A couple of cool new fea­tures have arrived at Google Maps.

First, the images used in the satel­lite tiles have been updated, and with images of a high­er res­ol­u­tion so you can zoom in right down to the smal­lest click on the slidey thing.

The old images pre-dated the bypass, so it’s good to see more up-to-date images.

Also, the images appear to have been taken on a bright sunny day and the city looks abso­lutely gor­geous.


View Lar­ger Map

Second thing is Google Trans­it, which lets you plan jour­neys using pub­lic trans­port (click on Get Dir­ec­tions in Google Maps).

Wel­ling­ton is the first city in Aus­tralasia to have Google Trans­it, as repor­ted in this envi­ous art­icle in the Her­ald.

Alan’s already had a bit of a play with it:

 

And we’ve had a look and it seems pretty use­ful – much easi­er to use than the fam­ously crap Met­link web­site.

There’s still a few things that need to be tidied up (it seems to think that the Air­port Bus drives across the har­bour), and it would be great to be able to spe­cify which type of pub­lic trans­port you want to search for. But we’re mostly enthused by this new addi­tion.

We still haven’t been able to find out how to get to Wel­ling­tonista Towers, though…