Great Walks bookings re-open this week
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/418438/great-walks-bookings-re-open-this-week
>Bookings for most of New Zealand's Great Walks open this week, but trampers keen on two of the most popular ones will have to wait a little longer.
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>Starting from this Tuesday, bookings will start opening for domestic travellers on seven of the Great Walks.
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>But the Conservation Minister said storm damage on the popular Routeburn and Milford tracks is still being repaired, and cannot be booked until at least next month.
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>Eugenie Sage said the Department of Conservation (DOC) is advising overseas visitors not to book while travel restrictions remain in place, which will mean less competition for hut space.
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> She also urged domestic travellers to be well-prepared.
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>"For anyone wanting to get out over winter, the Rakiura, Abel Tasman, Heaphy, Paparoa, Lake Waikaremoana and Abel Tasman Coast tracks offer a range of year-round walking and biking opportunities, but you must be well prepared," says Eugenie Sage.
don't get trampled in the stampede for places..
the reduced the fees for overseas tourists from double to 1.5 the nzer fee.
doubling it made no difference to the speed the most popular walks filled up in the holidays, ie minutes
Thank god they have these walks.
It certainly reduces the number of SHEEP in all the other places.
2
To all you negative nellies who seek to suggest i'm somehow being negative. The world needs sheep too.
I myself just need to experience nature without a whole lot of people around.
That's what towns and cities are for.
I'm not so sure the great walks are absorbing enough people to keep other tracks free.
the amount of international advertising created a glut of trampers coming in, too many for the great walks they came to walk then they did spill over onto other good tracks, further pushing out locals. theres a lot of good tracks around otago that are just swamped...
a lot of people coming for the great walks dont even bother booking in advance, they just expect to turn up and get a place...
i dont think the great walks achieved much at absorbing the no's the ones down south are only absorbing a fraction of the people wanting to walk them. the market for those tracks is far far bigger than NZ can provide...
more and more other huts are turning into bookable huts because of the overspill onto other tracks.
meanwhile a massive amount of DOC resources are put into maintaining a limited amount of tracks... catering for a small fraction of the total no of trampers...
How it's being 'marketed' is that you can hike into a hut, stay the night for FREE, hike out the next day & drive down the road to your next FREE overnighter.
thats certainly how the grape vine amongst freedom campers is passing on the word about tramping huts.. free accommodation.
the great walks has its share of stealth campers avoiding fees. the routeburn and kepler also get thrashed by massive no's of day walkers that arent contributing anything to DOC.. their excrement has to be helicoptered off the tracks.
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| Forum | Tracks, routes, and huts |
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| Started by | pseudo |
| On | 7 June 2020 |
| Replies | 6 |
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