Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Western Australia

  • Last Places in Commonwealth Countries

    The series of Last Places continued. One should feel free to consult the previous articles, Last Place in England and Last Places in Asia, to understand the premise. I found it more difficult to uncover examples this time so I broadened the base, extending my search to the entire set of the Commonwealth of Nations…

  • More Weird Placenames

    I’m not posting one of those lists passed around the Intertubes. So you’ve all seen them and I’m certain you know what I mean. No Monkey’s Eyebrow or Turkey Scratch here. These are actual placenames that I’ve encountered as I’ve conducted the daily task of keeping Twelve Mile Circle current. They came from various sources…

  • Middle of Nowhere

    I once searched for and found the Center of the Universe. Never mind that there were plenty of other claimants, I found the one true center naturally because the Intertubes confirmed it and of course that made it unquestionably true. It was much more difficult to find the middle of nowhere. First one must discover…

  • Longest Distance – Simplest Directions

    It’s Sunday, a day to relax, so I thought I’d dispense with an article that required actual research. Instead I’ll focus on something that might exercise a different part of the brain. It’s kind-of silly and pointless although it offered an opportunity for plenty of 12MC audience participation. I wondered, as I drove to my…

  • Australia’s Longest Straight Line?

    Lines continue to fascinate me, both imaginary and real. I found myself pondering the website of Australian Rail Maps, looking at their Western Australia page. I’d heard about a specific segment crossing the hauntingly desolate Nullarbor Plain and I intended to investigate it further. It’s here, between kilometre 797 west of Ooldea (South Australia) and…

  • Amazing Australian Road Distances

    Colin, a reader from South Hedland in Western Australia, sensed my dismay with the long distance displayed on a particular Texas road sign. He offered to share some extreme examples from his homeland.(1) My sign noted that El Paso, on the other side of the state, was 857 miles (1,380 kilometres) away. That’s pretty good…

  • Australia’s Weird Little Time Zone

    Continental Australia is divided into three standard time zones, Western, Central and Eastern. It’s pretty simple to understand even bearing in mind that Australian Central Standard Time aligns with the half-hour (UTC+9:30). Individual Australian states and territories determine whether to recognise Daylight Saving Time (DST) or not. Far-flung Australian island territories and its Antarctic stations…

  • New Urbanism Viewed through Maps

    An urban design movement began to coalesce in the early 1980’s as a counterbalance to what planners and architects viewed as the sprawl of modern suburbs arising from the postwar environment. Practitioners called it “New Urbanism“. Organizations such as the Congress for the New Urbanism began to promote its hallmarks. Some of the features typical…