We prised ourselves from our beds before ten to check out (except Chris, who stayed in bed until the rooms were being cleaned then snuck the key in behind reception before anyone could notice) and most of the group headed to the Cadbury factory for a tour. I stayed with the few non-chocophiles and chatted in the kitchen while awaiting their return. We headed off with a depleted bus (a few are staying to work or stay longer in Dunedin) and demanded that Ariel show us the steepest street in the world. At the bottom the majority of the bus took one look and remained on board but a brave few of us ventured all the way to the top and congratulated ourselves heartily on an incredible physical feat. Our enthusiasm was somewhat dimmed, however, when a jogger came bombing up past us as we walked back down and got to the top in about the third of the time we had and made it very obvious he did it on a regular basis. Damn him.

Back on the bus it was revealed there had been a mix-up over the departure time and we had to briefly return to the hostel to pick up a few grumpy stragglers before heading on towards Queenstown. A few hours into the journey we stopped off for lunch, where I treated myself to an enormous hot lamb sandwich which was absolutely spectacular, and a waterfall which was pretty good too. Around 5 in the evening we arrived back in Queenstown and dispersed to various hostels with a plan to meet for Derek‘s, someone who’d been on the bus previously but I’d not met yet, birthday. I was staying in ‘Southern Laughter’ with Chris, although we were in separate rooms. As I got into mine I got talking to an attractive Dutch girl called Chonneke (not sure of the spelling there!) and it turned out she was also heading on to our party with another girl from the room, Diep, a Vietnamese-American from San Francisco with a ready smile and a laugh which shakes her whole body.

The group reconvened in Winnie’s (except poor Alex who retired early to bed after the previous night‘s excesses), a pizzeria and bar whose claim to fame is a roof that opens which is undoubtedly spectacular in Summer but frankly a bit chilly in Autumn. Nevertheless we wolfed down some great pizza (I shared the Moroccan Chicken with Lisa which was incredible) and had a few drinks while I got to know the few people I’d not yet met. They were equally as friendly as the rest of the group and we chatted away, discovering stories and anecdotes from all over. We carry on in ‘World Bar’ (claim to fame tea pots filled with cocktails, used to do fish bowls too but these seem to have been phased out, possibly for safety reasons!) and Chris pulls us together for drinking games. The first is called shoulders and goes on for a while but is a lot of fun involving all sorts of rules which are very easy to get caught by. The second is a bit of a mystery, I don’t want to explain it as I’d like to surprise people with it when I get home but somehow I ended up with my head in poor Jen’s crotch. She took it very well and it was all very amiable, just a tad embarrassing! At the end of the night there were just a few of us left who hadn’t paired off or retired including, sadly, Derek, but he seemed happy enough and we all headed to bed with big hugs to finish.