The Lesser-Spotted Google Earth Street View Car

Yesterday I was driving on my rounds at work and around lunchtime I was planning a visit to a remote farmhouse down a very narrow country road. Imagine my surprise when I turned into the road to find myself behind a very odd looking car, a brand new red Opel Astra - 09 registration - with a tripod on the roof-rack topped with a weird looking object that I knew to be the Google Earth Street-view Camera.

These strange cars have been spotted like rare birds in the vicinity of Dungarvan in West Waterford in recent weeks and this is the third time I've seen them. This time I was prepared and like a true anorak I whipped out my trusty Panasonic Lumix digital camera and took a few photos.

I have been amused at the indignation that has been expressed over privacy invasion and civil liberties in the UK in recent weeks (where Street View has gone live and been given a mixed reception) by the "victims" of this cruising camera car. There have been some hilarious stories of people spotted where they shouldn't have been, or cars that weren't pixelated out (number plates and faces are supposed to be pixellated but there have been glitches) and identified by spouses as being where they weren't meant to be. Also people have been indignant that their des res isn't all it's cracked up to be on the property pages when the prospective buyers can google earth it in its original street view!

I absolutely adore Google Earth and Google Maps - I think it was made for nosey parkers like me who love to see where places are and how they look, and since discovering it some years back I visit regularly. I know where my friend in New Jersey lives, and what her street looks like, and I also know that my son's rooftop of his apartment block is visible quite clearly on it, and I am annoyed that Lismore is not given an enhanced view, and is quite blurry, unlike other cities and towns of Ireland.

Another thing I love about it is that there are plenty of photos posted by various people, and they give a totally different impression of a place. When hubby visited Reykjavik in Iceland last year I was able to see the places he was raving about, like the geysir and the blue lagoon - hot springs in February snow! In Tanzania I can go on a nostalgia trip through Dar-es-Salaam and track the roads I drove daily to and from the International School, or out to Bahari Beach and the Kunduchi guest house where we spent many happy days on visits from Iringa. I can visit Iringa and my old haunts like India Street, Lulu's, Hasty Tasty, and Gangilonga Rock.

Of course I can also see these places on the wonderful groups that have sprung up on Facebook to celebrate places we love. One of my favourite is the group "I know Iringa inside out" and I have posted a number of photos of the kids in their homeschool days there, much to their cringing embarassment!

So if you haven't already got it, get downloading Google Earth for free and enjoy more time-wasting than Facebooking or blogging combined. You can justify it by its vaguely educational geographical appeal, if you need to appease your conscience or your partner! There's even a blogger widget which might be fun to add.

The internet is a wonderful place to connect and reconnect with people, when it is used as such, and I have renewed links with old friends from years ago through this very modern medium.

So the art of letter writing might be dead but as long as it is replaced by good communication by email and blogging I think I can live with it! It's a paradigm shift as the boffins might say but I am glad to be able to join in and go with the flow, and am heartened to see so many of my generation linked up through cyberspace. It makes the world seem a much smaller and more connected place - a global village in a positive way.

To finish up, I want to share this lovely photo of the cherry blossom in full bloom on the N25 ring road in Dungarvan yesterday. It might even end up on Street View!