Record trampers putting pressure on DOC
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/02/record-trampers-putting-pressure-on-doc.html
Record numbers of visitors are tramping our Great Walks over the summer, and it's putting pressure on the Department of Conservation (DoC).
In Fiordland, on the remote Routeburn Track, even simple things like maintaining a toilet can get complicated.
Lake MacKenzie Hut on the Routeburn Track is one of the most remote flush toilets in the country. It's the second most popular of all the Great Walks with thousands of walkers tackling the track.
"We've got 15 tanks of sewage to come out, ten tanks from this particular hut and four from the camp site," DoC hut ranger supervisor Pania Dalley says .
A sewage disposal operation with a big price tag, requiring a chopper to lift 600 litres of human waste within the tanks.
Tourists have found the tracks to be bustling with fellow walkers. Hiker Michael Dunphy said: "It was a bit like Queen Street yesterday" and Nicola Dunphy said it's been quite noisy with some people's alarms going off at 5:30am.
The hut is at capacity from October right through to May, and that leads to an influx of day walkers who can't get a booking but still need to use a toilet.
An increase in the number of walkers has seen the amount of sewage double in the last three years, to fifteen tanks being taken out today when it used to be about eight.
Hut ranger Clive Rule has manned the MacKenzie Hut for 25 years, and he's seen bookings for the 55 beds made six months in advance.
"We are at capacity, we wouldn't want more people, I think, no," Mr Rule said.
It's a tough job to keep the balance between a clean green wilderness experience and the demand for our great outdoors.
Newshub.
the great walks are extremely heavily marketed world wide... then on top of that there are the private guided huts flying their sewerage out as well... they take nearly as many people as the DOC huts
Just think what that number of people would of been like in the days of the single long drop (or is that not so long drop)
Not sure why DOC is continuing to make these media releases.
trying to convince the public, so that the politicians will listen?
DOC has promoted these tracks, built so called huts for massive numbers, what did they expect?
Their own strategy is flawed
then again, if all the tourists stay on these walks, that leave the rest of the country without them
"then again, if all the tourists stay on these walks, that leave the rest of the country without them"
just the opposite. a lot of people travel here, to do those great walks because of the publicity, not realising they need to book long before they want to do the walk, cant get a booking so they find another track to flood onto..
numerous tracks around the great walks are getting overloaded and now you have increased interest in difficult tracks for experienced people getting the attention of people without a clue wanting to do them, thinking they are going to be similar to a great walk.... foreigners wanting to be rescued because they got tired or hypothermic at the end of the day... because they weren't prepared for the conditions and they couldnt get to a cosy hut. or they are drowning because they dont have the river crossing skills to know when not to cross, or they don't know there are unbridged dangerous river crossings. DOC and the tourism industry have been shooting themselves in the foot due to the byproduct of oversubscribed tracks
even the tourism industry, are now specifically promoting NZ outside of the main tourist season because, the country is at capacity now and cant cope with more people... the routeburn is like the milford now, starts selling out month in advance, the main holiday season sells out straight away..
My family did the routeburn as a day hike a couple of weeks ago. It's a nice walk.
We did the entire South Island . Kahurangi, Arthurs Pass, Paparoa, Hokitika, Queenstown region, Takitimu, Caitlin's, Mt Cook. We went on a cruise through the Milford sound.
All during the heart of tourist season. I can honestly say that from our experience the core overseas tourist spots like Motueka, Punakaiki, ,Milford sound, Te Anau and QT had a ton of tourists and the big walks had they're fair share of trampers. But it never felt claustrophobic or overcrowded. In fact it was no big deal. Not our thing but bareable.
But off that the roads were quiet the tracks were quiet and we had the island to ourselves. In general I think they do stick to the trail. The odd place gets popular. But it's a bloody huge island full of mountains and it's so easy to get a mountain or valley to yourself.
We realised that other than dairy tourism is what keeps the South Island going it is it's the honey to the dairy industries milk.
It's not going anywhere it's just getting bigger. We have to get over it. That island is a paradise with a million places off the main highways. Calm down and let the foreigners have a month of fun in our paradise. Open up a pie shop and cash in hahaha.
Surely increased trampers on the Routeburn also means increased revenue to pay for services, including sewage removal. Its just like any other business really.
I'm not sure how much the fullness of the Great Walks pushing people onto other tracks is causing a problem. I was up the Greenstone with the kids in Mid January, could stay at Greenstone Hut, we arrived there early but I think there were two spare bunks by night time so no overly crowded.
What seems to be more of a problem down here is the full booking of the Great Walks tracks and relatively high cost of same is pushing more people into trying to do those trips out of season. People seem fixated on completing one of the walks they have heard so much about from overseas publicity and don't understand how different it will be out of season.
I think there have been deaths of ill equipped / unprepared foreigners trying to do a Great Walk out of season down here every year for the last three years.
(He says with a profile picture on top of Conical Hill in winter - don't do as I do, do as I say!)
It would be interesting to see DoC trial tiered pricing - lower fees for NZ citizens, especially for high school students. Getting the next generation passionate about our conservation and wilderness areas is very undervalued. Perhaps then we'd see DoC no longer being chronically underfunded and more lands being bought, more tracks being developed and the 'load' spread more evenly.
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| Started by | waynowski |
| On | 3 February 2017 |
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