Welcome to the second annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

The beautiful Wadi Rum is a mere 720 square km desert valley located in the southern part of Jordan. Once submerged under the Red Sea, it is now home to the native Bedouin people and is a favourite spot for foreign travellers looking to explore the vast desert wilderness. Wadi Rum was also the set of the classic film, Lawrence of Arabia the story of T.E. Lawrence, a British officer during WWI.

Wadi Rum is surrounded by some spectacular mountains of sandstone and granite, which cater to all kinds of adventurous activities if you decide to take a trip there. Although the Bedouin¹ were traditionally a nomadic tribe, today most have built homes and adopted a more stationary lifestyle - with many living off the revenue generated by local tourism.

It wasn’t until the 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia that Wadi Rum became widely known to Western society. In the film, British officer T.E Lawrence spends time in Wadi Rum during the Arab revolts of WWI, helping the Arabs fight against the Turks and eventually conquer the Ottoman Empire. While the movie is a bit misleading, Lawrence did at least spend some time in Wadi Rum during the war. Nevertheless, because of the amazing scenery, Wadi Rum was an excellent choice of location.

Check out Wadi Rum’s official site, or Wikipedia for more info.

Steve Prefontaine. His is a name synonymous with running; a name all of your running-junky friends are sure to be familiar with.¹ In 1975, at the time he was struck and killed in a car accident, he held every U.S. track record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. When he was dead-out sprinting there seemed to be flames coming from his Nikes. In fact, he was the first athlete to endorse Nike.²

Prefontaine, lovingly referred to as Pre by those that knew him and us that admire his abilities, so enamoured the sports world that there are many places that bear his name in memorial. Here are just a few of the memorial locations set up in and around the state of Oregon, including Hayward Field, which is the location of the annual Pre Classic, due to take place this Sunday, June 7th.

Prefontaine Memorial Park with Pre Rock

“Prefontaine Memorial Park” could be a contender for The World’s Smallest Park, as it consists of not much more than one rock that stands near the site of Pre’s car accident. The stone memorial commonly known as “Pre Rock” bears a plaque that tells the story of Prefontaine’s death.

During the night on May 30, 1975, Pre swerved his 1973 Gold MG to avoid hitting an oncoming car. By the time emergency services had arrived, Pre was dead. Pre Rock is constantly covered in wreaths, notes, and U.S. flags; as we can see in this Streetview image.³

Pre’s Trail

When Pre competed in Europe he came to appreciate the style and terrain of their cross-country courses, and wanted a similar experience for Tracktown USA⁴ runners. When he returned, he won over Eugene city officials to the idea who worked with U of O track coach Bill Bowerman to design and build it, with the trailhead being just south of Autzen Stadium in Alton Baker Park.

Pre’s Trail Western Trailhead / Eastern Trailhead

The trail had yet to be built at the time of Pre’s death. However, the city was able to finish the 5.5km trail within four months, just in time to be used in a memorial run that would see over five hundred runners come out to remember their friend.

Steve Prefontaine Memorial Hall

When guests arrive at the Nike Campus at One Bowerman Drive in Beaverton, Oregon they are ushered into Steve Prefontaine Hall. Pre is often referred to as the “soul of Nike” by founder Phil Knight because of his commitment to running and his intense desire to always come out on top. Within the Hall are many of Nike’s newest developments, as well as individual pieces of memorabilia of Pre’s and many other athletes that have worked with the company in the past.

Several movies have been made chronicling Steve Prefontaine’s life, and Hayward Field played itself in each of them.

You can also check out the the Prefontaine Memorial at the Coos Bay Visitor Center. Each year over 1,000 runners compete in the Prefontaine Memorial Run held there in his hometown.

When the Romans invaded Britain in the 1st century AD, they never quite managed to conquer Caledonia - the area now known as Scotland.

We’ll never know whether the Roman army felt it was too much like hard work to defeat the fearsome northern tribes, or were simply under-attired for the fearsome Scottish weather; either way, in AD 122 the Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of a wall to defend his territory from the lands to the north.

Hadrian’s Wall stretched for 80 Roman miles (73.5 modern-day miles, or 117km), from the Solway Firth (where the wall is still visible) to the River Tyne (where the wall has vanished, but the fort of Segedunum, which marked its eastern end, has been excavated).

Despite being almost 2,000 years old (and having been heavily plundered by the locals for building materials after the Romans left), a surprising amount of the wall can still be seen today. One of the best preserved stretches is near the village of Gilsland. Here you can also see the foundations of the Roman bridge across the River Irthing - although since it was built the course of the river has shifted westwards.

There are an astonishing number of Roman sites in this area, as a look at the Ordnance Survey map shows. Among them are Birdoswald fort; the nicely preserved milecastle 48¹ (right next to the spot where the railway line slices through the wall); and a couple of Roman camps. The shadows on the aerial photography really show up the traces of old structures and ditches, even where there is little else left on the ground.

The wall was not a single structure: at various stages in its history it was extended, and separate banks and ditches added. Among the later additions was the Vallum, consisting of three earth banks separated by ditches, running parallel to the wall a few hundred metres to the south. The surviving stretches also show up well in aerial imagery; if you scroll northwards from this point you can see the wall itself.

In many places, the builders used the natural topography to help create a formidable barrier. One spectacular stretch of wall follows a steep rocky ridge, Highshield Crags.

The low angle of the sun creates some dramatic shadows here - and if you zoom right in, you can see the shadow of a sycamore tree in the hollow between two ridges. This location, known as Sycamore Gap, will be familiar to fans of the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: it’s the spot where Kevin Costner rescued a small boy from the dastardly Guy of Gisbourne.²

Read more about Hadrian’s Wall at Wikipedia. The 84-mile-long Hadrian’s Wall Path National Trail follows the course of the wall, and its website has a great gallery of ground-level photos.

In The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, when the three Pevensie children (minus Edmund) arrived at Aslan’s camp, they were happening upon what we (of the other world) know as Elephant Rocks.

Looking from above, the boulders look like nothing more than a few pebbles to be picked up and stuffed in your pocket, but when looking straight on the boulders are just massive!

Named after the big, leathery mammals due to their shape and size, these naturally shaped limestone formations near Duntroon on the South Island of New Zealand were made world famous in the 2005 film, by Andrew Adamson.

Looking at these official production stills from the movie, you can clearly see the enormous size of the boulders.

The Streetview Squad did swing by the site when capturing images. However, it looks like a pretty foggy day as its difficult to make out the rock formations from the street.

The area is also a favorite of climbers, specifically known as a great place to do some bouldering. According to the The Crag, a rock climbing enthusiast’s social network, there have been at least 252 different routes mapped.

Update: Thanks to Ian Brodie for letting us know that the production stills from above are actually from Castle Rock. Check out Brodie’s website where he has first hand photography of the Narnia set!

As well as being a holiday here in the UK, today is Star Wars Day (yes, simply because of the bad pun I’m afraid). So here’s a roundup of some Star Wars related sights!

First up is Star Wars Path near Atlanta, Georgia. There’s a road sign too, but it isn’t really legible on Street View. What I don’t know however, is how it got its name?

In the original Star Wars movie the spaceport of Mos Eisley was on the planet Tatooine, but in fact it was filmed here at Matmata in Tunisia. Some interior scenes were even filmed in the underground homes of the people who live here, who these days make good money from charging tourists to take pictures.

Last week on Twitter we just happened to see these rather unconvincing-looking portraits of some Star Wars characters, that form part of an otherwise impressive piece of French graffiti.

Does anyone know of other Star Wars themed sights that we can visit today?

Thanks to Keir Clarke and Virtual Globe Trotting.