A few days ago I was browsing the internet, and came across mention of the The Totorore Voyage, the title of the book written by Gerry Clark after his hazardous voyage around the southern oceans. Later, Gerry Clark died on another voyage, this time to the Antipodes, when Gerry's luck eventually ran out and the boat foundered in the nearest thing those islands have as a harbour. His crewman and companion, Roger Sale also died. Gerry Clark was an amazing man, I first remember hearing of him when news of a yacht in terrible shape limped in to Freemantle, West Australia in 1986, just after our family arrived in New Zealand from the UK. I bought the book and I can thoroughly recommend it. Gerry was an ornithologist with a great interest in the birds of the Subantarctic and Arctic area, and during his years away, spent many days in some of the remostest areas on the planet, counting birds in their colonies. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and gained many other honours following this adventure.

There is an entry in Wikipedia about Gerry Clark, and a fuller examination of his last voyage here. . Having an idle evening, I got to thinking about the Antipodes, and browsed my round quite a number of internet sites. The Antipodes islands were first named the Penantipodes ( meaning "near the antipodes" of London, that is) but the "Pen" bit eventually was omitted. I have a very interesting book on the Sub-Antarctic Islands, and the Antipodes Islands are very inhospitable indeed, except for the seabirds. Wiki has a good entry on these islands. The coordinates of the Islands are 49° 40'0.12" S and 178°46'46.0" E , and checking on Google Earth, the true antipodes of these islands is near a village called Saint-Saens in Haute Normandie, in France, about 225 kilometres as the crow flies from London. But compared with the vast expanse of the Pacific, 225 kilometres is pretty close.

I then thought to check the antipodes of my own home in Hataitai, Wellington New Zealand. I found that this lay about 1.5 kms to the ESE of a small Spanish town, Alaejos, in the middle of what looks like a large ploughed field. According to Wikipedia, the town has a population of about 1,600. The main plaza, in front of the church to San Pedro, has its own antipodes in the rear garden of Government House, the large Edwardian Building that is the official residence of the Governor General in Wellington.

Alaejos looks to be a charming and historic small Spanish town, dating from the 12th or 13th century. In 1980 a heritage preservation order was placed on the town. From my pilgrimage Camino Santiago of 2007 I can say that these small Spanish towns are just so charming. The colour of the stone and the bricks, the paving, the glow in the evening, sitting outside by the café or bar, and watching the world go by, nothing nicer, as a tourist, passing through.

The thumbnail pictures below are clickable to a "pop-up window" with fulll size picture. But because my knowledge of html is limited, click off the pop-up before going to the next thumbnail or the sizing of the window will be incorrect. Thanks.



Wikipedia has a good article on antipodes, with a map of the world, showing the antipodes of every country and landmass. There is a map, which I have copied here. Click on the map to get to the bigger one.



What I find interesting about this map is how few major landmasses have their antipodes with another landmass. The vast majority of the population inhabit areas where the antipodes is ocean. Exceptions to this are New Zealand, who's antipodes extend from northern Spain, the north-eastern corner of Portugal, and across the Straits of Gibralter to Morocco, who's antipodes is Northland. The Americans have a saying "you might as well dig down to China", with the assumption being that China is the antipodes of the USA. This is thousands of kilometres out, the entire USA, apart from northern Alaska and Hawaii, has its antipodes in the southern Indian Ocean, but the very northern part of Canada, inluding the Canadian Arctic archipeligo, and northern Greenland has part of the Antarctic continent as its antipodes. A tiny fraction of northern Alaska is antipodeal to Antarctica, and the Hawaiian Islands are antipodal to Botswana. A small part of northern Siberia has its antipodes as the Antarctic penisnsula. The only larger population than New Zealand/Spain to have a land mass as its antipodes is South America/Eastern Asia, extending over Indonesia, the Philippines and eastern China, or visa versa, of course.

The discussion in Wiki makes it pretty clear that fact of a spherical earth was taken as common knowledge, including in the middle ages.

Two New Zealand cities have near-exact antipodes, Hamilton with Cordoba in Spain, and Whangarei with Tangier in Morocco. Auckland is a pretty close antipode to Seville, and Wellington and Madrids antipodes are 160 km apart. According to Wiki, Great Barrier Island is antipodal to Gibralter, but this doesn't seem to be true, Gibralter's antipodes lie in Northland, north of Auckland.

After spending quite a bit of time on Google Earth calculting our home's exact coordinates, and generally fiddling around, I found this site, referenced on Wikipedia in the article about Antipodes, enables you drill down very precisely to the opposite ends of the earth. You can zoom is, using Google earth, with two separate views, to your exact antipodes. For most parts of the earth this will be a somewhat boring experience, as you'll find yourself in the middle of the Ocean somewhere, but for most parts of New Zealand (exluding the southern half of the South Island, who's antipodes lie in the Atlantic Ocean, north of Spain) it is an interesting excursion, particularly as Spain is wellworth visiting in its own right. If I ever get there again, I'll make a pilgrimage to Alaejos, and visit "my" ploughed field, perhaps I'll put a photo of my house in the exact spot, and puzzle the farmer no end.





Other folk have had thoughts about the antipodes - a self-confessed American nerd, Ze Frank, had people travelling around the world, creating an Earth Sandwich by placing baguettes or slices of bread at antipodal points. Spain and New Zealand have done this. There's a video available of the Spanish part of the undertaking, it didn't explain exactly where the New Zealand crust was, but I am pretty sure it's the one pictured on Ze Frank's site, in Auckland..

Another antipodeal map is available here, Wendy Carlos has drawn a number of highly original maps using unconvential projections, well worth a visit.

Dreaming idly a bit further, the Wellington council are quite keen on public art and installations in Wellington. I wondered if one might consider an antipodean installation. I would call it an "Antipodescope", probably best pronounced with the accent on 'pode'. The installation would consist of a tube apparently sticking it's way vertically into the earth. One could dig a circular pit, covered with glass, so that the first say ten to fifteen feet can be visualised, to emphasise it sinking into the earth. One would be installed in Wellington and one in Alaejos. On top of this would be a large hemisphere, with a projection of the image of the antipode in real time, connected by a fast internet service. There would also be a CCTV inserted, ? with a wide angle/fisheye lens. You would design it to look attractive and arty, perhaps on the style of something from Jules Verne / Victorian fantasy. The tube should probably be of gleaming brass, to make it look like a periscope. It it were to be an exact antipodal point, one would be in the Plaza San Pedro and one in the car park at the rear of Government House. This might be a bit boring for the folk in Spain, so perhaps a good place for installation would be on the waterfront, one would have to excuse the misplacement due to a minor error in drilling through the planet, two kilometres out in 12,756 kms is only 0.015% error. I haven't quite got round to the visualisation yet, but I'll think about it some more, then design it. I am not sure what the residents and visitors to Alaejos would think of this proposal, anymore than the local residents here. But I think it sounds a fun concept.