Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff, Wales, is named after everyone’s favourite Children’s author Roald Dahl who was born here in the Capital, and the word “plass”, meaning “plaza”, is a nod to his parent’s Norwegian origins.

If you’re a fan of Doctor Who or the Torchwood spin-off, then you’ll immediately recognise this as being the location of a spatio-temporal rift in time¹.

At the north end of the plaza stands a 21m tall water fountain (which hides the entrance to the secret Torchwood underground cave).

The south-east of the Plaza is home to the National Assembly for Wales, the Senedd. We looked for the Senedd before while touring the United Kingdom’s devolved assemblies, but it wasn’t finished then.

At the north-east of the square is the Wales Millennium Centre, a hall for performing arts. The front of the building has an enormous Welsh poem written across its entire face using the medium of windows. You can read the windows in Microsoft’s bird’s eye view imagery.

There’s more information on Roald Dahl Plass and Cardiff Bay on Wikipedia.

Thanks to AndrewAnorak, Jam, braddie, and Andrew Shackson.

Driving across the frozen Amur River between Russian and China we can see a couple of trucks - driven by the fearless and legendary Ice Road Truckers!

Although it seems ludicrous, building “Ice Roads” over lakes, rivers or seas, is at times preferable to carving a road on land, as you can get long continuous straights on the ice, which hilly tree-covered land just doesn’t offer. However in this case it appears to be the only existing way across the river.

Driving across frozen water in a 2 tonne truck is of course slightly dangerous. Depending on the country, the ice only needs to be about 20cm thick for authorities to allow trucks onto the surface, and speeds may be limited to a painfully slow 16mph. Luckily our particular truckers don’t have far to go, unlike the men who drive the 568 kilometre Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road each year.

Ice road truckers were made famous by the TV show of the same name, and the green light has apparently been given to make a fictional film based on the series in 2008. I’ve not seen the TV show, but I hear it’s much more exciting than boring footage of lonely truckers driving at 16mph across vast empty frozen lakes.

Read more about ice roads at Wikipedia.

Thanks to pooms.

Last night in the UK saw the start of the eleventh series of popular BBC2 car show Top Gear - so it’s time to finally visit the Top Gear studio and track!

Based at Dunsfold Park in Surrey, the two mile track was built on an old RAF airfield by Lotus engineers.

As seen from the opening credits, the large hanger by the track is the studio, although the large Top Gear logo isn’t there any more (or perhaps this picture was taken before filming). Just next to the studio, you can see the production office of Top Gear, which is, according to the makers, just a portakabin!

A member at Google Earth Community has posted an overlay of the track, so you can get an aerial overview of Gambon and the follow-through, with the Hammerhead sitting at the end of the runway. The lack of visible tyre marks suggests that the images was captured before the ‘Power Lap’ and ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ features began.

You can find out more about Top Gear and Dunsfold Park at Wikipedia. Sightseeing car fans in the UK can watch the most recent Top Gear again at BBC’s iPlayer.

Thanks to Scott Blair, Shane Ferguson, Justin Flavin, Stu Gowdy, Lee, Patrick, Scott and Matt Wix.

Yesterday a large fire tore through the Universal Studios backlot, injuring 3 people and destroying numerous sets.

Thankfully no-one was seriously injured, but the fire did destroy a key piece of movie history: Courthouse Square.

Courthouse Square has been used in numerous films and TV shows, including Gremlins, Bruce Almighty, Knight Rider and, most recognisably, Back to the Future.

As you can see from the aerial shot, the square looks just like it did in the 1985 film, including the clock tower to the East of the square. Initial reports of the fire starting when the famous clock tower was struck by lightning have been denied.

“It looked like a disaster film” said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, which isn’t surprising as most of Universal studios looks like a disaster film; scroll South a bit and there’s the wreckage of a plane crash as featured in War of the Worlds.

More on the story from the BBC or explore more Back to the Future filming locations.

Completely unknown to the Western world until 1812, this is the ancient city of Petra in Jordan.

Although nobody knows for sure when people first settled here, the incredible architecture that survives is thought to be at least 2,000 years old - and the most impressive thing is that much of what remains wasn’t built, but actually carved directly out of the sandstone cliffs - like this entire amphitheatre for example.

Ground level photo

Probably the best preserved part of the ancient city is Al Khazneh, or The Treasury, which is sheltered at the end of a tall, narrow gorge known as al-Siq. The shelter afforded by the high walls explains why the Treasury hasn’t been sandblasted away like many of Petra’s other architectural features.¹

Although the angle these images were taken at doesn’t allow us to see the façade itself, we can see a crowd milling around in front of it.

The Treasury is at the top of this thumbnail, and the pictures that the crowd are taking would look a lot like this.

If you’re thinking this place seems familiar, perhaps you recognise it from 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which it played a part as the fictional “Temple of the Holy Grail”.²

If you’d like to explore more, here’s a good map of all the local sights, or read Petra’s Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Jason Griswold and Dan Kuck.

Here in San Jose, California we find the bizarre sprawling complex known as The Winchester Mystery House. It is the creation of Sarah Winchester (the widow of gun magnate William Winchester) who began expanding this country farmhouse when she moved here in 1884. Supposedly Mrs Winchester was so terrified of the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles that she consulted a spiritualist, who told her:

build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die.

And build she did - allegedly around-the-clock, without interruption for the next 38 years until her death, Mrs Winchester built, rebuilt, altered, changed, constructed and demolished one section after another. The ‘mystery’ of the house is found in its weird and nonsensical architecture - staircases that lead nowhere, hidden rooms, doors that open on to sheer drops, cupboard doors that open to solid brick walls, and a myriad of secret passages!

Despite an earthquake taking down 3 floors in 1906, today the mansion still comprises 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys, 950 doors, and 40 staircases! The Winchester Mystery House’s unusual history, combined with the unsurprising rumours that it is haunted, have firmly planted this place into American popular culture.

You can read more at Wikipedia, check out this birds-eye photo, see a photo of the front or even browse a whole section devoted to the house on Flickr.

Thanks to Jen, Tim, seamus, Tim Derby, Yoshino, Tim, Patrick, Mel Matsuoka, Lady Kalessia, Stephanie, Michelle, Martin, Eric, Chris Branagan amongst many others!

This small rocky outcrop off the coast of South Africa is Seal Island, which is named for the thousands of Cape Fur Seals that occupy it, and famous for the unique marine drama that unfolds here.

At various times of the year the island’s waters are home to a number of Great White Sharks that very much enjoy dining on the island’s seal population. In fact, the sharks regularly launch themselves vertically out of the water to attack the seals - a behaviour that may be unique to this one place. This is such a common occurrence that you can simply pay $210 US dollars to go and watch the sharks have the seals for breakfast. In mid-air.

This breathtaking behaviour featured in the BBC’s stunning Planet Earth tv series, as well as the Discovery Channel’s Air Jaws programmes. If you haven’t seen one of these shows, make sure you watch this truly incredible clip of the sharks in action on YouTube.

Thanks to Michael.

For those of you not familiar with cult 1990s children’s television, Teletubbies was a program primarily aimed at 1-4 year olds which followed the life of four colourful characters, notable for their camp outfits and love of Tubby custard. The Teletubbies (Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po) eventually became a worldwide success amongst children and ‘grown-ups’ alike, lasting 365 episodes before filming finally ended in 2001.

Their unique domed house in Tellytubbyland was actually in the middle of farmland in Warwickshire, England. The dome was 16 feet high - big enough to accomodate the Tellytubbies themselves, who ranged in height from 6ft 6in up to 10 feet tall. To help make the characters appear less enormous, the rabbits used in the programme were actually Flemish Giants - which can grow to over 20lbs!

Sadly, the shame must have been too much to bear for the landowner, as this more recent Microsoft Live Map shows that he has since converted this fascinating historical site into a small lake instead.

Here’s a great article about the filming location.

Thanks: Cookie Monster, Greg M and Jasmine.