Travelogue of An Armchair Traveller

Google Earth Community - Fun and Games

Google Earth Community is full of information which ranges from, but not limited to, history, geography, nature, environment, architecture, military, transportation, social / religious beliefs, festivals, huge, unique, bizarre items, current happenings etc etc.

My favourite section in the Community is "Fun and Games" - in which members post riddles and puzzles on almost all subjects and generally give hints for searching and locating the relevant places and or events on Google Earth. I have made several hundred posts in this forum and must have solved about the same number, though several were beyond my grasp. Believe me it is not easy to solve these riddles - Finding the answer is 90% perspiration (research) and 10% inspiration but it is pure 100% joy and sense of exhilaration.

This forum provides a stimulus to my brain and keeps it active. I strongly recommend this for those who have time and penchant for solving puzzles, but a word of warning – it is highly addictive.

My travels around the World are not limited to Fun and Games only, however many of the places being covered in this travelogue were found as a result of my researches for making posts in Fun and Games or trying to solve the riddles given therein.

The balanced rocks are a geological formation created due to wind/water erosion or glacial melting. These precariously balanced rocks are wonder of the nature and to a viewer it looks that these would topple by a gentle human push or a wind force. However most of these rocks have remained steadfast for past several thousand years though some were vandalised and pushed over. To some scientists these rocks are a sign of seismic stableness of the location.

This post is part of the series about these awesome and breath-taking rocks around the world. List giving links to individual rocks can be seen here and a combined big page showing all the rocks can be viewed here.

Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve

Devils Marbles (aka Karlu Karlu) Conservation Reserve, near Warumungu, Northern Territory, Australia is a stunning landscape full of gigantic rounded granite boulders, many of which are precariously balanced on top of another rock. Natural processes of weathering and erosion have taken millions of years to created many boulders of amazing shapes from the remains of molten lava.

Most famous of these boulders are two precariously balanced round boulders, which are also called "Devil's Marbles". Besides these two rocks there are other round rocks also in the region hence the name Karlu Karlu which is an Aboriginal term for round stones.