Salvation Mountain is an ongoing project of Leonard Knight, who has built and hand decorated the 3-storey “mountain” (I think it’s really just a hill) for nearly two decades. The hill is created out of adobe, straw and many gallons of paint and is covered in religious messages.

Salvation Mountain also marks the entrance to Slab City, an ex-military training base which has become a camp for squatters and RV drivers. The area has no electricity or running water and takes its name from the large concrete slabs which were left when the military abandoned the area. Polar Inertia has a good selection of ground level photos.

Thanks: Pir4t3 & Rob B

Right in the middle of our thumbnail, you can just make out the shape of the Great Buddha of Kamakura. Around 13 metres tall, the bronze statue is said to have been cast all the way back in 1252, and according to Wikipedia:

The Great Buddha was originally housed in a temple, but this was washed away by a tsunami in 1498, since when the statue has stood in the open air.

Wikipedia also mentions that each one of the Great Buddha’s eyes are a metre wide!

Thanks to Ed German and Bill Pfeifer.

These two giant inter-locking circles encapsulating diamonds apparently signify the ’secret’ location of a huge Scientology vault which has been constructed to protect the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, etched onto stainless steel and stored in titanium cases.

According to former members of the group, future Scientology fans will be able to travel through time and space, in a spacecraft which looks a lot like a Douglas DC-8 airliner, to reach this site.

More about the area in a recent Washington post article.

Thanks: hominid & phillias

The Victorian State Rose Garden at Werribee Park is made up of 5500 roses planted in the shape of a tudor rose.

Also to see at Werribee Park is the Chirnside Mansion, the National Equestrian Centre and the Victorian Open Range Zoo.

This tour bus is right in the middle of the Zoo so you could claim any one of those brown splodges nearby are a crossing of zebra, a corps of giraffes or a crash of rhinoceroses.

Thanks: woowoowoo

This is the worlds biggest open cast diamond mine in Mirny, north eastern Siberia. It’s more than 1 km in diameter and half a km deep! Wow, that’s a big hole. The Google Maps imagery isn’t super high-res but there are some good photos about.

Thanks: Mihaly Homonnai, alvus, Adam Hauner, targon, Yuri, Dustin, sz, Troels, Peter Berenyi, Marcin & Josh Brandt.