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Then on Sunday checked out of my quite excellent backpackers… It was called Beethoven’s.. it’s quite definitely not everyones cup of tea.. It’s run by a guy called Alan. He’ll quiz everyone who goes to live there, our conversation went something like this:

Alan : “So why you choose this hotel?”
Me: “Well, it looked like the most interesting one in the guide book, with curious signs all over the place, and an eccentric owner” (knowing he was the eccentric owner, and kinda wondering what would happen)
Alan: “Oh, they use such big nasty words… do you know what eccentric means?”
Me: “I suppose it means off-centre – ex-centric – imbalanced”
Alan: “Oh.. very clever.. yes, I prefer the word interesting“

So that was Alan. There were lots of gimmicky signs up all over the place. I’ll not put them all up (some are kinda crude) but here’s an example:

There are others here and here and here and here and here and here and here and finally here

After checking out went to the Te Papa museum – the National Museum. (free rucksack storage for the day too ;) The part on the treaty of waitangi was quite sad really.. explains the dealings between the British crown and the Maori.. ‘not fair’ springs to mind.

The plane trip back was… different… our pilot kindly informed us that if we didn’t stow our baggage correctly then we’ll throw it out the door and at the end bid us goodbye with live long and prosper

Finally headed over to watch Billy Connollys world tour of NZ (part 3) at Johns.. it’s kinda sad, he left ChCh today (Monday) to head back to Ireland.. it’s been absolutely fantastic having him around – just an excellent guy to climb with and hang out with – unbelievably energetic (even by some of the standards I’ve seen this year ;) and can eat huge quantities of food (and everyone elses) and not put it anywhere – but that’s prob ‘cos he just climbs and bikes and surfs all day. Yes, he will be missed.