Peering out the window of the little airtaxi that has brought you to The Rat’s Nest, or Rottnest Island, 18 km southwest off the coast of Australia, you’ll notice the island’s name spelled out in trees. This little island, only 15 km long and 4km wide, has been the site of an aboriginal prison, WWI & WWII internment camps, and today is an important local holiday destination, popular for its shipwreck bearing reefs and notable surf breaks.

The trees that spell out “Rottnest” were planted purposely to welcome visitors to the island, which was named for the native quokka, a marsupial that resembles a large rat and thrives on the island due to the lack of a significant predator.

There are no fresh water sources on the surface of the island so rainwater has always had to be collected instead. However in the 1970s, fresh water was discovered underground, and since 1995 the government has desalinated water from these salt lakes using reverse osmosis.

One of the most famous (or infamous) buildings on the island is the Rottnest Quod, an eight-sided structure that was used to imprison over 3,700 aboriginal men and boys between 1838 and 1931. Rottnest was used in this way to “calm” the mainland native population that were committing the terrible crime of digging up crops from land that used to belong to them.

Today the Quod is a source of contention as it was used as a budget hostel for most of the 20th century and has now been converted into high-priced accommodation for tourists. However, aboriginal activists say that the site should remain a historical heritage site, demonstrating the harsh treatment of the natives by the colonial government.

Other notable features of the island are a zero tolerance approach to “antisocial behaviour”, laws banning private ownership of land, cycling being the main form of transport, and an annual 18km swim from the mainland to the easternmost point on the island.

More info on Rottnest Island at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Simon Craigie.

March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, which was originally the annual feast of the best known of Ireland’s patron saints¹, and today a worldwide celebration devoted to all things Irish.

Over here in Ireland and the UK, we have been known to celebrate with vast quantities of Guinness. Over in the US however, they like large scale annual celebrations involving crazy things like temporarily dying the Chicago River green (which sadly hasn’t yet been captured on Google Earth²).

But in today’s post we’ll be looking at some of the places that St. Patrick has found a permanent home in the USA.

This is St Patrick’s park in Indiana, where they have created a 400 metre long homage to their namesake, entirely in the medium of trees. Which is apt, given how much of the colour green gets bandied around on the 17th of March.

We’ve visited the original Dublin already on Google Sightseeing, but there are at least nine cities called Dublin in the USA alone!

See for yourself: Dublin, California; Dublin, Georgia; Dublin, Indiana; Dublin, New Hampshire; Dublin, North Carolina; Dublin, Ohio; Dublin, Pennsylvania; Dublin, Texas; and Dublin, Virginia.

In New York City we find St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a spectacular Neo-Gothic cathedral in midtown Manhattan that has become ingrained in Hollywood movie history, after being featured in several movies including 2002’s Spider-Man.

So, where else has St. Patrick and the influence of Ireland made a lasting impression around the world?

Happy Paddy’s day!

Thanks to Chris R.

Right in the middle of the Sahara desert, in the dunes of northern Niger, there’s a circle which is clearly not a natural formation.

The circle itself is roughly 52 metres across, but if we zoom out a little, we can see eight other markings which mark the sides and corners of a huge square area, about 620 metres on each side.

This French website claims that French soldiers created similar looking circles and markings elsewhere in the Sahara “at the beginning of the aviation era”, although the reason why is unclear. Although the one in the article has no coverage yet National Geographic has a ground level photo of it.

However, very faintly visible above the circle are another set of markings, which might have once been a makeshift runway.

On closer examination, it seems that this particular circle has been “updated” since it was originally made. It’s a little hard to make out, but in the centre of the circle is the word “FACHI”, which it turns out, is the name of the nearest village.

See also the previously posted mysterious circle in a square in Saudi Arabia.

Thanks to Crash.

Shanghai is the most populous city in China, and as befits a population over 20 million, the city has been blessed with the largest skatepark in the world.

SMP Skatepark has an incredible 13,700 m² of skateable space, much of it incorporating local stone and granite. The park has two street skating areas, multiple bowls, a full pipe (video), a 52 m long wooden vert ramp, and a 2000 m² competition area.

The closest rival to the SMP park in sheer size is not where you might expect. Not that a skating holiday in the Cayman Islands would be anything less than totally freaking awesome of course.

The Black Pearl skatepark is a 4,800 m² concrete park with a wide selection of bowls, transitions, and street terrain. If you get bored of all that skating, the blue area to the south is actually a surfing machine that’s capable of moving around 570,000 litres of water every minute, producing a surf wave over 3 metres tall!

All of which makes me wish I was 16 again.

For more skateboarding sights, see our posts on Marseille Skatepark, Kona Skatepark and Danny Way’s Mega Ramp.

Thanks to WebUrbanist.

Over the weekend Google rolled out another major image update to Google Earth. Frank at the GEarth Blog is tracking the updates, and has so far spotted changes all over the place!

Scotland, China, Africa, South Korea, Mongolia, Iceland, Sweden, France, Norway, Turkey, Brazil, Bangladesh, Italy, Uruguay, Qatar, Canada, England, Argentina, Maldives, Greenland, Mexico, and the US states of Wisconsin and South Dakota.

Not too far from the GSS Scottish HQ, the new imagery has revealed this set of giant footprints, one of which appears to have become a rather effective van trap.

Update: Twitter user Mantolwen, who sent us this link, actually went along there today and took some photos of the footprints, as they’re still clearly visible. Thanks Mantolwen!

Elsewhere in Scotland we can see the some superb images of the previously featured Falkirk Wheel, which is appearing on Google Earth for the first time, and I also found my own car!¹

Not all of the images are of improved quality however – presumably because more up-to-date images are the thing desired by your regular Google Earther.

However, GEarth Blog also reports that there has been a whole slew of new historical imagery added in this update, covering even more of the globe than the new updated images.²

So what new sights can you find near you?

Thanks to Frank at the Google Earth Blog and @Mantolwen on Twitter for the giant feet!