Google Street View goes wild

Hike the Otter Trail or one of the wilderness trails in the Kruger, see Bourke’s Luck Potholes or the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers… All without leaving your chair. That’s right: 170 iconic trails and viewpoints in South Africa have been added to Google Street View. A team of volunteers, in collaboration with Google and Drive South Africa, has gathered imagery from all of South Africa’s national parks, 17 other nature reserves and six World Heritage Sites. If you’ve always wanted to see the Stadsaal Caves in the Cederberg, you can get there without hurting your knees. More of a city slicker? Stroll down the Sea Point promenade in Cape Town, or down Church Street in Joburg. How does it work? Six members of the Drive South Africa team travelled about 50 000 km to remote corners of the country over the course of a year. More than 200 volunteers – many of them game rangers and guides working for SANParks, CapeNature and KZN Ezemvelo Wildlife – were enlisted along the way to help capture the images. The project is part of the Google Street View camera loan programme, which encourages people to apply for the use of a 360-degree camera to help the company map the world. What does the camera look like? “The Google Street View Trekker is a 22 kg backpack fitted with 15 cameras pointing in all directions,” says Andre van Kets, founder of Drive South Africa. “The camera takes a 360-degree photo every two seconds.” I want to help… Travellers, professional photographers and organisations can all apply. For more information, visit google.com/streetview/loan Which trails can I look at? Visit discoverafrica.com/trailfinder to find a specific trail. For an online gallery, visit google.com/ streetview/#discover-south-africa