DoC Milford Great Walk booking glitches a sign of great demand, more walks open next week

The Mintaro Hut on the Milford Track is ready for its first full Great Walk season. Photo / Crystal Brindle, DoC

The Milford Track, the opening Great Walk of the 2023/24 booking season was “effectively sold out” by noon, says the Department of Conservation, but not before the overloaded website crashed under sheer demand.

Users spent up to an hour trying to log into the booking system which crashed shortly after opening at 9.30am.

Booking services manager Cameron Hyland said technical problems experienced by users were due to ”extremely high traffic”.

More than 10,000 people were connecting to the booking system at opening.

“In past years we’ve had between 6000-7000 people online at opening. Just before 10.30am the system seemed to recover and we started receiving high volumes of bookings.”

However, it was not until 1.15pm that the system was fully restored by the department’s IT provider, by which time the 8000 available spaces were almost fully booked.

Considering the long wait times on an overloaded website, bagging a space on next season’s walk was no mean feat. Some would-be trampers reported giving up in frustration after they failed to log in for over an hour.

With more Great Walks opening for booking from Wednesday, April 26, Hyland said they would try to make sure they were properly prepared for a similar level of demand.

“We acknowledge how difficult it was for some people trying to book a spot,” he said.

“We are now working with our IT vendor to understand the cause behind the issue we experienced and how it can be prevented from occurring again.”

As the first time in three years that booking on opening day included international visitors, it had been difficult to predict just what level of demand that Milford would attract on opening day.

International guests, who pay an international booking rate of 1.5 times, were unable to book with certainty last May due to Covid border restrictions.

Those who missed out this morning are advised to check back later, as unwanted spaces may be re-released.

Cat Wilson, DoC’s director heritage and visitors, says more places are cancelled than people might think.

“In the current season [2022/23] so far, we’ve had 7300 people complete a Milford Track booking. In the same time, 1479 people cancelled, which is 16.8 per cent of the total to date,” she says.

When the Great Walks open for booking

Bookings will open in four tranches, with the Milford opening today being the first.

Milford Track:

Thursday, April 20, 9.30am

Abel Tasman Coast Track, Kepler Track, Rakiura Track, Whanganui Journey:

Wednesday, April 26, 9.30am

Paparoa Track, Routeburn Track, Tongariro Northern Circuit:

Thursday, April 27, 9.30am

Heaphy Track - partially open due to trail damage:

Friday, May 16, 9.30am

The Lake Waikaremoana Track is currently closed by flood damage and booking dates are yet to be confirmed.