The ultimate assignment

I may have found my new job - being a Trekker for Google Maps (provided I could choose my destinations).

It is all due to another of WebUrbanist's posts - 'Extreme Street View: Google Employee Maps Deserted Island'

The abandoned apartments on Gunkanjima

I've blogged about Gunkanjima before in 2009 in Abandoned towns. Occupied for over a century, and briefly the world’s most densely-populated island - Gunkanjima, off the coast of Nagasaki in Japan is now one of the loneliest places on the planet. A giant concrete wall surrounds the ship-shaped ‘Battleship Island’, giving it its nickname. At one point it was packed with an average of 1.4 residents per square meter of space, almost like an overcrowded sea vessel. In the 19^th century the island was a coal mining facility with residences for 5,000 miners. By the 1970s mining was in decline and the island was abandoned. It has transformed into a decayed yet eerie place as nature has reclaimed much of the land mass.

A tree grows in Gunkanjima

The island featured as the villian’s secret hideout in the James Bond “Skyfall” movie.

Parts of the deserted island have been reopened to the public in 2009 and become something of a tourist destination, but Google secured special permission to go beyond the cordoned-off areas and pass through long-abandoned buildings that only intrepid infiltrators have seen in recent decades past.

The lone urban explorer passing through the haunting multi-storey ruins

Strapped with panoramic photography equipment, this video shows a lone Google employee crawling through rubble, scaling partially caved-in abandonments and standing on precarious roofs, all to document one of the most unique deserted cities on the globe.

Thanks to Google’s Street View mapping, virtual visitors can now tour the corroded corridors, crumbling stairs and uncertain roofs from a much safer distance, a 360° panorama for urban explorers.

The track of the Google Trekker

There are other YouTube clips of other Google Map locations - The Grand Canyon, Venice, the Galapagos Islands..., but I may wait till they improve on the 40lb backpack.

Now & Then fantasy

Moving into the realms of fantasy or science fiction, I came across this photographic gem -

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. From the movie 'Star Trek IV : the voyage home' starring Captain James T. Kirk and Mr Spock.

The movie poster art

The plot of the film follows on from 'Star Trek III : The search for Spock' with the characters returning to Earth in a captured Klingon Warbird, re-christened by Dr. McCoy as the "H.M.S. Bounty". A strange probe is also on course for Earth, transmitting signal that disables all the technology that it encounters. The crew of the Bounty realize the sprobe is attempting to communicate with the now long-extinct humpback whales. The only way to answer the probe's signals and save the world, is to travel back in time and obtain some humpback whales. 



The Bounty travels back to present day San Francisco, where the crew splits to accomplish three different missions: locate the whales, build a tank within the Bounty to transport the whales, and locate an energy source. This is where the humour really takes off with all the cultural & technological clashes - Spock diving to mind-meld with the whales; Scotty flexing his fingers on an archaic computer; Russian Chekov captured on the U.S.S. Enterprise nuclear 'wessel'; Spock's misuse of colourful metaphors; the need for 'exact change' bus fares...

The Enterprise's crew blending in

The idea of a 'Now & Then' photo of a time travel movie image just seems right somehow. I now need a Tom Baker one!

 

Grampians bushfire, again

It is less than 12 months since I posted on the Grampians bushfires that burnt-out the Victoria Valley & Range and swept up to Glenisla (see ‘Ongoing fires’ and ‘Fire by night’) and now in a sense of déjà vu, fire has broken out in the Grampians again. And as with the 2013 posts, I've relied on local photographer Lynton Brown for most of the images.

All photos Lynton Brown, except CFA

The fire is suspected to have started from lightning strikes on Wednesday in the Pohlners Road area between Rose Gap and Wartook in the Northern Grampians.

On Thursday the fire which had been burning in rocky, rugged slopes was spreading southward from the mountains towards homes around Wartook, Laharum and Brimpaen.

Above & below -  The fire on the 16th 

Aerial view, Firebombing helicopter on 16th, from CFA

There were about 620 firefighters, 8 bulldozers, and 88 trucks, as well as 2 firebomber aircraft and 3 support helicopters battling the fire on the 16th.

Above & below - The fire approaching Laharum on 16th

Friday was the major danger day, when strong gusty winds took the fire up the range to threaten Halls Gap, and the strong winds caused another front to spread north to Dadswells Bridge and towards St Helen’s Plains, closing the Western Highway. A southerly wind change moved across the area from about 8.00pm and caused erratic fire behaviour, and to largely halt the expansion around Halls Gap. Emergency services continued to work overnight on the fire as it threatened the towns of Dadswells Bridge and Halls Gap.

Above & below - The evacuation of Halls Gap, 12-1pm on 17th

Grampians Rd near Stawell looking towards Halls Gap, 17th

The smoke plume, from Stawell's Big Hill, 17th

At 1pm today Saturday the fire in the Northern end of the Grampians National Park is now approximately 51,800 hectares in size. It is now west of Halls Gap in the Mount Difficult Range. The fire is not yet under control and a spot fire is burning in the Silverbands Falls area (south of Halls Gap). The main threat to Halls Gap and Grampians Junction has now passed.

Fire activity in the Dadswells Bridge, St Helens Plains area north of the Western Highway has subsided as firefighters have stopped the spread of the bushfire in the Dadswells Bridge area at the Western Highway, although it is not yet under control. Current resources include 556 personnel (they are supplying around 1500 meals to firefighters per day), 81 tankers, 38 slip-on vehicles, seven dozers, four fixed-wing aircraft and six helicopters. There are also a number of graders, excavators and support vehicles on scene.

Extent of the fire, as at 5pm 17th, from CFA

The Western Highway remains closed between the intersection of the Stawell-Warracknabeal Road and Horsham, but the Henty Highway is now open. Emergency services vehicles and crews will be working in the area.

Photo composite - Stawell on 17th (Lynton Brown)

Approximately 500 people have attended relief centres at Horsham, Stawell and Ararat over the past few days. Stock losses are around 7500, with assessments still continuing, the numbers will climb. The CFA will look at whether those who have evacuated will be allowed to return to their homes. And focus will also be on clearing any tree hazards, however residents need to be aware that this remains a danger after any fire. The Grampians National Park remains closed until noon Monday January 20^th.

Looking south to the Grampians from Taylors Lake Rd, 5pm 17th

The fire's glow at 9:30pm 17th, at Taylors Lake

Not forgetting the Mallee fires the Bronzewing Fire near Tempy is out of control, and the Sunraysia Highway is closed between the Calder Highway intersection and Speed. The Albacutya Fire is still out of control and has been burning since Tuesday 14th, 85 fire-fighting units are currently battling it.

Lake Albacutya Fire

Thanks goes to Lynton for the photos, and all the miles he's had to cover.

Canadian chaos

I’ve blogged abandoned sites before, and WebUrbanist posts before, but what especially caught my eye on the ‘Great Blight North: 7 abandoned wonders of Canada’, was the shot of the deserted shopping plaza/mall, there’s something really incongruous about shops set up for customers just no people, remarkable when you realise it’s been that way for more than 30 years! So here is a selection of the Great North Blight.

I want a grand bank foyer like this

Toronto’s Forgotten Neoclassical Banks, Ontario

A historic landmark in downtown Toronto is the bank at 205 Yonge Street boasting a beautiful neoclassical facade that has darkened to a gloomy grey over the past century. Built in 1905, the Bank of Toronto and the adjacent Canadian Bank of Commerce, seem starkly out of place in all their aged gothic dilapidation, surrounded by the glittering glass of more modern buildings. Both banks have been empty for some time. The Bank of Commerce has been vacant since 1986, while the Bank of Toronto was occupied by Heritage Toronto until roughly 2001. Developers recently purchased the property and supposedly intend to restore the Bank of Commerce as part of a hotel project, though the fate of its neighbour is still up in the air, and none of the plans are final.

Canada Malting Plant, Montreal, Quebec

One of the last remaining sets of industrial silos in Toronto sits on the edge of the harbor, offering urban explorers who manage to gain access and ascend to its rooftops a stunning view of the skyline (including the city’s iconic CN Tower.) Built in 1928 to store malt for the Canada Malting Company, the complex includes stark modernist concrete towers housing 15 wooden silos. It was abandoned in the mid 1980s but protected by the city due to its historic and architectural value, and officials have considered adapting it for all sorts of interesting new uses, from a museum to a theme park. Most of the secondary buildings have been demolished, but the silos still stand.

Interior of the malting plant

Toronto Power Generating System, Ontario

This ornate power station immediately reminded me of the South Fremantle building. Built in 1903, this Beaux Arts hydro-electric power station was designed to power the city of Toronto. It’s located on the banks of the Niagara River just upstream from Niagara Falls. It closed in 1974 and was designated a national historic site in 1983. Despite still being filled with industrial equipment, the inside looks like a palace, the rusting remains of turbines contrasting with intricately scrolled marble trim. It has been described as a massive stone crypt standing majestic and alone beside the raging water… 

Note the seepage icicles

Riverview Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia

Chances are, you’ve seen the Riverview Hospital before as it has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows, including The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Psych, Caprica, Fringe, Halloween: Resurrection and even the Christmas movie Elf. It didn’t close until 2012, but many of its historic buildings were already abandoned by that time, and its decline has been swift. When the hospital opened in 1913 as ‘The Hospital for the Mind,’ it housed just 350 patients, but that population grew to 4,500 by the 1950s. Like so many other large mental health facilities, Riverview lost patients rapidly during the ’60s and ’70s as the approach to simply put mentally ill people ‘away’ for life came to be seen as inhumane. 

Kitsault Ghost Town, British Columbia

Abandoned towns are always eerie, especially when belongings are still strewn around as if the residents had to evacuate in a life-or-death scenario. But Kitsault is made even creepier by the distinct lack of every typical marker of abandonment other than the simple, stark lack of people in its homes, shops, schools and pubs. It’s impeccably well-kept, looking exactly as it did when it was abandoned in 1980, as if you could step back in time and experience that year again – the shag carpets, the prices in the grocery store window, the wooden pub chairs stacked on tables waiting for patrons that haven’t returned. There’s very little decay and no vandalism. The town site as it exists today was built in the late ’70s to house workers of the nearby molybdenum mine and includes roads, residences, a hospital, a curling rink and a swimming pool, but abandoned entirely just eighteen months later after the collapse of metal prices. A single caretaker (who is presumably mowing the lawns etc) is the only resident. A developer recently bought the town with an eye to transforming it into a wilderness resort or exploiting natural gas resources..

Kitsault's Shopping Plaza

 

Either being restored or demolished

Farmhouses of Ontario

Ontario is packed with abandoned farmhouses,churches and schools that have been left behind as rural residents moved from isolated locations to more urban settings. Sad rusting swing sets in overgrown yards, stately brick homes with broken windows, boarded-up lakeside log cabins and once-elegant estates overtaken by vines with their roofs caved in.

Impressive brick home near Wasaga

 

Empty eyes of the factory

Babcock Factory, Montreal, Quebec

The Babcock & Wilcox Boiler Plant in Saint Henri, Montreal is so altered from its original state, it’s barely recognizable – due to both decay and human intervention. Just outside the borders of one of the city’s poshest neighbourhoods, this relic of a factory is little more than a brick and concrete shell that now serves as a veritable graffiti gallery, empty cans of spray paint littering the floor.

Babcock interior

 As always see more photos and some videos at the WebUrbanist site.

Biblical blood-splatter

The price of betrayal is more than thirty pieces of silver. 
Looking at the book "I know what you did Last Supper" by Wayne Williams and Darren Allan, I thought it might be another of those vampire parodies, but it is a twist of a well-known tale turned on its head. I admire people who are willing to take on such a renowned narrative and create a mystery thriller.
Two days after Jesus Christ's crucifixion, Judas Iscariot receives an anonymous note stating, I know what you did. Wrapped with it is an eye, complete with trailing optic nerve, and a splintered tooth - trophies ripped from two recently butchered friends. Someone, it seems, knows what Judas did on that fateful night following the Last Supper. And that someone is intent on exacting a bloody and gruesome revenge. 
As more acquaintances and family members die in increasingly brutal ways, Judas finds himself in a desperate race against time to make amends for his act of treachery, and to uncover the identity of the mysterious hooded killer. 
It's biblical on a number of levels - the parts are titled: Genesis, Numbers, Revelation.
It's not high literature, you know that from the play on the title, the take on Leonardo's painting on the cover, and the numerous borrowings from the normal horror flick.
The prose is natural it 'feels contemporary' the authors have resisted any urge to pepper the dialogue with 'thou' and 'thy'.
Overall it is a great premise and got off to a good start but then just slid into a needlessly excessive description of the murders (has seen too many 'Saw' movies) at the expense of the plot. The resolution I thought, was unsatisfactory and wimpish, would have loved a twist in the tale.
The warning - it is gruesome, with plenty of horrific deaths and mutilations, so if bloody descriptions aren't your thing, leave this on the shelf and read something else.
A relentlessly paced, gripping thriller, which further explores one of the darkest bargains in human history.