Cookie tells me this thing we’re carrying is basically an SOS beacon with a tracking widget built in. New Zealand can get pretty remote out there in the mountains. So I feel comforted by the fact that is thing is plugged into the local emergency services, wherever we are, and Cookie assures me that if I press the red button any time in the mountains a helicopter would literally scramble to come get us… Phew! Fingers crossed we’d never need such a thing, but excellent to know that if something awful should happen we can be saved quick smart!
But the nice side effect is that you guys can constantly see where we are, and spy on us from the satellites above. You can check out the terrain around us, and even see how far we’ve covered that day. Pretty cool eh? So i imagine our blog posts will always be a little behind our actual location as we try to sniff out Internet and wifi from town to town. But when we chat about a town, river, or mountain you’ll be able to pop back, zoom in and have a good look at it just as if you’re with us :D
When I remember to turn the damn thing on and off (forgot to start it at Cape Reinga..), you should be able to see our progress updated every 10 minutes on this map! Also the spacing between the orange circle should give you an idea of how fast or slow we’re going ;)
By default it just shows you the most recent day, but you can view more tracking data by selecting the history drop down in the top left. Be warned – as we fill the map with thousands of GPS points your computer might have trouble displaying them all..
The device is a little Spot Tracker, the aggregation of data and mapping is handled by Spotwalla.
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