It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

Here in the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra, Indonesia there is a tiny, seemingly unnamed, almost totally-forested island.

The only thing on this island, other than trees, is a mysterious, lonely white monument. But what is it?

Our mystery island is just to the south of the much larger island of Hilibafunua (about which I have failed to find anything interesting), but north of the even larger Siberut – an island that is home to a 1,905 km² National Park and inhabited by the Mentawai, a tribe of hunter-gatherers who like to sharpen their teeth.

Our mystery monument hasn’t been posted on the Google Earth Forums (it would show up in the Google Earth Community layer in Google Earth if it had), and I can’t find any reference to it on the web, at least not in English.

So, who can tell us what this is, or even better, locate a photograph of it?

Thanks to Smiglo.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

This is what used to be the island of Jordsand in the Wadden Sea, just off the coast of Denmark, and east of the German island of Sylt.

Once upon a time it may have connected to both the mainland and Sylt, but by 1873 it was down to just 18.4 hectares in size. Attempts to protect the island were made during the 1970s but recurring floods continued to reduce its area and, during the winter of 1998, the little island was finally submerged for good.

Interestingly, the low resolution image used on Google Maps for the more zoomed-out views still shows some small sections of land protruding from the water.

Thanks to Lars Dybdahl.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

The island of Tristan da Cunha and its surrounding archipelago are located in the southern Atlantic ocean, 2816 km from the nearest continent, making it the most remote island in the world!

Tristan da Cunha is a dependency of the British overseas territory Saint Helena, and also a live volcanic island. The main settlement, “Edinburgh of the Seven Seas“¹, had to be temporarily abandoned in 1961 due the volcano erupting.

As Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is 2,400 km from the main settlement on Saint Helena, it chalks up an additional record of the “most remote permanent settlement in the world”.

The other islands in the archipelago include Gough Island, which has a temporary population of 6 South Africans who work at the small weather station…

… and the mysterious sounding Inaccessible Island. Officially uninhabited (presumably for obvious reasons), Inaccessible Island also appears to be inaccessible to high-resolution photography satellites (unlike the rest of the archipelago).

More info on Tristan da Cunha, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas and Saint Helena can be found at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Nico, Tom and Matt.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

Lindisfarne is a tidal island, off the north-east coast of England, which thanks to having been home to a monastery since the 7th century AD, is also known as Holy Island.

The causeway that connects Lindisfarne to the mainland is flooded twice a day by the tide (you can see the tidemark on this section of the road), so drivers must be careful about when they start to cross. Refuge places are provided for the cars should they become stranded by quickly rising water.

Before the advent of cars those wishing to reach the monastery would have had to cross the sands on foot at low tide. Known as Pilgrim’s Way, we can see the markers that still define that path today, as well as small refuge boxes for those who choose a foolish time to attempt the walk.

Here’s the second refuge box on the Pilgrim’s Way, but following the markers along there are no people to be seen, probably because a large section of the path is under water.

Where the Pilgrim’s way finally meets land we find a nice modern-day maze of, er… something, and just south of here we finally come across the ancient ruins of the island’s monastery.

To the east of the monastery, we can also see the small Lindisfarne Castle and the old castle limekilns, which are in the care of the National Trust and open to visitors.

Elsewhere on the island there are monuments, some spectacular sections of coastline, lots of sand, and there’s even a lake for all you recursion junkies.

There’s more about the long history of Lindisfarne at Wikipedia, or have a look at this PDF of the island’s sights.

See also the previously featured Mont Saint Michel tidal island.

Especially for Spamboy.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

Bruny is one of 20 islands and island groups in the Australian state of Tasmania, the largest island of which is also called Tasmania.

Thanks to the recent addition of Street View imagery for Australia, today we’re going to take our first Street View island day trip! Packed lunches will not be provided.

To get onto Bruny from Tasmania itself we have to take a ferry:

Once we’ve arrived at the other side, we can see an aerial shot of the ferry, with lots of cars waiting to board:

The island of Bruny has a population of just 600 people, and the economy relies on wildlife tourism. However, I’ve not spotted any wildlife yet.

Bruny’s other main attraction is the Cape Bruny Lighthouse, so let’s drive down to see that:

The lighthouse’s main claim to fame, if you can call it that, is that it was the “oldest lighthouse under continuous operation by the Commonwealth”. I’m sure you’re impressed: feel free to take photos.

Unfortunately, the Street View driver drove so slowly that it’s getting dark already, so we’ll have to pack up our picnics and head back to Tasmania. Here’s the ferry queue from the other side:

And, once docked at the other side, here’s the Google Car inside the ferry! Keep your hands inside the vehicle please.

I hope you all enjoyed our day trip to Bruny Island! Please tip the driver.

More info on Wikipedia: Bruny Island.

Thanks to Howder.