A wrap of the biggest stories and best writing about the outdoors from New Zealand and around the world.

Ultrarunner Karel Sabbe is one of the world’s most famous long distance runners. The Belgian has smashed speed records on long distance trails around the world and was just the 17th person ever to complete the Barkley Marathons.

He has previously hiked the TA, but has returned this year to set the speed record on the trail. The current record set by George Henderson in 2019 is 49 days, 14 hours and 27 minutes.

On Sunday – just Sabbe’s fourth day on the trail – he posted that he and his support crew had been attacked by wild dogs. One of his crew was bitten, and had fallen and broke his elbow.

“Locals who were following brought [him] to the hospital, where he received first care,” Sabbe posted. “We hope he heals well and that he can rejoin the adventure in a couple of days.”

Before the attack, Sabbe said that he was overwhelmed by the local support he was receiving – including sampling a slice of home-made pizza along the way.

Recent ACC figures showed Northland had the country’s proportionally highest number of dog attacks, with 427 claims in the 2022-23 year; or 5.88 dog related injuries per 100,000 people.

Read the full story from RNZ and follow Sabbe’s progress live.

What happens to tramping poo?

The Department of Conservation holds the unenviable position of being in charge of a network of more than 2,000 toilets in scenic and remote locations.

Like any waste, poo must be managed, and dealing with it is one of DOC’s biggest operational expenses. Earlier this week The Spinoff took a deep dive into what happens to poo in the backcountry.

Long drops – pits that are eventually covered over and left to decompose – are usually only found at low-use remote locations. Other systems DOC uses are vault toilets, aka holding tanks which must be emptied. Septic tanks, which break down waste with bacteria, let liquid waste drain into a field and only have to be pumped every few years. Road-adjacent campsites can be pumped out by truck but popular backcountry locations need to use helicopters to remove the poo.

In February, the 5,000-litre tank at the popular Mueller Hut filled up faster than anticipated, and after DOC had to bar entry to some day walkers, there was an “emergency pumping operation”.

Fully equipped with protective suits and masks, trained rangers disconnect and seal the tanks, hook them onto the helicopter as sling loads and fly them down to an oxidation pond treatment system at Aoraki Mount Cook Village. Senior DOC ranger Dave Dittmer estimates that last year they flew 38,600 litres of waste by helicopter across the national park, and it cost $47,000.

Read more at The Spinoff.

‘Ghost camping’ debate dividing Tasmania

Tasmania ‘ghost camping’ fanatics are being attacked for unfair behaviour. So much so, that the island state is looking to change laws around free camping.

What is ‘ghost camping’? It’s when an unoccupied tent or caravan is left on a free campsite in order to reserve it. The problem is, that they then don’t use it for days, or even weeks.

On mainland Australia, the majority of the best and most popular campsites require a booking and a fee. In Tasmania they’re more typically free to use.But that’s all set to change with a new online booking system having been announced.

So what’s the problem? Some campers feel this hinders the very Australian way of seeing where the road takes you and camping on a whim. Others feel the sacrifice is worth being able to actually find an empty campsite. Read more from Australian Traveller.

Booming hut use raises case for Te Araroa walkers to pay more

Earlier this week, Timo Neubauer, owner of a small agri-tourism accommodation business in the Nelson Tasman region, shared their opinion that TA walkers should be paying more for hut fees in the The Press.

This year DOC introduced a $195 TA hut pass but Neubauer says this doesn’t go far enough to cover the usage to the huts along the trail. Especially during the busy summer months when the huts are in high demand amongst Kiwis.

Read his full opinion piece in The Press. 

Tramper rescued from Mt Angelus after getting stranded in thick fog

A trip to survey kea in the Nelson Lakes National Park turned into an overnight search and rescue mission for two Department of Conservation rangers, after they heard a person calling for help at nightfall in deteriorating weather.

DOC rangers Ricki Mitchell and Lana Handley had just caught a bird and were packing up for the night when Mitchell first heard what sounded like a call from across the valley. “It was very dark, the fog was very thick and I decided we needed to set off the personal locator beacon and go back to camp to get the radio to get in touch with our operations manager.”

The two rangers met with the Angelus Hut warden and carried out a coordinated search until 1am, but were forced by poor weather conditions to pause until first light. Mitchell said that decision was one of the toughest she had ever had to make.

At 9am, they saw the woman for the first time below the north ridge of Mt Angelus, separated from them by a large bluff. But the fog was still too thick for a helicopter to fly in so Mitchell and Handley retraced the lost hiker’s steps and found the woman uninjured about 1pm. Read the full story from RNZ.