By: Blonde One

Our recent walk on Dartmoor involved more than the usual amount of technology. As always we used the OS app to trace our route and provide us with a handy image of where we were. I was also practising with my new Suunto watch to make sure that I properly knew how it worked before hitting the Scottish Munros next month.

I was checking the working of the altimeter so that when I am halfway up the mountain I know exactly how many metres of climb there is left! It’s a clever feature of the watch based on changed in air pressure. You have to calibrate it before you start walking, which you might think is easy. Not so for the Two Blondes struggling with cold fingers and lots of beeping buttons! Eventually though we sorted it out.

En route we also decided to use the OS locate app which is also very good at giving a grid reference and altitude. Comparing the altitude from the watch and phone was interesting and proved that often technology should be used as a guide and not be completely relied upon. As I’ve previously told you the watch also has a thermometer and we were surprised to find that despite the hail it wasn’t as cold as we thought it was. The gadget overload reduced us to giggles at one point as I told Blonde Two that it was 8° (meaning Celsius) and she responded that that made sense as we were heading almost North. She thought I was telling her the compass bearing. It just goes to show that you need to be careful with your gadgets!

At the end of the walk there was only one minor issue that left me feeling slightly dissatisfied … I didn’t use my compass once and I missed it!