Using the Map Center for Outback New South Wales.

[Lifemagician]

To be fair, the map center is giving me exactly the same result as Google maps.

Am having trouble with one section of the route I plan to take in May. This section is from Wilcannia NSW to Ivanhoe NSW. I cannot get either map to route me over the Cobb Highway. It is shown on my paper maps. It also exists in both Google and the map center, but it won't route me over it.

I was just wanting to get the distance etc. Can probably work it out on the paper map, but cannot understand why the programs will not allow me to take that highway. Sure, I know it is unsealed.... but that goes for several other roads along my planned route.

Lifey

[Southwest Dave]

It's a 182km/113 mile journey, that's estimated to take just over 6 hours to complete ! A 20mph average says quite a bit about what they think of the road ! It doesn't look that bad, but looks like it could be just after or during a sand storm !

There doesn't appear to be anything along the road although there are place names, so it's possible the mapping programs are not recognising them. I used by cursor to drop and drag the route line on Google.

[Lifemagician]

Thanks Dave, how did you do that?

That is exactly what I tried to do, but the blue line would not move.... it insisted on going via Menindee Lake. Funny part is that neither the Menindee Wilcannia Road nor the Ivanhoe Menindee Road are sealed. At least, on my map here they are shown as unsealed. Going via Menindee is twice as far, and takes the same amount of time. I take it that you cannot pull the line across in the map center.

Mind you, all will depend on what the locals tell me when I get there, as to which way I go. But I have now got myself to at least lay out a basic route. Ivanhoe is a good half way from Wilcannia to Hay. Then a run straight into Melbourne.

Lifey

[Southwest Dave]

No you can't drop and drag with the RTA map centre, you have to use places you want to visit as 'waypoints' to alter the route and I'm not sure any in that remote area would be recognisable. You could try entering one of the place names as a waypoint and see if it's recognised, but you shouldn't need to now.

I had no problem with the drop and drag on that route. I know that Google will try hard to steer you around any unmade roads or those with seasonal closures [only during times they are closed it would seem] like the Tioga Pass. If you drag the blue route line to near to the start of the diversion, it will also try and turn you around and make you head back on yourself to get back on the suggested route, so you need to drag your cursor and place the dot at a 'distance of no return' if you know what I mean. [Midway point. If you go to far beyond that, it will guide you in from the other end of the route and back out again the same way]

[Mark Sedenquist]

Am having trouble with one section of the route I plan to take in May. This section is from Wilcannia NSW to Ivanhoe NSW. I cannot get either map to route me over the Cobb Highway.

Lifey, you don't need any recognizable names to create a custom map using the RTA Map Center. If you create a map using the Waypoint system you can create a map that is 100% unpaved and goes exactly where you want to go. (tips on using waypoints found here).

And yes, we had drag and drop on these maps, but we've disabled it -- it was far too clunky for my tastes.

I'm late to a meeting, but I can make a map of the route for you later today -- but it would probably not be 100% satisfactory, because I'm not familiar with the route.

Mark

[Southwest Dave]

Time for a refresher course !

An here's the result for you Lifey.



(Showing a route of 113 miles (yeah, we need to convert to Kms) Thanks to Dave for jumping in here -- now leaving for 2nd meeting of the day!

[Mark Sedenquist]

This was part of a private e-mail memo sent to RTA Custom Map Support:
Member: B & S:

"....I’ll still have to break our holiday into several maps, given that there are a maximum of 8 waypoints per map. However I don’t foresee this as a problem, other than perhaps having to choose relevant from/to parameters for each map, and the requirement to manually add the miles of the various maps to get a feel for how far we will be travelling overall. I’m very happy with the website from what I’ve seen thus far. Thanks again..."

[Southwest Dave]

You can tell the RTA mapping programs work well, just by the number of members using it everyday !

I usually create my roadtrip maps/routes on a 'per day' basis for better detail and clarity, as we like to travel less miles and see more things each day. Trying to do a whole trip, or even a week of travel on one map would be way to much info for us to follow clearly, which makes the 8 Waypoints plenty enough. Of course, if I wanted to drive across the country with minimum stops, the 8 Waypoints would be enough for the whole journey.

Dave.

[Lifemagician]

Dave, I have several routes I am considering, and am only using the mapping programs to get an idea of the distance and time of relevant routes. I do not use them for my trip, and get all the points of interest along the way from my maps, or the locals. I don't want to know too much, it takes all the surprise and discovery out of the trip.

My main points of interest after attending the convention in Adelaide, are.... Uluru, The Alice, Mt Isa, Innamincka and Cameron Corner. Fortunately, unlike in North America, I have limited roads and routes from which to choose. So not all that difficult. But I got really frustrated when I could not route over the Cobb. After I put in the intermediate names - Dromore, Manara, Gypsum Palace - it worked. They however, are not towns or villages. They are, in North American parlance, ranches.

Lifey

[Mark Sedenquist]

My main points of interest after attending the convention in Adelaide, are.... Uluru, The Alice, Mt Isa, Innamincka and Cameron Corner. Fortunately, unlike in North America, I have limited roads and routes from which to choose. So not all that difficult. But I got really frustrated when I could not route over the Cobb. After I put in the intermediate names - Dromore, Manara, Gypsum Palace - it worked.

Lifey, just to remind you -- you really don't need the intermediate names when you are creating routes -- especially since you're primary intent is just to get the route distances.

Just use Method 1 when creating the waypoints and you can "bend" the map route exactly where you want it to go even if there are no ranches or any other kind of physical places along a given route.

Method 1
1. Scroll and zoom in on the map to locate the point of interest.
2. Click the button labeled "Click here."
3. Click on the map to place the marker where it belongs. (If you don't get it in the right spot, you can drag it to the correct position. Make sure your marker is near a road if you want to create an automatically generated route to it.

If you forget to look at the route distance prior to saving, all you have to do to look at the distance is to click on the route number!