Re: Longest possible walk

Goalie of the Century wrote:

In message <rps9d4l7co6n99crd64h1bhf01kdealgcr@xxxxxxx>, Phil Cook
<phil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
teddyloveshome@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Here's an interesting question for the mappists and Google-Earthers
among you:

What's the longest possible straight line walk/land journey on earth?
And what about the longest possible straight line sea journey?

On land it is across Russia. On sea you could sail forever round the
Southern Ocean.

Surely you must apply the same rules on land and water. If heading due
East is travelling in a straight line you could walk round the South
Pole at a distance of 10 m forever.

I made the mistake of looking at flat maps and not a globe.

Any long line on the Earth's surface won't be straight in three
dimensions because of the curvature of the Earth. You could define it
as staying on a flat plane but to get interesting answers you should
also require the plane to pass through the centre of the Earth to give a
great circle route.

For a sea route how about setting off from Cape Town heading to pass
just South of Cape Horn? If you could dodge the islands I think you
wouldn't hit land again until somewhere around Kamchatka - about 22 Mm.

On land, Abidjan to Shanghai is about 13 Mm but might need a bit of
tweaking to get South of the Caspian Sea and North of Suez.

For any great circle route crossing both Asia and Africa on land the
Mediterranean, Red, Caspian and Black Seas make things awkward.

The best I seem to be able to find using this
http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between.htm

Is Abu Zenima in Egypt (on the Sainai peninsula) to Magadan in Russia
at 5,370 miles. But if you try and walk it you are going to run into
serious trouble with the Ob, Yenisey and Lena Rivers.

Eastbourne to Gairloch is the longest I could find on Great Britain at
537 miles threading between the Eden and Forth estuaries (Carlisle to
Stirling) but has problems with lochs further North in Scotland. But
it would have crossed Loch Loyne on the old Tomdoun road.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"
.

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