We parted ways for the evening, me promising Susanne we would see each other again, and I headed up to my room. Steve was still awake and he told me Ash and Jamie had just left, and there was a knock on the door. Ash and Jamie burst in saying good on me and what happened and such. I stick to my traditionally tight-lipped guns, but we still had a good laugh at what I missed out on with the boys that evening.
So that was it, my last official night with the Connections tour. In the morning Steve and I would be free men, but that meant free to do everything for ourselves too.

Fortunately Steve and I are responsible grown men who can look after ourselves and don’t need anyone’s assistance. Except maybe in the case of packing up in time for checkout. We did make it though, just, and put all our gear safely away in the bowels of this hospitality monster (as mentioned a couple of entries ago), then hit the road.
Down the road we stopped off for eggs Benedict at The Ministry of Food – so nice I even remember eating it! Around the corner we found an Internet café and I continued the saga of my watch returning to me.
This is the same watch I lost only a few days earlier on the day trip from the Bay of Islands up to Cape Reinga. I knew where on the bus I’d put it, and had let the company know the next day where it was. This was good, the cleaners found the watch (right where I said, I guess), but somehow it was lost again when the bus went in the following day for a service at a garage. Right, well, the awesome adventure of finding my watch goes on. I gave them another call on this morning and they told me they’d be more than happy to reimburse it, if I could send them a copy of my receipt. Fortunately I still had it in my wallet – I’d only bought the watch at Brisbane Customs a week earlier and it was still in my wallet. So I scanned the receipt and e-mailed it off, trying to be nice and not upset or sarcastic in tone.
We then trotted over to the nearby NZ House of Parliament and after being rejected at the main entrance, proceeded to the tourist entry for a guided tour. After delaying for a bit until the tour actually started we went in and participated in perhaps the most nerdy activity of the whole trip – spending an hour learning about NZ’s government – everything from the earthquake proofing upgrades of the 90s to the room where the now dissolved Upper House sat. Works of art that take up large ex-car park rooms, stories of repeated fires and a few smart remarks from one disbeliever in the process made up this whirlwind experience, and I must that I didn’t mind doing it at all. We even got to pat the head of the lucky Thai elephant at the end of the tour, which is perhaps why, after taxing back to the hotel, we were fortunate enough to be able to actually get back or goods from the safe, despite the hotel manager’s apathy for our needs (again, as mentioned a couple of entries ago).Off to the airport, we met up with Bryce on the plane that would take us in 30 short minutes over the ocean (almost due west) to Nelson.

The food, then, was great. The beer also well worthy of note. But the best part of that night for me was the company. After the meal and a beer or two Susanne and I left eh rowdiness of the crowd and went for our own wander. And wander we did, up hill and down dale, stopping for times at bus stops or park benches to rest our feet and legs, but the whole time we spoke, analysing psyches, sharing stories, making jokes, prophesying futures and even, when the chips were down and we were lost, there was a song or two in there. We spent a lovely evening together scouting the sidewalks in synchronised step, just simply a delightful time. It all happened slightly unexpectedly for me because I did actually think we’d head back to the bar some time before everyone had gone to bed, but by the time Susanne and I were back in a lift lobby at the hotel, holding each other to say goodbye, everyone was long since snoozing. Everyone that is, except for Ash and Jamie who made a grand entrance not far from us, thanks to the clap-trap racket of the service elevator (installed next to the main elevator, in the middle of the lobby, just behind a glass door), and did a nice job of giving me something to chuckle about and Susanne something to groan and sigh about.

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.

That night most people were pumped, because they’d done the rafting and then spent thousands of dollars on alcohol. Having a reputation already for being the party house, Steve, Ash, Jamie and I invited all and sundry to our place for an evening of festivities. We had to seconder chairs from other rooms to fit everyone in but we ended up with over half the tour in our room. For the first part of the evening I played the immaculate host, topping up drinks, service cheese and crackers and welcoming newcomers (“ah, come in, we saved a seat for you”). This was great fun as the evening warmed up, and then as soon as the party got swinging I took a large mug of scotch and my journal and headed two doors down to where I enjoyed light conversation and a movie in the background with the three hottest single (it not travelling with partners) chicks on the tour. Every half hour or so one or two of the guys from my room would come on down to see if they could joins us but somehow the conversation would then turn flat and they’d soon end up leaving again. Meanwhile I revelled in it and had a great time.
A couple of hours later the party died down and people went back to their rooms, and I left the ladies and did the same. Returning to the disaster area I found Steve and Ash still in full swing and Jamie along for the ride, so we all partied on by singing full ball to Hotel California (complete with 5mins of air guitar at the end) and John Butler Trio and the like. It was a fantastically memorable time, one we still recall fondly and probably always will.

The next day we hit the road to head to Wellington. It would be Steve’s and my last day with the group so we were sure to spend it as best we could on the coach. Steve by doing his thing with Ash and me playing pillow to a curled up Susanne. We stopped off at the Huka Falls on the Waikato River for a short break along the way, and then again for a longer break at Tampo for some bungy jumping. I was the official photographer for Ryan, the trips token Yank, who was at first uncertain, but ended up loving it of course. I dunno, bungy’s not for me. Not that I’m backing off from the adrenaline rush of free falling that far (see Africa), but I have had ankle and back problems in the past so I’d rather do something with a full body harness.
Back on the road, we made another stop at Mt Doom. Well, both Mt Dooms actually; there are two mountains (whose names escape me) that were used at Mordors peak, depending on angle and height of the shot and stuff.