Plan On Walking Across New Zealand? Here Are The Gadgets This Guy Took

One does not simply walk into Mordor… nor do they spontaneously embark on a 3000km run across New Zealand. Yet, that’s what UK “ultra-runner” Jez Bragg did earlier this year, with the help of a few choice pieces of tech.

Bragg talks at length over on Pocket-Lint about the hardware he took or otherwise made use of in his trek across the country. The core items were a Spot, a satellite messaging system and SOS device; an iPhone 4 and a Garman Oregon GPS.

With the Spot tethered to his iPhone, Bragg was able to “send pictures and tweets” thanks to what he describes as “pretty good 3G”, despite often finding himself surrounded by forest. The connectivity also allowed for instant feedback on his updates, which Bragg says he found “inspiring”.

Why the separate GPS device if he had an iPhone? Bragg explains:

“There are too many limitations with a smartphone. I have like the whole of the UK on 1:50,000 on my iPhone and I do use that for navigation but, you know, the iPhone’s battery is… well, it’s terrible really.”

A “support team” of two armed with cameras took snapshots and film, collecting some “2 or 3 terabytes of data”, according to Bragg.

As for the walk itself, which took about 53 days, the Pocket-Lint story says the runner had to cover 60km per day. This was also accompanied by a 24km kayak to go between the islands.

If you’d like to read more about Bragg’s cross-county journey, be sure to hit up his blog.

[Pocket-Lint]

Image: Damiano Levati / The North Face