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Post by ken on Oct 3, 2009 4:54:51 GMT
Namgyal Monastery.
Located at Dharamshala in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Its also known as Namgyal Dratsang. It was founded by Sonam Gyatso the 3rd Dalai Lama in 1575 ad. Only the Dalai Lama and his students are allowed inside the monastry and at present there are just over 180 monks living there. If you want to see inside, you can study the Tantra and Sutra in the ajoining institute for 13 years and become a monk.
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Post by ken on Oct 3, 2009 5:13:04 GMT
I am stood 25 degees 4 minutes South, 130 degrees 6 minutes West at St Pauls Point looking at the Pacific Ocean. Where is St Pauls Point???  |
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Post by nocky2 on Oct 3, 2009 10:09:22 GMT
Hi KC, I think you're standing on the West coast of Pitcairn Island.
"One of the most remote of the world's inhabited islands, Pitcairn lies in the South Pacific Ocean roughly midway between Tahiti and Easter Island. Pitcairn Island is 4,155 nautical miles (nm) southwest of Los Angeles, 3,504 nm northwest of Santiago, Chile and 3,314 nm northeast of Wellington, New Zealand. Pitcairn is 11,281 nm from Cairo.
Pitcairn was discovered in 1767 by a midshipman named Pitcairn aboard HMS Swallow, but the island was not settled until 1790 when Fletcher Christian and his band of mutineers arrived aboard the Bounty. In a tale immortalized on film by Clark Gable and Charles Laughton (1934), Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard (1962) and Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins (1984), Fletcher Christian seized the Bounty from Captain William Bligh and eventually steered it to Pitcairn Island.
The Bounty had sailed from England in 1787 on a mission to gather breadfruit trees in Polynesia and transport them to the British West Indies where, it was thought, breadfruit would provide a new, cheap source of food for slaves on the sugar plantations. After ten months and 27,000 nm of sailing, the Bounty finally arrived in Tahiti. During the five months which the ship remained in Tahiti while young breadfruit trees were cultivated, many of the crew became captivated by the local women.
The famous mutiny on the Bounty took place some 3 1/2 weeks into the sail from Tahiti westward toward the West Indies. Bligh and 18 loyal crew were set adrift in a longboat. Against all odds nearly all of these men eventually reached Dutch-held Timor (Indonesia) after a 3,600-nm open boat voyage. Meanwhile, Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers returned to Tahiti for their women. After leaving behind at Tahiti 16 men who wished to remain, nine mutineers and their women plus nine other Polynesian men and women roamed the Pacific for several months in search of an island on which they could hide. Eventually Fletcher Christian sailed the Bounty to Pitcairn which, fortunately, had been charted incorrectly by 200 miles. There the Bounty was burned to hide all evidence of the mutineers' arrival.
Most of the 50 current inhabitants of Pitcairn are descendants of the original Bounty mutineers and the Polynesians who accompanied them. Some of the others are descendants of shipwrecked sailors who decided to remain on the island and marry."
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Post by ken on Oct 3, 2009 11:27:45 GMT
Well done, nice navigation Nocky.
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Post by nocky2 on Oct 4, 2009 17:00:10 GMT
Google was my friend Ken.  This famous Earth Station is near Helston in Cornwall, and recieved the first ever "live" TV broadcast from the USA.  |
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Post by ken on Oct 4, 2009 17:32:05 GMT
Goonhilly Downs.
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Post by nocky2 on Oct 4, 2009 21:44:22 GMT
Correct Ken, well spotted. ;D
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