I've looked it over, with some background maps of the 40k galaxy from different time periods and I figure I've got the idea what the confusion is. Even so, warp travel is never totally predictable, either in its duration or eventual destination. Spacecraft are also able to make corrective movements in warp space and can enter or leave warp space at a chosen moment. This is a useful metaphor as far as it goes, but it must be remembered warp space is far more complex in its movements than the linear stream, for it can move in all sorts of convoluted and bewildering patterns. The leaf does not move relative to the water, but is merely carried by it until it lodges at some point downstream from its original location. A leaf dropped into the water upstream will move along, floating on the surface of the water. The stream represents warp space, moving rapidly along its motionless banks, representing real space. A metaphor commonly used to explain how warping works is that of the fast flowing stream. A spacecraft can exploit this phenomenon by entering warp space, allowing itself to be shifted along by its natural flow, and then re-entering normal space a distance away from the starting point. This is not perceptible in warp space itself of course, because the fluidity is only relative to our own reality.
A more accurate analogy would be to think of warp space as a dense fluid medium which is subject to constant movement, currents, undertows, etc. It is not strictly true to say that distances in warp space are 'shrunk' compared to those of normal space. Movement within warp space bears a distinct relationship to distance travelled in normal space, and this relationship can be manipulated to make faster-than-light travel possible. Movement within warp space are different from those of our own universe.
It is, in a sense, an alternate reality or parallel dimension in which the laws of time and space are different from those of our own universe. Warp space is the medium through which faster-than-light spacecraft travel between the stars.
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