photo tracking in the rain

Last week I manged to borrow a GPS photo tracker from my mate Sue who runs the North Sheffield CLC (hope you enjoyed Glastonbury Sue!).

Didn't find the time to try it until Sunday when I found I had a spare hour between swimming with the family and the visit of in laws in the afternoon. So installed the software, got the GPS to find its location, synched it to my digital camera and set off toward Rivelin in the sunshine.

Going down by the allotments first near disaster, the tracker detached itself from the supplied lanyard and lodged in someone’s rhubarb. Retrieved and relocated it to cycling top pockets. Stopped to take various shots on the way, opted to wade through the ford rather than cycle it when I saw it was almost over the dog walkers wellington tops.

Just got to Coppice Lane when the weather comes in of the peaks. Driving rain now but opted to carry on up to Stannington just to keep warm. By now office camera was getting a bit upset at the weather so hasty trip down the valley side and back up through the woods. Almost dropped the camera in the river at one point which would have taken some explaining today at work.

Saw a newly cleared bridleway so headed down it for some shelter from the rain , only to realise it was rapidly taking me all the way back down to Rivelin Valley road. I didn’t want to have to come back up Hagg hill so I opted to head off the trail into the woods.

Now technically I wasn’t lost, I mean i had 3 GPS units with me (Garmin, Nokia N95 and the Photo Tracker) and i could hear Rivelin valley traffic but I did end up dragging the bike up a rocky outcrop and through a particularly sharp hedge to get back to Hagg Lane.

Reunited with the route I set of back home and had my one near disaster, my handlebar got caught on that new metal gateway which i supposed to keep motorbike off the trails. This pitched me sideways and I had that dreadful fraction of a second when the pedal decided it would be load mire fun to hang onto the shoe cleat.

Home safely, dried off, and then came the fun bit trying to get the supplied software to tag the pictures. I was getting nowhere till I twigged that the GPS was still using GMT not GMT +1 (British summer time...allegedly)

Uploaded the results onto Google earth where they worked perfectly. Then went ahead and added them to my Flickr map.

Here's the results, a rather damp but beautifully located set of photos



This is the little GPS unit.

http://flickr.com/photos/walkleyian/map/

Definitly need a new rear tyre on my cross bike as doesn't grip ot all in wet mud now.