Uluru (Ayers Rock) Virtual Tours.

Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, is a place of immense beauty with a definite spiritual aspect.  It’s the worlds largest monolith (single big rock), being located in the middle of outback Australia, it towers over the flat surrounding desert.

Official Uluru National Park – Link

At present you can still climb Uluru, although the owners ask that you don’t.  The climb is located on the western face, it’s extremely steep, with chains to help climb portions of it.  The climb closes at 8am on any day the temperature is forecast to top 36°C  (97°F)  I shot the climb from the ground but am not allowed to show it.

I chose to respect the wishes of the owners and not climb. Instead I did the 10km (6.2 miles) walk around the base of Uluru. The base walk is amazing.  Even if you choose to climb Uluru, make time to walk the base as well.

IMO the best way to walk the base is to start at the south car park before dawn, then walk east, counter clockwise around the rock.  This way you walk towards the sun as it breaks the horizon… a sunning sight. As the sun gets a little higher & hotter you turn the eastern edge of Uluru and put your back to the sun walking west along the northern rock face.  On this section I was going against the flow of hordes of tourists trying to shield their faces & eyes from the intense sun beating down.

I shot virtual tours all around Uluru, unfortunately I’m prevented from showing any virtual tours of the northern & north western sides of Uluru.  The north face is VERY different from the southern views. It’s heavily pock marked with gashes and rock falls. Looks a little like a person someone has taken a knife too, cutting gashes, and removing skin to reveal organs and brain. Not pretty, but fascinating nonetheless.

Uluru map containing virtual tours. Uluru (Ayers Rock) Map with all virtual tours – Link

30+ Kings Canyon Virtual Tours.

Kings Canyon (Watarrka) National Park is a stunning place, 4hrs drive from Alice Springs in the middle of Outback Australia. It also happens to be 4hrs drive from Uluru (Ayers Rock)  You can include it as part of a loop, driving west along the Macdonnell ranges from Alice Springs on Larapinta Drive, then heading to Uluru from Kings Canyon, which is what I did. (4wd recommended)

Official Kings Canyon National Park Link

There are 2 main walks at Kings Canyon, a short walk along the valley floor at the foot of the canyon walls.  It’s about 500m (1600ft) and takes 30mins at a leisurely pace. Near the end is a beautiful rock pool, depending on the season/rain.

Kings Canyon Creek Virtual Tour

The 2nd walk is a much more serious affair of 5.5km (3.5miles) which takes around 3.5hrs to complete. Seeing as this is in outback Australia, which is a HOT place, it’s best to start this walk very early in the morning… or perhaps later in the day.

The walk beings with a killer uphill slog, known as heartbreak hill. By the time you reach the top your legs are jelly & your heart pounding. Interestingly this used to be the end of the walk, but lots of people injured themselves coming down the steep hill after walking for 3+hrs.  So the park rangers reversed the track to make the hill the start & now have virtually zero injuries.

After spending 4hrs shooting virtual tours on the track, my legs really were jelly coming down the gentle slope on the other side of the canyon, I was VERY glad to not be coming down heartbreak hill.

Kings Canyon Heartbreak Hill – Start

Kings Canyon map containing virtual tours.Kings Canyon FullScreen Map Link

So I continue shooting around the area and then down by the rock wall, when they decide they’ve finished surfing and it’s time to head in. Perfect serendipity, the lead girl is leaving the water just as I’m shooting, creating one of my favourite panos. You can’t see the girls in the thumb, you’ll need to view the pano ;)

Surfer Girl, Noosa

Cradle Moutain Boat Shed Virtual Tour

http://www.panedia.com/map?pano=2634&zoom=2&mt=s

The link posted here is to my favourite pano of the moment. It’s of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and was my submission for the ‘Best Of 2007′ on the World Wide Panorama

May I present a preview of Panedia, with over 700 virtual tours for your viewing pleasure. It’s still very early days with a great deal of functionality & testing to come. I’ll keep you posted as new features are added.

Click the image below and spend some time checking out The Sydney Opera House or Darling Harbour, Brisbane’s South Bank, Noosa, Broken Hill, Melbourne’s Docklands, Alcatraz, San Francisco & Fisherman’s Wharf + plenty more…

Click this image for the Panedia Preview.

You need Flash 9 to see the Virtual Tours in Panedia. We’ll be adding other viewers soon, including hardware accelerated viewing for those who like the ultimate in pano quality.

Let me know what you think of the site. Loves, Hates & want to see’s :)

(Note: audio will only be found in Noosa, Alcatraz & Darling Harbour for the moment)

Yesterday saw me at the Google Developers Day 07 in Sydney, Australia. Google did a fantastic job decking out a beautiful old building for the day, putting on great food and drink, and even throwing in some good talks by top developers…what more could you ask for? I shot about 15 Virtual Tours at the event and hope to put them on a Google Map for you over the weekend. Check back often, or subscribe to my feed to find out when it’s done.

Today I’ve also released a demo of my own using Google Maps & Virtual Tours. (Shown Above) It’s a small technology demo using very high quality Virtual Tours, that are not shot on roads. You can check it out here. Have a little fun getting to know Noosa and let me know what you think. (But remember it’s only a basic demo, and none of the hotels or restaurants are real)

This blog is about showing Virtual Tours from various destinations. But in honour of being featured on the illustrious Google Maps Mania Blog (which I read religiously) I’ve done a quick ‘Best Of’ so passers by have an instant overview.

BTW, I’ll be in San Francisco from the 12th to the 24th of June to attend the IVRPA International Virtual Tour Conference (this year hosted at UC Berkeley, by the legendary lads that run the World Wide Panorama events) so if anyone wants to invite me to lunch (hint – Google employees), to hang out, or do some ‘photo walking’ (hint – Thomas Hawk) drop me a line, I’d love to meet up & shoot some Hi rez, georeferenced virtual tours with audio :)

Enough talk already, onto the BEST OF according to me. (Click an image to view the blog entry & virtual tour, & not all panos have audio.)

Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Hobart, Tasmania.

Gold Coast, Queensland. (My Home Town)

Bicheno, Tasmania.

Sons Of Korah, AGMF (Australian Gospel Music Festival).

Docklands, Melbourne, Victoria.

Stanley, Tasmania.

Here is the west side of Stanley, on the wharf.

This lighthouse, built in 1924, was originally active at Highfield Point, but was replaced by a post light and relocated here to the Stanley waterfront as a memorial to local sailors.

There are two ways to get to the top of the nut. One is to walk, the other is to catch the chair lift. I was going to walk, but the thought of lugging my gear up there didn’t appeal too much. I’m glad I didn’t ’cause once you are on the nut, the track around the top of it is another 30 minute walk.

In 1892 workers building a breakwater here set 5000 pounds of dynamite into the mountain above. After the huge explosion no rocks fell. Then 12yrs later fractures caused by the blast finally gave way and 200,000 tons of rock suddenly crashed to the ground.

Here on Godfreys Beach – Stanley, we have a great view of the Nut. Yesterdays Virtual Tour was on the far right edge of the Nut, directly overlooking the town.

Stanley in the far North West of Tasmania, is a gorgeous little town with a monolithic rock known as ‘The Nut’ towering over it. We’ll be seeing a lot of the Nut over the next week or 2, but in this Virtual Tour we are on the top of it.

134m (440ft) above the town, on top of the Nut, we can see almost every single building that comprises Stanley, what an incredible view.

In our final Docklands virtual tour we again feature urban art. This piece is called Silence, by Adrian Mauriks, if you want to know more, you’ll need to visit the Art Journey on the docklands website.

The Docklands is a beautiful place, and very undercrowded which is nice. With trams running every few minutes it’s very easy to get from the Docklands to Melbourne City in no time.

See Full Size Google Map with all Docklands Virtual Tours – Click Here.

In this virtual tour we’re just outside Limonetto a gelati & icecream shop of the coolest design (no pun intended).

See Full Size Google Map with all Docklands Virtual Tours – Click Here.

This Virtual Tour is Level 16, in the Grand Mercure Docklands. We stayed in the building while doing work for the Grand Mercure, but unfortunately not in this exquisite room :)

See Full Size Google Map with all Docklands Virtual Tours – Click Here.

Back at ‘Cow Up A Tree’. The inspiration for this work comes from the Australian Landscape and a strong water-based theme. The artist saw images of a violent flood which swept cattle into trees only to leave them stranded once the flood subsided. Read More Here.

This was to be our last Docklands Virtual Tour for now, but I think I’ll continue north and provide a few more panos of the ‘New Quay’ area.