The Blimp Museum: August 2006

Museum Unstoppable

If you thought the success of the Blimp Museum had reached its peak, you were probably right. But not anymore! To add to our vast collection of accolades, the Blimp Museum has earned a truly all encompassing reputation. In the words of Henry Giffard "we've made it".

Go to Google and type in (with the inverted commas) "Blimp Museum". It'll be the first result on the second page (for now). If you search "Easily the most scintillating section of the internet" it will be the only result, proving once and for all that the claim is in fact genuine.

Enjoy the (now famous) site and keep visiting.

Sincerly,
Acevedo Williams
Blimp Museum Curator

International Gathering

Welcome international friends!

Using my fantastic new cluster map, I was able to discover that the first non-Sydney Blimp Museum visitors have arrived. Amazingly, seperate people in New York, Los Angeles, London and Brisbane (or close to those) all managed to come here on the same day.

Probably some sort of conspiracy.

Visit again!

Kermit

Coolest thing ever.

The Last (map) Post (for now)

****Note to Musuem visitor. This is the third post in a series of three. Thus, to begin, read the third post down from here (titled "Where on Earth) and work your way up. The Blimp Museum apologises for any reading inconvenience caused.****

Post 3/3
And to put the icing on the cake, here's the exact Google Earth image of the map area. Pontarlier is in the top right, Morez in the bottom centre, the Swiss border trails down the right edge, Arbois is in the top right, Clairvaux in the bottom right, Champagnole is the large town in the centre right and Lake de Joux is the blue thing in the bottom right.

Well that's enough topography for you poor souls. On the bright side though, this map is no.33 in the series. Which means there's at least 32 more to collect. Another thing to do before I die. That would be a fitting collection for a fitting Blimp Museum. Call me a nerd, cause that's what I am. Damn proud too.

And then there was more mappage

Post 2/3
CONTINUED FROM BELOW
"A Detailed Map of JAPAN", H.E.C Robinson (again) Sydney. 1:2,645,200 scale. Another old school map from the 50's, beautifully drawn. It's not in good condition though, it's falling apart.

There are countless, countless more I could put on, but I'll finish with my favourite.

"Itineraires pedestres et a skis; Au Coeur Du Jura". It's a rather confusing piece of map from 1978, no doubt because I can't read French and online translations are terrible machines. It seems to be a strange cross between a topographic map and a tourist map. It has on the back 'Cartes et guides touristiques', and on the front, 'Institut Geographique National'. Now while I've seen a fair few maps in my time this is by far the most detailed I have ever come across. It is almost ludicrous. A picture can tell a thousand words and this map can tell around about a trillion. Ontop of this, the scale is only 1:50,000, which is 2cm to the kilometre. That's more than enough to find your way around in the dark. Ontop of this, the map is simply gigantic. It's 1.7m long and 1.1m wide...this is meant to be a tourist map! The marines could use it to invade France. But ontop of all this, the map is simply a piece of art. It truly is.

What's that? You want another picture? Very well.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more detailed 1:50,000 map than that.

CONTINUED ABOVE

Where on earth...

Post 1/3

I had almost forgotten to mention my other nerdy love...

Maps!

Ah, how could I forget (question mark). But no worries, there is plenty of time to catch up on time lost. I have far too many maps to count, many old, few new. They just don't make maps like they used to. This is firstly due to the fact that political geography has changed, and partly due to laziness on the publishers' part.

So anyway, I won't give a big long story on each map I show here, but if there is something to mention, it shall be mentioned. Do note, maps can be quite large, some are huge. Thus, with an A4 sized scanner, it is entirely improbable to post an entire map. I shall endeavour, for all you wanna be cartographers, to encompass the most interesting part/s.

I 'inherited' many maps from my late grandfather, including one of my favourites below. It is a map of the "Malay States" from around the 1950's, though I can't work out an exact date. The scale is 1:1,000,000 (15.78 miles to the inch) and it was compiled and published by H.E.C Robinson (Sydney). The map is almost an art work compared to today's computerised perfection, the printing paper sensational. Surprisingly, while the internal landscape has become more complex, you'll find that the outlines of the Malaysian states seem to be identical.

Click on all the images for a much, much, much bigger image.

From now the maps are in no particular order.

"Athens & Greece/Griechenland Guide Map". Apparently it is revised every year. But they didn't tell me which year. Around the 70's, Edited by Tassos Vellio (I'm guessing that's a company) and has various scales.