fun with maps...

Today I decided to have a little fun with Google earth, which is a program that you can download and use to look at arial photos of most places in Canada, The U.S., and The U.K. just to name a few countries...

While I was playing with the maps, I realized that I could take some screen captures and with a little bit of effort in good old microsoft paint, I've now got some cool maps to exhibit my routes in and around Bristol. Sadly, the maps are not 3D in the sense that the display the many hills that I encounter on my adventures around Bristol, but they do however indicate the height of the land wherever you click - so I've collected some of the ground levels of some most difficult treks.

Enjoy!

The image above shows two routes - the red route is the walk to work that I make every day, and the blue route is my 'shortcut' route if I want to head into the center... although this route is uphill all the way to St. Micheals Hill (right around the Red dot that says Bristol) My House is at about 120 feet above sea level, and St. Michaels hill peaks at 270 feet... its a tough walk uphill, but its downhill all the rest of the way down park street which drops from 170 feet to 30 feet in a distance of about 500 meters. The shot below this one is a view of Toronto from about the same distance away (just slightly closer up) - to help you compare the size of the city.

This shot below is a close(r) up shot of the area surrounding my office including the harbourside where I take walks on my lunch breaks... This walk includes a walk through Queen's Square - a georgian square in the centre of the city and a walk along the harbour and past St. Mary Redcliffe... you can see how the floating harbour runs around the city, and south of it the River Avon, which is the tidal river that takes the overflow from the harbour and runs out to the Bristol Channel.

Last but not least is a shot of my house (highlighted in purple) right across from the Venue Magazine headquarters and Gloucester Road which runs right by my house...

Hope you liked!

- Chris