Saturday, July 17, 2010

Google Maps FAIL!

Today I went on a crafty day out with my crafty friend Kate. I was going to tell you about what an ace time we had in Ilkley and Saltaire, who we saw, what we did but my photos are mainly rubbish so I am going to wait until I can get hold of Kates infinity better pics.

Tonight I will tell you about our comedy adventure. Generally what happens when we go somewhere is that I print out a load of maps and directions before we go, I pick Kate up, we set off, we look at directions, we generally start chatting then miss our turning and make the directions up as we go along.

Today we were good though. We got all the way to Ilkley without getting lost...well except when we missed a tiny turning but that was because we were looking at deer in a field near Harewood House not because we were talking so that doesn't count.

When we got back in the car to go to Saltaire I mentioned that the directions seemed to want to take us literally *over* Ilkley Moor. We looked and decided that it must be a little road and all would be fine, Google maps wouldn't send us somewhere a car couldn't go. Off we went

The road went up and up, Kate was following the route on her IPhone, we were going the right way. We went over a cattle grid, that's fine, I used to live in Wales, cattle grids are nothing, the road got smaller still, we discussed how it wouldn't be clever if we met a car coming in the opposite direction coming down the hill. Once again, I rationalised that I have driven on Anglesey, the roads are as bad there and they have psycho boy racers. Our ears popped some more, we passed a walker, we went higher still, admiring the view; Kate helpfully told me that the view was ace out the back then we came to here.....


You can't read that sign? Let me help you...

Yep, that says 'Unsuitable for motor vehicles' . We sat there for a bit considering a plan. We thought about carrying on but what is missing from this photo is the other sign that basically says go any further than this in your car and you will either kill yourself or get shot by the farmer who put a great big 'KEEP OUT' sign up to the right.

Obviously at this point we discussed the photo opportunities so Kate jumped out to get photographic evidence while I stayed in the car with foot firmly on the brake and hand-brake on. Photos taken we turned around and went back down the hill, strangely enough, not meeting any other cars and went to Saltaire a much less direct way but on an actual road with tarmac.

I have edited Google maps. I thought it might help them.....


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love our mini adventures, today was hilarious and the map failing unforgettable :-) haha brilliant xxx

Unknown said...

I feel your pain, but I'm glad you both had a good day even with the detour. My poor husband's boss gives him directions to every job with Google maps and they're almost never right, even Tom Tom would have had us drive through some poor bloke's kitchen on Thursday:)

Daisy said...

Oops... I do end up rescuing a lot of people in our road when I'm doing the front garden - Google maps hasn't noticed our road has two halves, totally separate!

Lisa-Marie said...

This is exactly the kind of thing that happens to me. SatNav tried t get my husband and I to drive into a field once, and shouted at us for not doing.

Linden said...

That is hilarious!!

We had a similar Google maps fail last weekend on our way down to Derbyshire ... We got there in the end, after a number of dead ends and otherwise just totally wrong directions - and the next day went out and bought a road atlas!