Wasnt a hotel but... pre-kid years, wife had to do a sales trip around South Island, so I tagged along (for free :) ) as her driver/bodyguard/IT guy - we flew into Invercargill in the evening, got the rental in the morning and off we went... eventually ended up in Dunedin but couldnt find parking anywhere to do the shop visits, so thought we'd just goto a motel to stay the night and try again in the morning. Not a thing was available, EVERYTHING was booked out due to all the Uni students arriving back, their families, and some festival going on. 

So we flagged Dunedin and kept heading north thinking we'd find somewhere nearby to stay. 

54km away we finally saw a sign that said "motel" and didnt have the "NO" lit up. I dont know what time it was, we were shattered and hungry. So we pulled in and went to book a room. The lady looked at us and said "you sure you dont want to stay up the road, theres a nice fancy motel there" - alarm bells shouldve started ringing.
"We tend to be more for the truckers etc"

We stayed. We shouldnt have. 

Woven steel bed. Major roll together. Shared toilet/shower. Railway right behind. Trucks pulling in all the night. Someone went into the room next to us and started talking on their phone. We could hear every word as clear as if he was in the room with us. No sleep. Next morning wife refused to goto bathroom unless I was standing outside (shes watched movies like Wrong Turn too many times). Found scratch marks on the wall of the room as if someone had been clawing to get out.

On the plus side, the staff were lovely the food was good and it was cheap.

We treated ourselves to a really nice place for a couple of nights when we finally got to Christchurch.