Axonometric station maps

You what what?

Axonometric projection is a type of parallel projection used for creating a pictorial drawing of an object, where the object is rotated along one or more of its axes relative to the plane of projection.

Got it now? No. No, you haven’t.
And so, because a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a picture.

wood-green

[click it for bigness]
It’s an axonometric representation of Wood Green Underground Station. So now you can see what I mean.
Ian Mansfield of ianvisits.co.uk documents the results of a Freedom of Information request to TfL. They were obliged to hand over axonometric representations of all the stations on the London Underground, which he shares on the link above.

Look, Wood Green is a simple station, out of town (so not too deep) (12.8m) and on a single line, perfect for illustrating what an axonometric map is. Get into some of the bigger stations though and things get complicated:

Westminster:

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or Canada Water:

canada-water

I suppose that these will mean more to you if you’re a Londoner, or if you used to live there. And not all the stations are shown (indeed, there are actually only 120 out of the 270 on the system), but it’s still quite fun to look at.

No?

Just me then.

Travel time

Commitments in places that aren’t Cape Town mean that I’m not around to blog today. But never fear: I saw this situation arising some time ago and I have pre-prepared a pre-prepared post for you.

(Before you get too excited and thankful, it’s not very good)

Since I’m travelling today, I thought we might do something geographical, so herewith the wikipedia page of the Extreme Points of Earth.

It tells you interesting things like where Point Nemo (so called because people are always trying to find it) (possibly, anyway):

The Pacific pole of inaccessibility (also called Point Nemo), the point in the ocean farthest from any land, lies in the South Pacific Ocean at 48°52.6?S 123°23.6?W, which is approximately 2,688 km (1,670 mi) from the nearest land (equidistant from Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands to the north, Maher Island off Siple Island near Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, to the south and Motu Nui off Rapa Nui in the north east).

I’m not going anywhere near Point Nemo. Unless things all go a bit MH370.

And:

The most remote airport in the world from another airport is Mataveri International Airport (IPC) on Easter Island, which has a single runway for military and public use. It is located 2,603 km (1,617 mi) from Totegegie Airport (GMR; very few flights) in the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia and 3,759 km (2,336 mi) from Santiago, Chile (SCL; a fairly large airport).

I’m not going anywhere near there either.

All in all, it’s pubquiztastic stuff though. So get learning, because I’ll be organising a test just as soon as I am back.

Just back…

…from the Isle of Man.

Not me, sadly, but Nat Geo travel books editor Larry Porges, who said numerous nice things about my favourite island:

Biggest selling point: It’s fourfold.

1) The beautiful scenery—rich green hills peppered with bright yellow gorse, dramatic cliffside vistas, thatched-roof villages, tumbling waterfalls, and the 2,000-foot Snaefell mountain overlooking it all.
2) Unusual wildlife, including tailless Manx cats, four-horned Loaghtan sheep, and a small population of feral wallabies in the north.
3) Sincerely friendly residents. I was only on the island four days and have been in touch, via email, with six different people since my return.
4) A storied history and heritage. Three highlights: remnants of medieval Viking castles, 1,000-year-old Tynwald Hill (site of the oldest continuous parliament in the world), and a charming Victorian-era narrow-gauge steam railway that chugs around the island’s south.

Homesickness.

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More homesickness (despite the fact my family was once escorted off those very same fields by a maniacal farmer with a shotgun).

You can read the rest of his review here.

Cape To Cape 2015

Say what you like about the Western… er… Cape – it might have its downsides, but it also has loads of internal Capes: Columbine, Town, of Good Hope, Point, Hangklip, Agulhas, Infanta. And that’s just off the top of my head.

Norway also has a Cape – Nordkapp or North Cape (check out their pseudo Table Mountain). And now, a former SAS (the airline, not the elite British military unit) (I think) is planning to fly from there, to one of ours.

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This is Johan Wiklund, and behind him is his 1935 De Havilland DH-60 Moth biplane. He’s attempting to fly it from Nordkapp to South Africa (specifially the Cape of Good Hope), roughly following the route taken by adventurer and aviator Göste Andrée in 1929.

This appeals to me (as long as it’s someone else doing it). While the plane may be old (and put together by Johan and his friends), there’s a modern twist with GoPro footage, social media updates and you can even follow the flight on our old friend FlightRadar24.com. See below for some details.

Johan set off this week and plans to arrive in Cape Town on the same day – October 24th – and at exactly the same time – 3:10pm – as Andrée did, 86 years previously. It’s touches like that that make this adventure so special.

If this has made the news here in Cape Town, I’ve missed it. But I’m going to be keeping an eye on Johan and his Cape to Cape trip very carefully, and so can you on the following links:

Facebook – FlyingCapeToCape
Net – CapeToCape.net
FR24 – SE-AMO (and recent flight database here – click the little plane logos to view)

The weather is Scandinavia has been pretty awful since the trip started, but Johan has still managed about 1500km and has just arrived in the Swedish city of Gävle (there he is via their webcam, on the grass airstrip, next to the four squat trees), under heavy skies.

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Gävle looks like a really exciting place to be.

Look out for more updates on 6000 miles… over the coming weeks.

Punting my Instagram

I’m hoping to take lots of photos while I’m away this week. Some of them will end up on my Flickr, some on my Instagram.

I’ve got almost 300 posts pictures on there now and I’m adding works of painted light on a fairly regular – yet hopefully not overbearing – basis. Here are a few recent examples:

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If you should decide that you want to follow me on Instagram, here’s the link. If you should decide that you want to tell your friends to follow me as well, that’s also fine.