which looks to be in relatively good shape, so is probably used for evacuation exercises rather than fire training (which likely happens at the smaller object just to the east).

Another ‘plane-shaped object’, complete with a couple of fire trucks can be found at Leeds-Bradford Airport, a mere 150m from a runway!

The sprawling airport in Denver has 4 fire stations and the impressively titled Denver International Airport/Denver Fire Department Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF) Training Academy, with a full-size plane mockup.

A similar training school can be found at Durham Tees Valley Airport which has a veritable array of old planes and ‘plane-shaped objects’.

Recently, the trend has been for airports to invest in expensive training systems that can challenge firefighters with a range of different situations. At Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam there is a full-size mock up of a 747, in an area clearly marked Fire Training, which has 20 computer-controlled fire training settings. There is also a very similar system at London’s Gatwick Airport.

Manchester Airport has a high-tech system from a different manufacturer, that also resembles the front two-thirds of a 747.

We previously covered some of these “Fat Planes” back in 2006, but let us know what other training locations you can find on Google Maps or Street View. Bonus points if you can find one that is actually on fire!

(I shall now sit quietly and wait to see if spending a couple of hours browsing maps and street views of airport security perimeters has attracted the attention of the government’s online monitors).

Locations: Colorado, England, Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland / Categories: Aircraft, Street Views

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Regular readers may remember our post from 2009 about a Russian shortwave radio station, UVB-76, that has been emitting a short buzz tone on the AM frequency almost continuously since 1982. In the following 28 years the buzzing had only ever been interrupted on 3 occasions … until 2 days ago.

On August 23rd 2010, for the first time in over four years, the tone was once more interrupted – to be replaced with a Russian voice that said:

UVB-76, UVB-76 – 93 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 – 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan, nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4 – (repeated twice)

While it is believed that UVB-76 is a specialised Numbers Station (used to transmit encoded messages to spies) the messages themselves have never yet been decoded – although perhaps all that is about to change…

The names used in the message are used in some Russian spelling alphabets, and spell out the first word – “naimina”, which one commenter at the UVB-76 blog translated as “on names”. Another commenter suggests that “74 14 35 74″ could be interpreted as longitude and latitude coordinates: 74.14N 35.74E.

So why would UVB-76 be broadcasting a geographical location in the middle of the Barents sea? How about a Russian anti-aircraft missile launch revealed on the same day:

The Russian Air Force is together with Air Defence units preparing a shooting exercise with the S-300 anti-Aircraft missile system from the island of Kildin in the Barents Sea.

Although, that all seems a bit ridiculously obvious, doesn’t it? The Russians are well aware that there are people continually monitoring this broadcast – so why is it so easy to connect the broadcast with the activities of the Russian armed forces?

In the last 2 days, more voices transmissions have come from UVB-76, as well as grumbles, knocks, shuffles, beeps, and a completely new buzzing noise, that nearly drowned out the sound of the original buzzer altogether.

So what does it all mean? Is someone just checking the system still works, or is this the precursor to impending total annihilation?

There’s lots more information about the mysterious UVB-76 at Wikipedia.

Thanks to uvb-76.blogspot.com via @rodti.

Locations: Russia / Categories: Buildings, Weirdness

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Last week newspaper websites across the world published a story about a young girl who appeared to be lying dead on the pavement of an English street, proving that the worldwide fascination with Google Street View continues unabated.

Fortunately the girl, who must have been slightly taken aback when the world’s media1 turned up at her door asking if she was dead, was in fact perfectly all right.

A fact that any of the reporters could have been assured of if they’d moved down the street one step, from where you can see the girl is clearly playing with a friend.

Perhaps this will spark a new trend however, as presented with the Google car, some less playful people continue to get up to their old tricks…

As Google’s cars have covered even more ground around the world, there have been some interesting things to learn about the human condition. For example, apparently some girls are rather adept at something the world’s men thought they had all to themselves.

Although it does appear that not all women have mastered the art of peeing standing up quite yet.

Not to be outdone, men have gone one step further and LEARNED TO FLY. Yes ladies, you heard us right. (Although we can only do it momentarily, and it helps to be over a deep bit of water).

We hope that wider knowledge of Street View provokes more interesting responses from people when they see the car – there was another media frenzy recently when someone was spotted multiple times on the streets of Aberdeen, wearing a horse’s head. Suspiciously the images have all been removed now, so instead here’s a real horse, wandering through traffic on the way to the local Tesco.

Of course, if we all started lying down in the street, or donning interesting masks at the first sign of an approaching camera then, in an attempt to keep the controversy alive, the international press will have to start making up stories about politician’s homes being removed from Google’s services.

Sorry, I forgot, we debunked that particular story the week before last.

So have you been captured on Street View?2 What did you do? And if you haven’t yet, what do you plan to do to gain international notoriety when your time finally comes?

1. Or one reporter at the very least ↩

2. One of this site’s authors chased the camera car around Ostend for an hour trying to get seen, but as yet the images have not been released. ↩

Locations: England, Italy, Netherlands, Saskatchewan, Spain / Categories: Street Views

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Today marks the 71st anniversary of the universally acclaimed 1939 American musical movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’, which has been often named as the most-watched film in history. The film was based on the 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, who has been immortalised in his hometown of Chittenango, NY.

Baum was born in Chittenango in 1856, but died 20 years before the seminal film of his work was released. With a recent population of just 4,855 the village still remembers its most famous son fondly.

In 1982 the main street of the village was lined with yellow brick roads along both sides. Unfortunately the original bricks quickly became chipped and the colour faded, so they were replaced with modern pattern-imprinted yellow concrete in 2007. The original bricks were sold on eBay, and occasionally some come up for sale again.

Businesses throughout town have also embraced the Wizard of Oz story with seemingly endless tie-in names such as the Emerald City Grill, The Land of Oz and Ends and Dorothy’s Pet Grooming.

Chittenango also hosts an annual 3-day festival called “Oz-Stravaganza!”, which was formerly named OzFest before Ozzie Osbourne’s festival became more popular. The festival ends with a parade that has often featured some of the few remaining Munchkin actors as special guests. Sadly in 2010 the event had to be cancelled after a tornado devastated the village.

Reports of a missing girl named Dorothy were strongly denied by the festival’s organisers.

Locations: New York / Categories: Movie Locations

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The Suez Canal is a 193km long waterway in Egypt which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, allowing ship traffic to pass between Asia and Europe without having to travel all the way around Africa.

The narrow width of the canal means that ships can only travel in one direction at a time, with convoys of many vessels travelling together north or south, with pauses along the way to allow traffic to pass in the other direction. Google’s images have mostly captured boats travelling north, so that’s the direction we’ll travel on our tour.

Ships at the northern tip of the Red Sea enter the waterway at Port Tawfik, in the city of Suez which gives the canal its name.

Unlike many canals, the Suez has no locks, because there is only around a 1m difference in between the two seas, meaning the natural flow of water is not dangerous to shipping.

Within a few kilometres boats pass beneath the first of a very small number of connections across the canal – the overhead power line crossing. A pair of 221m tall towers provide the necessary clearance for large freighters.

Historians believe that canals were constructed in this region – in particular connecting the Red Sea to the Nile – as long ago as the second millennium BC, with ancient maps and stories from the intervening years giving hints of efforts which had varying levels of success. Napoleon proposed a canal but abandoned the scheme after receiving incorrect maps showing a 10m height difference between the seas.

Construction of the existing canal took ten years before officially opening on November 17th, 1869.

A little further north we reach the Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel which carries vehicles travelling between Suez and the Sinai Peninsula.

Shortly after this, boats enter the first of three lakes along the route – Little Bitter Lake. The dredged channel is clearly visible on the satellite images.

Great Bitter Lake is one of the points where ship convoys anchor to await the passage of boats going in the other direction, and it is plenty wide enough to accommodate passing ships.

There is also some kind of barge or platform and a boat towing a number of containers – does anybody have any idea what is going on here? It appears to be connected to this strange area of landforms – perhaps where sediment dredged from the channel is dumped?

Just to the north of the lake a pair of tunnels carry fresh water beneath the Canal, which is naturally very salty.

Lake Timsah and the town of Ismailia are notable landmarks along the way. On the eastern bank of the lake is a large memorial for Egyptian soldiers lost in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. There have been several other conflicts surrounding the canal, including the Suez Crisis in 1956, and 1967′s Six Day War.

Exiting the lake we can see an interesting wake pattern caused by a large container ship. To limit shoreline erosion caused by wakes, speed in the canal is limited to 8 knots. Ships up to 40m wide can use the waterway, with a maximum draught of 19m.

If necessary cargo can be offloaded onto smaller boats to help reduce draught for the passage, which is made by over 20,000 ships every year. This is about 7.5% of global sea trade, and around two-thirds of the oil consumed in Europe transits through the canal.

Traffic of a different kind crosses the canal on the El Ferdan Railway Bridge, the longest swing span bridge in the world. It splits in the middle, with the two halves rotating open to allow large vessels to pass.

Beyond the bridge is the Billah Bypass which again allows vessels to pause while convoys pass in the opposite direction.

And continuing north brings us to the final road crossing and the beautiful shadow of the Suez Canal Bridge1 which has a 70m span for ships to pass beneath. The towers holding the cables were designed to resemble obelisks.

Finally, we reach the Mediterranean at Port Said, where there is a container terminal. Brand new high-res imagery of the area shows quite a number of different vessels being loaded or unloaded, along with a quite lovely reflection of the sun on intersecting wakes from a pair of small boats.

Wikipedia has plenty of information about the Suez Canal, including more history than I could include here. The Authority which operates the canal has a website, but it is always incredibly slow to load for me.

Thanks to pt, Michael hancock, Jonathan and Zack Stokes.

1. Also known as the Mubarak Peace Bridge or the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, because really, a bridge can never have too many names, right? ↩

Locations: Egypt / Categories: Bridges, Monuments, Shadows, Structures, Watercraft

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It may not have a “mount” or “volcano” anywhere in its name, but the islands of Santorini (aka Thira) are actually the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history! That’s a pretty good reason why there isn’t much land left above the sea when you visit the island chain from above.

The islands that you see today are actually the remains of the ancient volcano’s caldera that erupted over 3,500 years ago, and the blast itself is estimated to have been up to 120 times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens! There would have been ash, pyroclastic flows, and tsunamis that spread throughout the Mediterranean causing massive devastation.

The remains of Santorini today are a circular chain of islands that the Greeks have transformed into one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Never mind the active volcano resting in the caldera, the locals have taken the time to create a surreal destination for vacationers and cruise ships thanks to the island’s stunning geology and ideal location in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea.

Legend has it that Santorini’s location, beauty, and volcanic history are no coincidence. There may be a good reason people have been drawn to this place for thousands of years. Ancient writings from Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias (which interesting enough were written about 2,400 years ago) have led scholars to believe that Santorini could have been the site of the mythical and legendary island of Atlantis! Let me explain…

First, Santorini matches the physical description of the legendary lost island due to its circular shape. Plato wrote of a series of rings alternating in land and water that made up the island nation of Atlantis. If you look at Santorini from above, it’s definitely circular, and considering the island in the caldera could have been much bigger before the eruption, it could be described as “rings of land and water” as well!

Secondly, Plato wrote about the colours of quarries on the island of Atlantis. He wrote “one kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red”. We can see white rocks from space near some of the cliffs, and we’ve got ground level views showing some red cliffs on the island as well.

So we have white and red, but what about the black? Look at this beach near Perissa. It’s got black sand! Remember this island is really a volcano, so there are black rocks just about everywhere you look.

The third link to Atlantis are the ancient civilisations that inhabited Santorini 3,500 years ago. Archeological digs performed on the island reveal a civilisation with an advanced engineering for its time. Digs like the one at Akrotiri revealed multi-story buildings, earthquake resistant walls, complex plumbing, and interior air systems. Akrotiri itself was actually buried in the eruption, much like the Italian city of Pompeii, and remained remarkably preserved for thousands of years.

Of course there are many links between the island of Santorini and the legend of Atlantis, but perhaps the biggest one is the history of the volcano itself. Santorini is the remnants of a caldera rising above the water, and Plato’s writings of Atlantis falling into the sea would be a good description of what happened to the middle of Thira’s lagoon 3,500 years ago. Over time that island in the lagoon has slowly built itself back up, but sooner or later you have to expect it might just happen again.

Regardless whether you think Santorini is linked to Atlantis or not, it remains an absolutely beautiful island deep in the Mediterranean that’s definitely worth a visit.

To read more about Santorini, Greece, visit the municipality’s website here, or read about the island on Wikipedia.

Locations: Greece / Categories: Volcanoes

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Mount Kilimanjaro is an inactive stratovolcano and is the highest mountain in Africa. At 5,893 metres (19,334 ft) above sea level, it is also the tallest freestanding1 mountain in the world. Mount Kilimanjaro is also known for its glaciers at the summit, and is a World Heritage site.

Mount Kilimanjaro consists of 3 separate volcanoes, Kibo (the highest at 5,893 m), Mawenzi (5,149 m), and Shira(3,962 m).

Thousands of tourists hike Kilimanjaro every year, many doing it for charity. There are many tour companies that will cater for your every need whilst visiting the area.

After arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, you will stay at a local hotel in Arusha or Moshi, until you are to commence your climb. There are many different trails to the summit, depending on your fitness and ability, the longer hikes giving you more time to acclimatise to the low oxygen levels. The starting points are Machame, Marangu, Umbwe, Rongai, and Lemosho; all hikes take 6 days, but some can be completed in 5 days. All routes converge at some point or other during the final day of ascent.

None of the starting gates are visible in high res, but the camps at Kibo, Horombo and Barafu are visible.

The final ascent begins around midnight on the 5th day from either Kibo or Barafu camps. A 6-7 hour hike will take you to the summit Uhuru peak. YouTube user GrundleflyDOTcom has a video of the final ascent.

The summit is also very famous for its glaciers which are under severe threat, with some estimates saying that the glaciers will disappear completely within 20 years. The Furtwängler glacier halved in size between 1976 and 2000, and the Northern Icefield and Credner glacier have been similarly affected.

Information about climbing Kilimanjaro tour groups can be found using these links or from WikiTravel.

1. Freestanding meaning a single mountain that is not part of a chain, for example Mount Everest is in the Himalayas, whereas Kilimanjaro is a standalone mountain. ↩

Locations: United Republic of Tanzania / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Volcanoes, World Heritage Sites

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The solitary road that leads to the top of Capulin Volcano National Monument in northeast New Mexico curves gracefully around to the top of the crater.

Capulin Volcano is an almost-perfect cone-shaped inactive volcano that rises more than 300 metres from the surrounding plains.

“Capulín” is the Spanish name for chokecherry, a type of tree native to North America. Just four years after New Mexico became a state (1912), Capulin Volcano was made a National Monument (1916) by President Wilson.

Here’s a view of the volcano from the nearby US Route 87. You’ll notice that Route 87 connects I-25 near Raton, NM and I-40 near Amarillo, TX. This makes it a common route for those traveling between Texas and Colorado, often to go skiing. The long stretch of highway between Amarillo and Raton Pass can feel especially lonesome, and Capulin Volcano is the only National Monument — and one of the only highlights for tourists — along that route.1

Since it hasn’t erupted in at least 58,000 years, it might be easy to mistake Capulin for a hill or a small mountain. In fact, until the 1980s, it was called Capulin Mountain.

The route up to the volcano is not stunning, and its conical shape is hard to see up close. This creates a sort of optical illusion that makes the volcano look smaller than it really is.

However, an aerial view, or a view from the pinnacle shows how dramatically the cone rises above the surrounding landscape. Some visitors claim it’s possible to see parts of five states (New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas) from the highest point, but the flat landscape makes it hard to differentiate where state boundaries begin and end.

1. On one such trip, when I was eight years old, my family and I were traveling from Texas to Colorado to visit some of our friends. It was Christmastime, and for some reason we found ourselves on Christmas Eve morning driving across the Panhandle of Texas and that little triangular corner-slice of New Mexico anchored by Raton. The plains stretch for miles there; on a clear day, when you come up on a small rise in the road, in the bright, cloudless sky, it’s possible to see twenty miles or more. We had a brown Volkswagen Rabbit hatchback and three small children bedded down in the area created by folding down the back two seats. We spread blankets across the back and spent the whole trip sleeping or on our knees looking out the hatchback window at the empty, colourless landscape. For reasons that still seem unclear, my parents decided this morning would be a good time to finally drive to the top of that inactive volcano off in the distance. We passed no cars on the approaching road; the ranger station was abandoned. There were no other cars in the parking lot at the top of the rim. It was cold and the only thing to do was to get out of the car and run around for a few minutes (a necessity on a long road trip with small children). However, when we got back in the car, the little Volkswagen refused to start. A couple of minutes of fiddling under the hood quickly degenerated into sheer terror. I had never seen my father so enraged. We were alone at the top of an isolated volcano on Christmas Eve. We could see five U.S. states and not another human being. My father slowly realised that he would have to walk down the length of the volcano and try to flag down another car on the approaching road. Had we even seen a service station in the past hour or two of driving? No one could remember. As my father set off on foot, my mother was able to keep the three of us kids entertained in that small hatchback until help arrived a couple of hours later. Somehow we made it to Colorado, but not before we were almost swallowed by the terrible solitude of this inactive volcano. ↩

Locations: New Mexico / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Street Views, Volcanoes

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Rising 230 metres above the white sands of Waikiki Beach, the volcanic cone known as Diamond Head is an iconic part of Honolulu’s diverse and modern skyline. Sure it may not be filled with lava, sulphurous fumes, or noxious gasses… and it’s been extinct for at least 100,000 years… and of course there’s a paved road all the way up filled with hordes of meandering tourists… but it’s still a pretty impressive site!

Unlike many larger active volcanoes, Diamond Head as it is seen today has changed little in over one hundred millennia. The 1,072 metre-wide volcanic cone was created through a single violent underwater eruption that sent ash and cinder thousands of feet in the air. The resulting debris settled and hardened to form the nearly symmetrical tuff-cone that today is one of the most recognisable natural features in Hawaii.

While known in Hawaiian as Le’ahi or “brow of the tuna,” it was 19th century British sailors who – mistaking calcite crystals for diamonds – named it Diamond Head1. Given the less than catchy nature of the name Calcite Head, their misnomer stuck2 and eventually became the official title of this grand state monument enjoyed by tens of thousands of visitors each year.

A mere twenty five minute drive from central Honolulu, Diamond Head State Monument boasts panoramic views of the city and the entire southern coast of the island of Oahu, drawing sightseers and outdoor enthusiasts alike.

Aside from being one of Hawaii’s major tourist attractions, Diamond Head also held a pivotal role in the archipelago’s early history as a U.S. territory. Fort Ruger was the first American military reserve in Hawaii and was constructed ten years after the 1899 annexation, in the middle of Diamond Head crater. Its concealed position was further shielded by a battery of mortars and made a perfect vantage point for the protection of American interests in southern Oahu.

Little remains of the fort, save a few bunkers and a 70 metre-long tunnel to a fire control centre with sweeping ocean views. In addition to those remains, the U.S. government still maintains an aviation control centre and several transmission towers at the crater’s summit.

Today, Diamond Head is a popular destination for visitors to Honolulu, with a large visitors centre and hiking trails. Even the Google Street View car made the trip, driving straight through the tuff-cone to provide us with a full 360-degree view of this otherworldly landscape.

Though Hawaiians are truly fortunate to live near such an amazing natural wonder, Google has once again brought the rest of us a little bit closer to one of the most awesome sights on Earth. Now we just have to wait for them to send someone up on foot so we can see the views from the rim!

1. In Hawaiian, “Kaimana-Hila” – which translates literally to “Diamond Hill” ↩

2. Author’s speculation, not based in fact. ↩

Locations: Hawaii / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Street Views, Volcanoes

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Stromboli is a volcanic island off the coast of Sicily, notable for being almost constantly active for at least 20,000 years. While lava flows are occasionally seen, Stromboli is best known for its characteristic volcanic bombs which rain down across the island.

Google has relatively high-resolution imagery of the whole island, including one of three craters belching steam at the 926m high peak of the volcano.

To the north-west of the peak is a large horseshoe-shaped area called the Sciara del Fuoco or Stream of Fire. This section of the island has collapsed through the course of frequent eruptions, and is often the direction of lava flow. In 2002, during the last major eruption, rocks falling into the sea from here caused tsunami waves which damaged many parts of the island.

Given the apparent danger, it’s perhaps surprising to learn that a population of several hundred people lives on the island, mostly in a small community on the north-east coast – also called Stromboli. There are even a couple of hotels in the village, who cater for thrill-seeking tourists attempting to get a close-up look at the notorious volcano, whose temperamental behaviour means it is often off limits.

There is also a tiny village called Ginostra in the south-western part of the island.

Stromboli has captured the imagination of many involved with the arts1, having appeared in a number of books and films, including 1950′s notable Stromboli starring Ingrid Bergman, which was filmed on location.

Wikipedia has information about the volcano, while WikiTravel has details if you want to visit. The SwissEduc site is highly recommended for the huge level of detail including many pictures and videos, and even a volcanic bomb simulator that lets you experiment with different sizes and shapes to see where they would land!

1. Let’s not forget either that Stromboli has also given its name to a rather tasty bread and cheese turnover. ↩

Locations: Italy / Categories: Movie Locations, Natural Landmarks, Volcanoes

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First launched in 1905 (give or take a hundred years)1, Google Sightseeing’s well established annual Volcano Week returns again for 2010, with a whole week of posts dedicated to the explosive ruptures in the surface of our planet.

In past posts, we’ve covered loads of really fascinating volcanoes, be they extinct, dormant, recently active, or continually spewing forth red hot lava all over the place, and we’ve got some equally fascinating locations lined up this week.

We love volcanoes here at Google Sightseeing, and fortunately for us, there are rather a lot of them. We’ve still got some room for a post or two based on your suggestions, so why not browse our archive of volcanoes, and then suggest a location?

• 1st annual Volcano Day (2005)
• 2nd annual Volcano Day (2006)
• Volcano Week 3 (2008)
• Volcano Week 4 (2009)
• All our volcano posts

1. Which is a blink of the eye in geological terms after all. ↩

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You're reading an entry from Google Sightseeing, which is copyright © 2010 Alex Turnbull & James Turnbull and must not be reproduced without permission.

The Three Gorges Dam spans the Yangtze River in China and is the largest power generating plant in the world.

While much of China’s vast countryside is only covered by low-res imagery, Google recently released new high-res images of the area around the dam, giving us our first real chance to write about it.

First conceived around 90 years ago, the proposed dam was strongly supported by Chairman Mao in the 1950s. However, it wasn’t until the mid-90s that construction finally began on the dam, which is over 2km wide and 185m high.

The statistics surrounding this project are staggering:

• A total cost of 180 billion yuan ($30 billion US), an amount which is actually below budget, and which will be recovered with ten years of power generation.
• Construction used more than 27 million cubic metres of concrete and 463,000 tonnes of steel.
• Over a hundred million cubic metres of earth were moved
• Around 22,500 MW of electricity will be created by 32 primary generators once maximum capacity is reached within the next year.
• While this was expected to be 10% of national demand for power, industrial growth across the country means that it will now be less than 3%.

Fourteen of the generators are found on the north end of the dam, with twelve on the south side1, separated by the spillways. Six more are located below a nearby mountain.

Immediately to the north of the dam is a ship lift which is still under construction, with completion expected in 2014. It will be capable of moving ships up to 3,000 tons through the 113m vertical difference between water levels.

Beyond the lift is a series of locks for vessels up to 10,000 tons, which take about 4 hours to transit. Coupled with safer water caused by higher water levels in the gorges, these locks have allowed a tenfold increase in the amount of freight on the river – leading to a significant reduction in emissions from the trucking industry. Hydro power is also considerably cleaner than the coal power plants which are the norm in China.

However, there are concerns about serious environmental impacts caused by the dam, including the destruction of wetlands and habitat for a variety of animals. Riverbank erosion and landslides are another major concern.

There was also a significant human impact, with more than a million people forced from their homes and farms along the Yangtze. Significant historical and archaeological sites were also submerged.

The famous three gorges are Qutang, Wu and Xiling, and are mostly still covered by old low-res imagery which doesn’t show today’s higher water levels.

Recent heavy rains lead to flooding in the region and was a serious test of the dam’s strength, with water rising to within 20m of maximum capacity. Authorities claim that the dam helped prevent disastrous flooding downstream. The BBC has a spectacular video showing excess water being expelled from the slipways.

You can read more at Wikipedia, and at the dam’s official site, which puts a slightly more positive ‘spin’ on the issues surrounding the project than has been presented in the world’s media.

Thanks to Dan, Sebastian Nebel, woowoowoo, Peter Donohue, t.r.mcloughlin, luluwing, Chris Yao, Marco Rodrigues, terLag, xlk, Jonathan Crone and Adam.

1. Where the imagery is so good that we can see the power lines leading away from the generators. ↩

Locations: China / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Structures, Watercraft

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We’ve only ever written one other post about Venezuela, so it’s about time we took another trip. We’d like to have crafted a post about the Orinoco River, but sadly there isn’t enough of it in high resolution to write about… until you get to the Casiquiare canal.

The Casiquiare canal is the largest river on the planet that links two major river systems, and is possibly the best example of river bifurcation to be seen anywhere.

The Orinoco river splits into two rivers at this point. In the picture above the river flow is from the right to left, with the Casiquiare canal in the middle taking approximately ⅓ of the water from the Orinoco and diverting it in a southerly and south easterly direction, until it reaches the Rio Negro near the town of San Carlos.

What’s so amazing about this? Well, the Rio Negro is a tributary of the Amazon river, so the Casiquiare canal in fact forms a totally unique natural link between two largest river systems in South America.

Locations: Venezuela / Categories: Natural Landmarks

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The Rideau Canal is a World Heritage Site waterway which connects Canada’s capital Ottawa to the city of Kingston on Lake Ontario. The route consists of a combination of several lakes, numerous rivers and dams, and 19km of man-made canals, featuring 45 locks.

Used today for recreational boating, the Canal was constructed in the early 19th century for military use. Supply ships from the British-controlled Upper Canada were under threat from American forces in New York state if they travelled from Kingston to Montreal along the Saint Lawrence River. The Rideau Canal allowed boats to travel safely north to the Ottawa River then east to Montreal.

Lieutenant Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers was given the unenviable task of creating the Canal in an inhospitable landscape of rock, swamp and forest, while receiving insufficient funding from the British government. His achievements led to the naming of the fledgling community as Bytown, though it was renamed to Ottawa in 1855.

Our tour of the 202km long waterway begins in Ottawa with the flight of eight locks1 that lift boats 24m from the Ottawa River to the section of Canal which runs through the capital’s downtown. This man-made section bypasses the rapids at Hog’s Back and the waterfall where the Rideau River meets the Ottawa River.

Winter temperatures (and a good deal of maintenance work), transform a 7.8km length of the canal into the Rideau Canal Skateway – the world’s largest skating rink2. Each year tens of thousands of people enjoy outdoor skating during the Winterlude festival.

Street View visited Ottawa in the early spring, after the ice had melted but before the water levels were allowed to rise for boat traffic. We can still see – from the road named in honour of the Canal’s creator, Colonel By Drive – the temporary huts installed each winter which allow skaters to thaw out their toes, or warm up with hot chocolate and the local delicacy, Beaver Tails.

South of Hog’s Back, the route is taken over by the Rideau River which takes boaters through a number of communities and seven more locks on the way to Merrickville. Here we find the distinctive and imposing Blockhouse, constructed in 1832 to protect the locks from American attacks. Today it serves as a museum.

While many mills were destroyed in the construction of locks along the system, the mills at Merrickville were preserved, only to be put out of business a couple of decades later when a large rail hub developed in nearby Smiths Falls. Here, a new large combined lock was built in the mid-1970s to replace three old locks, resulting in the highest single lift (almost 8m) of all the locks in the system. We can only see the last of the three old locks, but the difference in depth of the new lock is clearly apparent.

There are many different types of bridges along the Canal, including swing and lift bridges which open to allow larger boats to pass. Smiths Falls is also notable for the Scherzer rolling-lift rail bridge (visible here beyond the ‘detached’ lock) which was built apart from the road bridges to reduce the need for bridge openings. The rail line was closed many years ago and the bridge is now permanently raised.

Travelling south-west from Smiths Falls, the Canal passes through a series of lakes, connected by rivers and man-made channels. The lakes are popular vacation spots, and many are lined with cottages or summer homes. Big Rideau Lake is the largest body of water along the route.

Newboro is the highest point of the Canal and one of the locations where the difficult history of its construction is most renowned, both in terms of the labour required and the human cost.

Surveyors originally expected an easy cut across the isthmus between Mud and Rideau lakes, but workers encountered significantly more rock than was expected, which led to painfully slow progress. At the same time, malaria struck the workforce and their families, with hundreds dying from the disease from 1828 to 1830, while many others deserted to escape the terrible camp conditions. In total more than a thousand people are estimated to have died from disease and accidents during the construction of the Canal. There are memorials to these fallen workers in both Ottawa and Kingston.

Many years later, in 1966, the Newboro lock met with controversy when it was the first to be converted from manual to electric operation. Boaters and residents near all the lock stations felt that removing manual lock gates would forever change the character of the Canal. Opposition was sufficient that only two other locks have been converted since then.

The passage into Lake Opinicon3 also gave the engineers considerable trouble, though the situation was eased when mill-owner Samuel Chaffey died of malaria, at which time his widow sold the land to allow an easier location for the lock, now known as Chaffey’s where there is a swing bridge over the lock, and a defensible lockmasters house, which is also now a museum.

The Jones Falls area was another difficult situation for By to surmount, with numerous options being explored to bypass the rapids. Eventually a dam was constructed, standing over 18m tall and 65m wide, though the stone in the area was unsuitable meaning the rocks for the dam had to be quarried some distance away. Four locks allow passage into Whitefish Lake.

Passing through a couple more lakes, the Upper and Lower Brewers Locks, and a stretch of the Cataraqui river, brings us to Kingston Mills, the final flight of four locks which allow boaters to continue downstream. Eventually they pass beneath the slightly rusty beams of a final lift bridge4 to access Lake Ontario.

The Rideau Info site is an excellent resource with a detailed history section – including a biography of Colonel By, and information about each lock station, both practical and historical.

Thanks to MatB.

1. The satellite images were apparently taken in late autumn, judging by the colours in the trees and the presence in one of the locks of one of the city’s tour boats which spends every winter in storage there. ↩

2. The previous title of world’s longest skating rink was recently taken by Winnipeg. However the track there is very narrow so Ottawa easily claims the world’s largest rink. ↩

3. While I’ve been planning to create this post for a while, I happen to be sitting on the deck of a cottage overlooking Lake Opinicon, across from Chaffey’s Lock while I write this! ↩

4. Designed by Joseph Strauss who also designed San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge ↩

Locations: Ontario / Categories: Bridges, Buildings, Natural Landmarks, Street Views, Structures, Watercraft, World Heritage Sites

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