Twelve Mile Circle

Google Maps released a huge set of Street View images for the United Kingdom a few days ago as you’ve undoubtedly learned on all of the geo-blogs by now. This extends the level of coverage for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to upwards of 95% of the road infrastructure. I’m sure you’ve had an enjoyable time searching through familiar places, and I have done the same.

Have any of our UK readers found their homes, businesses and local landmarks yet? That’s the first thing I did when Street View first arrived in my little corner of the world in November 2008. Any surprises? Were any of you lucky enough to be standing outside when the Street View car made its panoramic sweep?

This event handed me an excellent opportunity to play the Throw the Dart game. That’s where I wiggle the cursor around haphazardly, let it drop onto a Street View randomly, and see if I can write an article. I tried it once before in October 2009 and it seemed to work for Piedmont, Alabama. Can I replicate my recent success? We’re about to find out.

This isn’t so bad. At least it’s in an urban area instead of the middle of a farmer’s field. Barker Lane, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. It looks like a pleasant enough little side street with some older red brick buildings. Let’s take a walk vicariously down Barker Lane towards the crossroad and see what we can discover. The street dead ahead is Chatsworth Road. Maybe that will provide some clues as I attempt to orient myself.

There seems to be a little commotion at the end of the block. Let’s check it out. I’ll take a screen grab so that future generations won’t wonder what I’m talking about when the Google car returns and updates the image. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

It seemed like something odd was happening from some of the angles but it turns out to be rather mundane now that I’ve found a clear shot. The couple appears to be hunched over the screen of their mobile phone while their child stands behind their car. Yawn.

Well that was a complete waste of time. I did notice, however, that the pub at the northeast corner of Barker Lane and Chatsworth Road has a sign advertising Real Ales. I love high quality ales and I’ve visited more than 240 breweries and brewpubs during my travels. Nothing would make me happier than stopping for a pint or two. Too bad I can’t reach through the screen.

Maybe the search engines will be kinder to me. One of the early hits doesn’t look too promising upon first glance: CHESTERFIELD has never been renowned as a vibrant centre of social sophistication, according to the Sheffield Telegraph. That could make my explorations troublesome. It improves, however:

– but that could be about to change. Until now Brampton, on its western edge, has been best known for a pottery, a brewery and a mile-long stretch which once boasted a head-spinning 22 pubs… Change has crept in gradually on Chatsworth Road.

Brewery? Did someone say brewery? Things are definitely looking up. The article is probably referencing a large commercial brewery that existed in Brampton for most of the Nineteenth Century and about halfway into the Twentieth Century. Nonetheless, travel only two-tenths of a mile from my randomly chosen spot on Barker Lane and arrive at the Chatsworth Business Park.

A new incarnation of the Brampton Brewery resides here, a microbrewery focusing on high quality cask-conditioned and bottled ales. There seem to be several other beer-related happenings in the area as well. Chesterfield hosted the world’s first Gluten Free Beer Festival in 2006. It’s also the home of an active chapter of the Campaign for Real Ales, or CAMRA. Brew on, Chesterfield!

There’s one other site about a mile and a half from our random selection that I don’t want to miss. Yes, here it is:

This is the crooked spire of the The Parish Church of St. Mary and All Saints, and a symbol for Chesterfield itself. It even inspired a nickname for the local football club, The Spireites. This whimsical spire not only twists 45 degrees but it leans about ten inches off of true centre. The twisting was intentional but the leaning probably resulted from craftsmen error back in the Fourteenth Century when they constructed it. Several other theories have been offered — some serious, some fanciful — but you can check those on your own at its Wikipedia page. Yes, I’m convinced, everything has its own Wikipedia page.

I think this random choice went reasonably well even though it started slowly. Once again this proves that every place has a story and it’s only a matter of digging hard enough. Next I think I’ll go back through my previous articles with UK content and see if I can find Street View images for them.

What’s the highest island elevation? Why do I find so many different answer when I try to track it down? I thought it was a rather straightforward question but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Elevation, apparently, is in the eye of the beholder. Let’s review some of the candidates and see if we can better differentiate among them.

The Tallest Island Mountain

A measurement from the base of a mountain to it’s peak is one way to define elevation (notice I didn’t say elevation above sea level). There are of course many mountains that form at the bottom of the sea and poke their summits above the surface to form islands. Some of those barely rise above the waters while others reach astounding heights.

When I first considered the question my mind naturally wandered to Mauna Loa on Hawaii’s Big Island. That’s because I’m captive to my cultural upbringing and I gravitate to U.S. examples quite naturally. That doesn’t make the answer correct but it does serve as a reference point for further exploration.

Mauna Loa rises 4,169 metres (13,679 feet) above sea level, which is impressive enough, but it’s the rest of the mountain below the waterline that makes this place truly special. From sea floor to mountain tip, Mauna Loa reaches 10,099 m (33,132 ft).

I won’t dispute those facts but it sounds a little bogus to me if we’re talking about the highest island elevation. The island part of the mountain, by definition, sits above the surface. Let’s set this poseur aside. If I can’t see it I don’t count it.

There’s an interesting bit of trivia here if you’ll indulge me for just a moment and allow me to go off on a small tangent. Mauna Loa may be the tallest mountain from base to peak, but it doesn’t capture the highest elevation above sea level on the island of Hawaii. No, the island highpoint, indeed the state highpoint can be found on nearby Mauna Kea at 4,207 m (13,803 ft). I guess that has something to do with the topography of the Hawaiian Trench along the sea floor. Maybe it undulates a certain way at the base of Mauna Loa.

The Highest Elevation of a Non-Continental Island

That’s a mouthful. I had to use that level of detail to differentiate it from other possibilities. You’ll see why in a moment.

This is the kind of island I think of reflexively when the notion of a "tall" island comes to mind. This is the stereotype. Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are great examples but not the best. That title goes to the island of New Guinea. A mountain on the Indonesian side of the border called Puncak Jaya or Mount Djaja blows those Hawaiian examples right out of the water at 4,884 m (16,024 ft).

Look in lots of places around the Intertubes and you’ll be told insistently that this highest island. It’s even listed first on Wikipedias’ List of islands by highest point. That sounds great. Truly impressive. Now, can we examine this a little differently and find another answer?

The Highest Island Elevation

Let’s continue with elevation above sea level but not limit ourselves to non-continental islands. Any island anywhere would be eligible for consideration.

I can’t answer this definitively but one great candidate would be the small islands on Orba Co (Wo’er Bacuo) lake in Tibet. The World Island Information website’s Island Superlatives page claims that these are the highest in the world at 5,209 m (17,090 ft).

Personally I like this answer the best. I find a lot of satisfaction pondering the possibility that the highest island elevation might exist on one of these tiny flyspecks without names on a remote Tibetan lake. Now that’s a geo-oddity.

What do you think? Is the highest island Mauna Loa, New Guinea or a pimple on Orba Co Lake? Does the award go to the United States, Indonesia or China? Or are there other candidate I’ve completely overlooked?

I’ve been getting a few reader referrals over the last couple of days from a blog I’d never seen before. It had a rather intriguing and promising Intertube domain, railmaps.blogspot.com. Naturally I had to check it out. The site was kind enough to recommend me to its readers, so I felt I could certainly repay the favor by visiting for awhile. The author focuses specifically on Australia.

I wouldn’t normally feature a blog with a single post because these sites come-and-go as people grapple with the extended commitment necessary to provide content over time. It’s difficult to predict what people will want to read. I think I saw somewhere awhile ago that the average number of readers per blog is less than ten. How’s that for throwing out a wildly reckless and irresponsible statistic without attribution or support? The larger point being, however, that the ratio between time commitment and readership isn’t very favorable and it can be discouraging.

One has to have a true devotion to a subject bordering on obsession to find enough motivation to keep it going month-after-month. In that context I have high hopes for this blog because it’s a companion to their established Australian Rail Maps website which has been in existence since 1996.

They cover other forms of transportation too. Take a look at the astounding level of detail on their National Public Transport Map. I don’t think they creators of this site will have any problem populating a blog and I look forward to following their progress.

I have a particular soft spot for Australian geo-oddities (type Australia in the search box and you’re sure to see a bunch of articles) and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because the land seems so foreign to me with all the reddish outback earth, unusual marsupials and overabundant eucalyptus. I’ve only been there a single time and I remained on the eastern coast so I’ve barely scratched the surface. I do hope to be able to return someday, maybe when the kids get a little older.

The next site is C N UTAH which I found as a link from an intermittent blog I read called Every Whatever. C N UTAH has a simple mission: "Our goal is to visit all the towns of Utah and take a picture of their town signs to prove that we were there. We think it will take some time, but it should be fun along the way."

I love websites where people with a focused determination set out to experience every item conceivably related to an amazingly esoteric topic, to become the absolute acknowledged worldwide expert of that discipline. Bravo. And don’t we all want to have some fun along the way, too?

They haven’t posted since October, but it does get pretty cold in Utah during the winter months. I’m hoping they reactivate the site with the onset of warmer weather.

Random thought: I’m particularly happy today because the last speck of snow finally melted from my yard this afternoon. Spring is on the way.