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.
