[gps-talkusers] finding our way in Australia

I am getting a real kick out of using the maps here in Australia for the first 
time. My wife and boys are with me and I asked them to be patient and to let me 
do all the guiding with the GPS so I can see just how the maps and routing is 
working here. We have had a number of experiences worth noting.

We took a day long tour into the Blue Mountains so I'd get to see how things 
were in Sydney and in the outlying areas. The POIs were pretty good. Our guide 
was impressed when I would ask him about nearby small towns or funny sounding 
points of interest. The data was pretty good. I got to check out the vehicular 
routing and it seemed fine other than one major road that was not in the map 
data.

I was really surprised on a pedestrian route from the Marriott to a restaurant 
called Fish on the Rocks that we were routed on something called the Argyle 
Stairs. These were an actual set of stairs that took us over a highway. Won't 
it be great when more pedestrian paths are in the map data one of these days?

We took ferries, we found our way to the Sydney Aquarium and back and found any 
number of restaurants. The typical big city issues ocasionally occurred when 
the direction of travel would be thrown off by the tall building multi path 
affect. By using the getting warmer method for my destination, I was not fooled 
by this multi path. It is amazing that virtually every signal intersection has 
an audible indicator and they are the good kind, not those coocoo sounds.

We are now in a nearby place called Manly where there aren't tall buildings and 
directionality is much better. I noticed that some of the fix nav aids in the 
POI database coming over here from Sydney on the ferry had the word, "shark" in 
them. I wonder just what these were.

It has been great to be the navigator for my family on this holiday and I look 
forward to another day or so of exploration.

Mike
 


Michael G. May

CEO Sendero Group

Developers and distributors of BrailleNote GPS 
Distributing BrailleNote, VoiceNote, Talks, Miniguide, The Tissot Silen-T 
tactile watch, and the ID Mate bar code reader 

MikeMay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.SenderoGroup.com

1-888-757-6810, Fax (530) 757-6830, Mobile (530) 304-0007 
Sendero Group, LLC
1118 Maple Lane, Davis, CA 95616-1723, USA

Latitude, 38 33 9.239 North
Longitude, 121 45 40.145 West

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