Sorry it took so long to get to Episode II. I spent the three-day weekend snowboarding and jumping out of trees while under the influence of caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. If that's not an airtight excuse, I don't know what is.

So - my first major tramp was on the Saint James Walkway, which is about 90 minutes north of Christchurch. Because it's regarded as a pretty easy hike (no major elevation changes, no deadly river crossings, no bloodthirsty kiwis), I thought it'd be a good warm-up for the second, more difficult tramp I planned to do. Amazingly, it worked out pretty well.

Depending on your level of ambition, the St. James can be completed in five (reasonable pace), four (speedy pace), or three (Legendary Backpacker pace) days. (Being lazy and out of shape, I opted for five.) It runs through the valleys of several rivers - the Boyle, Anne, Henry, Ada, Maruia, and probably more. Most of the time I was in really cool old beech forests or on notably less-cool grazing land. Apparently the St. James' nickname is the "Cow Pie Trail". This is completely justified.

See?!?!?! Manure was present in such abundance that I was moved to take a picture of it.

They were clearly mocking me. Revenge had to wait until a Burger King was in reasonable walking distance. Because I'm from a fairly agriculture-heavy state, I consider myself an expert on all domesticated animals, and these cows seemed remarkably skittish. They usually fled if I came within 50 feet of them, though there were a few ornery-looking bulls to whom I gave a nice wiiiiiiide berth.

I have no idea how to describe the details of this hike in an interesting fashion, so I'm not going to try. There were some interesting features worth pointing out, though:

Interesting Feature 1: Swing Bridges

Yeah! Sweet sweet Indiana Jones-style action! They're actually a lot of fun to cross when you aren't surrounded by savages on one side and Nazis or something on the other. They definitely live up to their name, especially when it's windy out, but you'd have to work pretty hard to actually fall off of one.

Interesting Feature 2: Huts

Huts may be the single most wonderful aspect of hiking in New Zealand. All tracks maintained by the Department of Conservation have lovely little huts for trampers to spend the night in, usually spaced a day's walk apart (anywhere from 2-8 hours). They're spartan, but have the basics: clean water (collected rainwater or clean stream/river water), a wood or coal-heated stove, and several bunks complete with foam mattresses. All of the huts on the St. James also had 3-4 Reader's Digests on hand! I immediately reverted to my childhood habit of reading through all the reader-submitted joke/story sections and ignoring the rest. But really, the best part about the huts is knowing that you're going to be dry (or at least not get any wetter) that night when you're hiking through a non-stop downpour.

The lovely Boyle Flats Hut.
The bunks. Unless you're sharing the hut with someone who snores (which, luckily, I only experienced once), communal sleepin' is dandy.
The kitchen. Yeah, it's pretty much just a counter to cook on. When the huts are full, the sound of running camp stoves around breakfast and dinner times is almost deafening! This is also where I realized that bringing penne pasta on a camping trip was a really stupid idea. Its shape means it occupies waaaaay more space for its weight than spaghetti, thus takes more water to cook properly, thus takes longer to cook. Lesson learned.
The dining room. Yup, there it is.

The Boyle River.
Beech forest.
Some...natural stuff. The orange arrow on the tree was my buddy in that he told me where the trail was so I wouldn't stray and become feral.
Ferns! New Zealand has lots of 'em. It's sort of the logo of every Kiwi's pride and joy, the All Blacks (the national rugby team).
Grass! Scenery! I thought the grove of similar trees in the background was kinda neat.
These trees were covered with evil poky thorns of death. (I discovered this when I grabbed one in an attempt to avoid falling. Falling quickly became preferable.) Anyway, being spiny like cacti, I thought it would be funny to take a New Zealand version of the classic "Lazy Mexican in a Sombrero Sleeping Against a Cactus" picture. I don't think it worked.
Christopher Hut, complete with blue sky and lovely view. This was probably the most beautiful part of the hike.
More mountains! This time in the mist and stuff!

OK, so those pictures were pretty weak. The second hike I did, the Rees-Dart, was way better in every possible way, pictures included. But that'll have to wait for Episode III. Sowwy again.

those "huts" are pretty goddamn posh. so far new zealand looks positively, vomitaciously and nausealicously beautiful. makes me sick...

so was this hike in a national park of some kind?