Santa’s global gift trail tracked
Computer-savvy children knew exactly when Santa was visiting Christchurch on Christmas morning.
A Google Earth tracking filter allowed Santa’s real-time progress to be tracked as he travelled around the globe.
After starting off in Russia near the Bering Sea, the man in red flew to the Marshall Islands and Fiji before heading for New Zealand.
He flew into Auckland at 12.32 am, before travelling over Whanganui and Wellington and reaching Christchurch at 12.56 am.
He then left for Australia via Invercargill.
This was the first year Google had tracked Santa without the help of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) which had been tracking him since 1955.
Google built a new system to track Santa without the help of Norad, which has partnered with rival search engine Bing to provide the mapping service.