My electric razor (the bain of my personal manicuring) had long since died, and so at our next stop, which was at a “retirement town’s shopping centre” (the real name escapes me) I went to buy a new one, and succeeded in paying $50 for what was to be the world’s 2nd worst electric razor.
Before we knew about it though, we were in Wellington, the capital city of this fine country, and parting place of the tour for Steve and I. Sort of. Actually we’d done some investigating and found out that the Connections tour actually ran very close to our outlined plan for the South Island, and we had the decency to decide to crash their parties at every opportunity.

Our accommodation in Wellington was really very interesting. During the 1970s it was the flashest hotel around and there were photos all through the corridors of International Leaders’ conferences being held there. But apart from these two points it is quite the dive and I wouldn’t recommend anyone actually stay there, save if they really appreciate the smell of an old people’s home. OK maybe that’s a little harsh: the rooms are clean, and the beds are soft, but there are few things about it that are just downright inconvenient at best.
There is no Internet café within close walking distance, which made it a pretty poor choice for a backpacker’s place. The lifts are old, crusty and temperamental. The bar shuts at 9:30pm. And the people who run it don’t seem to have grasped one or two hotel fundamentals.
On our last day there Steve and I checked out and asked to leave our suitcases in storage and our passports in a safe. OK, luggage storage is no biggie, but the idea of using their one and only safe was new to them (as in how did we even know they had a safe???). The lady had to call the manager and he gave us a funny look before moving on a big friendly smile and cracking a non-amusing joke. He put our stuff in the safe fair enough, but the real trouble was when we came to grab it again. The lady at the counter looked at us a little oddly (and a little guiltily) and told us that the manager was out on a shuttle run and he held the only key to the safe. This was less than convenient for us, because we had a cab waiting out front to take us to the airport. The lady nearly started to become a little flustered, but was saved by thte sound of the shuttle van pulling up outside. I went out to try and hurry up the manager, explaining our position as he unloaded some people’s luggage. He was, once again, quite friendly and tottered in to open the safe. He said to us “I bet you guys were panicking a bit hey?” and I flatly replied that no, not really because we figured someone physically at the hotel would surely keep a key to the safe. He laughed at that idea – “of course not, all my wages are kept in that safe, I’m not going to leave the key lying around”. Steve and I thanked our hapless hosts and our lucky stars and got out quick smart. Anyway, enough about the hotel, back to our night in Wellington.

For dinner that night we all (still with the Connections guys at the mo) wandered down to the Shepherd’s Arms, a hotel with a great bar that serves great food. The bar is a Speights Ale House (Speights is a great South Island brewery) which really means it’s a building built purely so the kiwis can laud it over us Aussies with how good their beer is. Each of the different Speights I tried was really good, and I only tried about half of them. The food at the Arms was a good head above average; I didn’t hear a single word of anyone not being entirely satisfied, except if they wished they could have also ordered someone else’s meal.