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.

Sorry folks, no post today.

However, many of you may be unaware that we operate a “backchannel” of sorts over at Twitter, where as well as a feed of all the posts from the main site, we also post some interesting stuff that doesn’t make it on here. So for the many people that don’t read our Twitter page, here the best links that you missed!

• There’s a large police turnout in Providence, RI.
• Apparently, this Australian Graffiti artiste reckons that “TRENT IS BENT“. I wonder what Trent has to say about that?
• French resident captured taking a dump in the street, eew!
• This creepy looking house is covered in stuffed toys.
• The Street View car gets a flat tyre repaired in the tiny town of Paraburdoo, Western Australia.
• Ford Model T driving down the street.
• Wild antelope on Google Street view!
• Flickr: Google Street View car gets a ticket.

If you’d like more like this, subscribe to our twitter feed!

As the Google Street View car drives down this small Parisian side street, we can see an approaching Rollerblader, glancing down the street at the oncoming car.

However the sight of the massive camera mounted to the roof must have shocked the balance out of him, as our rollerblader pirouettes to his knees right in the middle of the road, directly in the path of our oncoming vehicle!

The crash to his knees must have been quite dramatic, as the people on the pavement have heard what happened, and we can see that they’ve turned to see what’s going on. But with the Google car careering towards him, is it going to be lights out for our poorly-balanced hero?!

Fortunately for everyone involved, the Google Car must have slowed in time to save his bacon, as in the next frame our hero is safely on his way down the street - presumably hoping to hell that the Google Camera wasn’t recording when he fell on his ass right in front of it…

This isn’t the first time someone has been captured falling off their wheels in front of the watchful Google Street View eyes, but it is the first time Google has tried to flatten the unfortunate person altogether.

Presumably the evidence will be removed any second now.

Thanks to Street View Fun.

In an utterly shocking turn of events, a very-probably homeless/alcoholic/drug addicted¹ man has quite clearly passed-out in a doorway here in Philadelphia!

This piece of shocking privacy-invasion follows the discovery of a similar image last week in which a young man was pictured passed out on a grass verge². Despite the fact the man’s face wasn’t pictured, the sight of him sleeping on the roadside was enough to make him furious, and he made sure everyone knew all about it by venting his anger to Britain’s crappest newspaper.

The privacy issues surrounding the launch of Street View in Australia have been widely publicised, and in response Google Australia have been pro-actively removing potentially offensive images extremely quickly - this one was removed before it even appeared on Street View Fun.

Given that our Philadelphian is more likely to be drunk and homeless than a student from a nice Australian neighbourhood, you have to wonder whether this latest image will be removed as quickly, if at all³.

Thanks to Scott Roberts.

When Google recently added street view for vast stretches of empty road across the middle of Australia, most people didn’t expect to find much of interest out there.

To be fair, those people were mostly right. However, every now and again the street view car did indeed pass something at least. In the deserts of South Australia on the Stuart Highway, we can see an approaching truck. Actually, it’s a really big truck!

Hang on, is that another truck driving dangerously close behind the first one? Nope, the first massive truck is actually pulling another trailer which carries… another truck - followed by another trailer!

The sign on the back of the huge vehicle kindly explains that this is a “ROAD TRAIN” - a kind of trucking used in remote areas of Australia, the United States, and Western Canada to move huge loads across vast distances. In the U.S. and Canada the terms “triples,” “Turnpike doubles” and “Rocky Mountain doubles” are more commonly used.

This particular road train is a “triple”, and is also “doubled-up” (carrying empty road train trailers), but some of these vehicles pull up to 4 trailers at a time. Australia has the largest and heaviest road-legal vehicles in the world, with some weighing up to 200 tonnes.

Previously on Google Sightseeing: Trucks Pulling Trucks

Thanks to Virtual Globe Trotting

As the Street View car passed Google’s California head offices, the Googleplex, hundreds and hundreds of Google Employees came out to form a huge welcoming committee for the passing camera car.

There’s loads of things to see, as many employees have clearly prepared for the event! For example, here’s a life-size yellow Street View guy:

Elsewhere, in a clear nod to our very own discovery of a fight on Street View, a couple of Googlers are engaged in a slight altercation.

In another self-referential move, a couple of people are taking part in a tiny Tour-de-France!

The in-jokes don’t stop there either - one Googler took the opportunity to make a “Web 2.0″ marriage proposal! See his website to find out if she accepted.

There’s tons more silliness all up and down the street, as it seems the entire Googleplex came out for the event - so have a browse and share your best finds in the comments!

Thanks to GmapsMania.

Much to the annoyance of the tinfoil-hat privacy nuts, Street View’s spread across the globe continues with two launches today: Japan and Australia!

Japan has coverage in the following cities: Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Saitama, Chiba, Sendai, Sapporo, Hakodate, Kyoto and Tokyo.

The previously featured Tokyo Tower.

Australia has loads of Street View, with the following cities covered: Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Cairns, Mt Isa, Canberra, Albany, Alice Springs, Rockhampton, Broome, Tamworth, Broken Hill, Karratha and Geraldton.

The previously featured Sydney Opera House.

There’s also new Street View in many US cities, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, El Paso, Wichita, Savannah and Colorado Spring. Even more exciting, in the official announcement Google allude to a “hidden special surprise” in the US images. What could that be?

There’s hundreds of new streets covered across the three countries, so get exploring and let us know what you find!

Thanks to Google Maps Mania.

Google is in trouble. The company now has so much money that it’s finding it increasing hard to spend it all - so as a first step has decided to employ a 2 car convoy to capture Street View images!

This means that we get a nice close up of the camera that is used, but strangely it doesn’t appear to be the same as the ones that have been caught elsewhere in either Paris or London.

As has been widely rumoured, it’s possible that this second car is separately collecting 3D imagery using a special laser camera (which bounces off nearby objects to create a 3D map, onto which the street view imagery can be laid).

The two cars rather quickly split up though, so they were probably just setting off from the same place. Of course, there’s always the possibility that new 720° imagery is just round the corner!

Thanks to streetviewfun.