Destinations, The Official Panedia Weblog

The best Alcatraz virtual tour on the web is right here: Alcatraz Virtual Tour. View the full map version with audio here: Alcatraz Virtual Tour with Audio.

Alcatraz Virtual Tour – Main Cell Block

There are plenty of Alcatraz Virtual Tours on the web, but apart from ours none of them contain high resolution, best quality full spherical, full screen virtual tours with hotspots, mapped on google maps & containing audio recorded live at the time.

Alcatraz Virtual Tour – Officers Club

Alcatraz Virtual Tour – Exercise Yard

Alcatraz Virtual Tour – Control Centre

Alcatraz is an incredible place and it’s well worth spending a few hours to half a day there. At some times in the year they have an early boat over to the island. It arrives well before the crowds. Get that boat & take advantage of the crowd less Alcatraz. Here’s the official cruise company where you can book your Alcatraz tickets online.

When I visited Alcatraz Island to shoot these virtual tours a funny thing happened. At around midday I was back at the dock waiting for the ferry to arrive when off the boat hopped the guys from Mapjack, ready to shoot their own virtual tour of Alcatraz. Here is me on Alcatraz just finished shooting virtual tours, as shot by Mapjack, another virtual tour company.

For more info on Alcatraz go to the official National Parks website here: Alcatraz Island

Back in October 2008 I had the opportunity to shoot virtual tours from the top of Australia’s Tallest mountain, Mt Kosciusko.  I put together a separate map of the 46 Mt Kosciusko Walking Track Virtual Tours.  This area is also known as the Snowy Mountains and the Australia Alps.  It’s located in Kosciusko National Park.

Of course Australia being the flattest continent on Earth, our mountains are more rolling hills than ‘mountains’.  This is borne out by the fact there’s a nice wide walking track all the way to the top, while back in the day you could drive to the top.  They closed the road in the 1970’s though, as parking at the top of our tallest mountain was becoming an issue.

A Virtual Tour of Mt Kosciusko – From the top.

The official record lists the height of Mt Kosciusko at 2228m (7310 ft).  My camera mounted GPS claimed a height of 2232m (7322 ft), you can decide which one you want to believe.  (Hint: GPS is generally not very accurate at measuring height, although very close in this instance)

There are 2 walking tracks to the top. I chose the shorter one, a 13km (8 mile) return, which runs from the top of the Thredbo Chairlift.  The lift costs $28 for a return trip in summer and takes about 10mins.  It’s a beautiful ride up.

The walk wasn’t too hard consisting mostly of undulating hills.  In October I had to cross about 6 snow drifts, some of which were quite long, and near to the top of Kosciusko a little steep and slippery as well, but passable with normal foot gear.

I did a day trip from Canberra out to the Snowy Mountains.  It’s a long day, with a 2hr drive at each end, but well worthwhile.

A couple of kilometres in there is a lookout to Mt Kosciusko.

Footbridge over a mountain stream, Mt Kosciusko National Park.