South Africa is a vast country, with some pretty remote and inaccessible areas.

Driving down Long Street in a car with a camera attached that’s snapping images for Google Street View is one thing, but how would you map out the country’s national parks, or much-celebrated hiking trails?

Well, one thing South Africans love is a challenge, and we’ve risen to the occasion this time around.

The South African with this:

Drive South Africa in partnership with Google Maps has trekked the length and breadth of South Africa to map 170 new trails, six UNESCO World Heritage Sites and all 19 National Parks using Google’s wearable backpack, known as the Street View Trekker…an 18kg backpack camera.

The Trekker is walked through pedestrian walkways or trails on foot, and automatically gathers images as it goes…

The backpack has 15 cameras and takes a full panoramic photo every 2.5 seconds, roughly one photo per step taken by the person wearing the camera. Software stitches the images together to create one image.

Let this serve as a little reminder of how beautiful this country really is:

[source:southafrican]