I know some of you have been enjoying my travel 'mishaps', so you'll be pleased to hear that I have another for you - all in good time though, I have a couple of days to catch up on.

I forgot to mention that I woke up in Dunedin with my first hangover of the trip - I'm so proud. [That is took so long to have one that is, not that I managed one at all]. I had been to an Irish Bar where there was a pub quiz which everyone was taking very seriously - I 'helped' a team called Team Terrific to an ignominious 10th place, out of 30 teams, to be fair. I think they were regretting letting me join them when I didn't recognise the New Zealand PM, but I pulled a couple out of the bag later on - here's one for dad: which 1975 hit is the only song to chart with both a palindromic band name and a palindromic song title?

Anyway, the Speights Gold Medal was going down quite well and the following morning was a bit of a struggle for a while.

I left Christchurch yesterday and was slightly less enamoured of Hotel So second time round - I had a room with a window, and it really needed double glazing. Very noisy. When I checked out yesterday, I had a few hours to kill before my flight, so I took my luggage to reception and asked them to store it. I was told that they had a resident lounge where I was welcome to leave it - there was one bag (and no people) in there, hardly secure. So I marched into the posh hotel next door and asked the concierge if I could store my luggage there - I was prepared to pay a couple of dollars, but he didn't even ask if I was a resident - I'll remember that trick for future.

My faux pas came in Sydney. It had been a long day - getting through the airport took ages and then the shuttle bus was more than half an hour coming, so the transfer time from the airport to the hotel ended up taking taking nearly as much time as the flight. I dumped my stuff in my room and went out for some food (and a couple of beers).

I came back to the hotel a couple of hours later and let myself into my room. It was pitch black, so I switched on one of the lights. I was a bit confused as the room layout seemed the wrong way round - I thought I'd left my luggage in an anteroom to the left, but now it was on the right. I knew there were loads of mirrors in the room, but I couldn't figure out why I could see the reflection of my luggage but not the luggage itself. As I was puzzling this over, a bigger question revealed itself to my ever-perceptive eyes - why were there two people asleep in my bed? "Oo, oo" I said, doing my best Frank Spencer, "I might be in the wrong room!" I switched the light off and closed the door...

It won't surprise some of you to hear that I was still convinced that somehow a trick had been played on me, that none of this was my fault and indeed somebody had changed my room layout and got into my bed. Still, I tried the room next door, and found that it contained my luggage where it should be, and no-one in the bed - a puzzle indeed. Perhaps I did get the wrong room the first time. But how bad that the electronic key had opened someone else's door?? No wonder they put safes in the rooms... So, hotel lessons for the day - the concierge doesn't know whether or not you're from their hotel, and those plastic keys can open more than one door. Dodgy.

I've done a bit of sightseeing today, but I'll just give you some names and let you fill in the blanks - Botanic Gardens, Opera House, mini-Tyne Bridge, blah blah. Photos to come hopefully. Poor old Man U eh - ho ho. Laters.