Basking in the warm glow of Obscura Day

by Annetta Black March 23, 2010

You guys. Seriously. That was amazing.

20 countries, 80 events, thousands of people out and about exploring the odd corners of our world.

Into the Newnes Glow Worm Tunnel in New South Wales Link

It all started in Australia with a group of intrepid explorers heading out to the Newnes Glow Worm Tunnel (There’s a great blog post and photos here), and continued with a visit to the Beverley Clock in New Zealand.

The “Hardy Tree” in St Pancras Churchyard, London. Link

In Rome, at the last minute our friends at Context Travel landed a private tour of the Mithraeum under Circus Maxiumus, and in London Strange Attractor led two tours of lost London. We saw rainy day photos from the poison gardens at Alnwick, and the creepy de-fleshed horseman at Musee Fragonard in France (details here).

Listening to the piratey history of the oldest subway tunnel in the world Link

We kicked off the US Obscura Day with a descent into the Atlantic Avenue subway tunnels in Brooklyn, and a walking tour of a beautiful Boston cemetery. Morbid Anatomy arranged exclusive behind the scenes tours at the Mutter Museum, and plastinated human organs were distributed and examined in Washington DC at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. As the sun moved west, people gathered to see Jim Onan’s golden pyramid house, and in New Mexico to create shiny mud balls (Hikaru Dorodango).

The barren landscape of California City was meant to be home sweet home Link

On the west coast we time-traveled through LA with the 826LA, learned the history of cabinets of curiosity in Seattle, BLDG BLOG led explorations into an abandoned desert wasteland in California City, and we visited with mechanical masterpieces old and new in San Francisco at Musee Mecanique and the Long Now Foundation.

Prototype chime generator for the 10,000 year Clock of the Long NowLink

All through the day we watched the Twitter stream of comments, and now we are watching the fabulous photos pouring in. If you have not already, go here now: Flicker Obscura Day Group

We are compiling field reports from each city that will be filtering in here. If you have video, photos, or Obscura Day stories you’d like to share with us please drop us a line at info@atlasobscura.com, and add your photos to the Flickr group.

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with some of our favorite (so far) photos from Obscura Day around the world.

Thank you all for making our first Obscura Day so terrific.