Cycle: 53km

Ros woke us up with a cup of tea and a fruit platter (golden kiwi fruit, feijoa, persimon and pears) whilst she went off to cook us sausages - what a service! We enjoyed a cooked breakfast together and then loaded up the bikes for the final time. Ros took some photos of us in her driveway ready to set off, which we were really glad of as there aren't many of the two of us plus Humphrey and Lottie! We waved goodbye and set off for the final leg into Auckland, determined to keep our wits about us and not come-a-cropper in the big smoke.

We did our usual 20km before stopping at Margarets Garden for caffeine and sugar as we wanted to be tip-top when we hit the traffic. We cycled over SH1 and into suburbia via the Great South Road. Scott took the lead here and armed with a map we wiggled along back roads as much as possible. I was really tired cycling today and not flowing at all. It must be a sign that I'm ready to stop. The weather was also quite grey and we were thankful to end with bad weather otherwise we might want to keep going! We stopped on a park bench for a last ever snack break and then the surroundings became very familiar! Our only close calls were with a couple of trucks and a car who came too close but otherwise all was tickety-boo. We had a few sneaky hills as we got close but we were too excited to notice and we turned into Tim and Cindy's driveway to Keesha, our welcoming party! (Tim and Cin were in China, not being unfriendly!) We had a wee celebration on our own in the driveway then broke in to store our bikes, pannier bags and pack for Sydney. We were in and out in about an hour!

We walked down to the Onehunga Mall and grabbed a cab to take us to the Airport Gateway Hotel which we'd booked sometime ago, knowing we had an early flight to Sydney the next morning. The hotel was pretty good for $77. After a shower and coffee we walked along a State Highway (the pavement just disappeared!) in search of the Warehouse, where everyone gets a bargain! After 6 months of wearing only lycra shorts and a pair of hiking trousers we were desperate for a new look so descended upon the Warehouse in search of some bargains. All up I got a nice and very cheap outfit but the mens selection was particularly poor so Scott only got jeans. We got a cab back to the hotel (we weren't going to run the gauntlet of the busy road in the dark) and had a little dinner and a bottle of wine to celebrate the end of our cycling odyssey! It doesn't seem real yet, maybe it will hit us on the plane tomorrow?

Cycle: 65km

Neither of us slept too well because we weren't feeling too happy about the cleanliness of our hostel: Ewe Dream'Inn. The place simply wasn't being cleaned. We packed up our stuff and ate our breakfast using our own bowls. The hostel did have a good view so we enjoyed that and were entertained by a gaggle of wild turkeys who hopped into the hostel garden then across the road into another field before coming back again! They were quite agile and could happily hop over fences (apart from one who kept on trying to go through the fence!) and were fanning their impressive tails and making all kinds of funny noises: "gobble, gobble, gobble!"

We set off without delay and cycled over the last remaining hills of our trip before we knew it. Claire commented that we were going down our "last descent" as we whistled down towards the "mighty, mighty Waikato River". We were now still 70km from Auckland but the towns began to flow into each other now and there was a steady stream of traffic. There weren't many trucks around and the traffic was calm so the cycling was still very pleasant.

We pushed on for a full 39km before stopping eventually in Pukekohe. We were both feeling a bit wobbly and set about finding a cafe. We found a really nice place called Cafe 104 and were admiring the menu when a lady approached us and asked us if we'd left our bikes in the square. We had and she warned us that they were being eyed up by some local lads! We rushed back and sure enough there was a lad quietly sitting right next to them and as soon as we got there he wandered back to his friends on the other side of the square! After 7300km we would have been devestated to have had our first trouble on our penultimate day. Luckily we were there in time and moved our bikes to right outside our cafe.

Claire thanked our saviours and we settled down to eat some great gourmet burgers by the bikes accompanied by latte bowls - yum!

After picking up a bottle of wine for my cousin Ros and a bone for her dog, Bertie, we made our way across country from Pukekohe to Ros' home near Clark's Beach. We got directions from a couple of cabbies and took the shorter quiet roads. This is a really lovely part of suburban Auckland and we enjoyed our ride. A few km before reaching Ros' we were lucky enough to get a view across Manakau Harbour and could see the Sky Tower and even One Tree Hill! One Tree Hill is just by Tim and Cindy's house in Onehunga which would mark the end of our cycling adventure the day after! This was a little emotional - we were finally so close to completing our epic journey!

When we got to Ros' house she wasn't home yet but we chatted to her father, Colin, and played with Bertie until she returned. It was lovely to see Ros again after seeing so much of New Zealand since our last visit with Mama J. She, yet again, cooked us fabulous food, including a lamb roast which was very fitting at the end of our New Zealand trip. We spent the evening enjoying the fire and recounting cycling and tramping tales!

Cycle: 68km

We were reluctant to leave such a nice and relaxing spot as Raglan so lingered in the backpackers and small town centre for as long as possible. We typed up some log, emailed, shopped and chatted to the hostel managers, one of whom, Ian, was a cyclist from Scotland and had cycle toured in Europe, so we had plenty to talk about. Finally we dragged ourselves away and retraced our steps for the first 13km along SH22 before turning off at the junction for Glen Murray, our destination for the night.

The road was fantastically quiet, we must only have seen a handful of cars all afternoon, so we were able to comfortably cycle side by side, something which has been fairly rare. The scenery was green and the hills rolled under a grey sky so talking away made the afternoon pass happily. I got the BBH booklet out to check exactly where our hostel, Ewe Dream Inn was in Glen Murray but I needn't have worried as there were only about five buildings in the 'town'!

No one was at home when we arrived to check in so I followed the instructions on the door and after a few phone calls got through to a neighbour over the road who gave me the code to get in. We weren't really sure what to do as the hostel looked rather like a lived in house, complete with breakfast dishes still in the kitchen sink, so we sat on the sofa feeling a bit like spare parts with our bags piled up in the lounge. After waiting for a while nothing happened so I went and had a shower and when I was in the bathroom Gavin, a possum trapper and long term tenant, came home and showed us which room was ours. It turned out he lives here on weekdays and runs the show for Jeremy, the owner and local vet. Gavin cleaned up the kitchen and we had our tea then watched TV with him. He went off to bed in the shed out back and we stayed up in the main house and watched Casino Royale on DVD. Awesome movie, better the second time I think, even when the TV and DVD player switch off mid-film! It was lucky we decided to stay up late as the bed sheets had not been changed in a while and it was not an enjoyable place to lay our heads! We put all our thermals on to cover up as much of our skin as possible and tried to ignore the stains - erghh! Nevermind, this is our last hostel - woo hoo!

Rest day

After about 11 hours sleep we, rather groggily, rose to beautiful cloudless skies and no wind! Sleep really is the answer to all our woes.

We spent a leisurely morning eating muesli (not porridge!) and catching up on this log which had fallen far behind. Feeling virtuous and refreshed we decided to see what Raglan is all about and set off down to the famous surf beaches (as featured in the cult classic film: The Endless Summer).

Our hostel was situated right on the water so we crossed over the foot bridge and straight onto the sand. We walked, enjoying the sunshine for several miles, chatting and paddling in the clear, calm waters. As we left the protection of the harbour the beach widened and the waves picked up in size.

Feeling really refreshed after such a good night's sleep and very happy and relieved to have cycled our last 100km day we went for a run! We left our shoes behind a shrub and ran for 24 minutes each suggesting a silly exercise to do each minute. We did star jumps and cartwheels and hopping and running through the water, amongst other things and had a really magical run. We're both feeling very fit and healthy at the moment and are looking forward to getting back into running when all of our energies aren't consumed with cycling! We reached as far as you could walk which was to the cliffs before Manu Bay where apparently there is one of the longest left-hand breaks in the world. Not that we know what this means, but it's fun to be hip and cool with the surfer kids here.

Feeling really good we wandered home and Claire set off to go to her "stretch class" and I read my book. Claire enjoyed this and joined in with the surfers and their stretching at the bowling club.

We finished the evening with a vege-fest stir-fry which completed a great, healthy, sun-kissed day. Hurray! Three more cycling days to go then we're off to Sydney! Hurray!

Cycling: 103km

After the completely clear skies of the day before I couldn't believe my eyes when we awoke to dark clouds and rain! Boo! After avoiding breakfast due to the Kiwi Experience whose patrons had apparently thrown a bomb in the kitchen we set off. I had got pretty soaked just putting our water bottles back on the bikes so we were anticipating a day of getting soaked.

Unbelievably this wasn't to be the case. The rain stopped just before we left and the roads were sufficiently dry that we didn't get too wet riding along. The skies never cleared all day but it didn't rain! Hurray!

We ate our breakfast on a bench outside the Woolworths in Otorohanga, but it was very cold so we decided we needed a constitutional pot of tea so set off to find the "Thirsty Weta". We were served by some friendly staff and drank lots of tea, sitting under a heater and read their papers for the grand sum of $3! What a total bargain.

Otorohanga was our departure point from SH3 and the traffic was immediately quieter. The heavens were just beginning to spit on us when we arrived in Pirongia so we pulled in to the first cafe we saw which was the Persimmon Tree Cafe. This was brilliant and a really nice surprise in a remote place such as this. Claire's soup even came with a free praying mantis! Just before we left we chatted to the owner who was a local and recommended a side route we had been considering. His declaration that it wasn't too hilly sold it to us!

So on that note we set off and turned onto the Te Pahu Road which undulated gently alongside the state highway for about 30km. The roads were good but quiet and not too hilly (apart from a ridiculously steep bit at the end!) which is perfect for us. We enjoyed a good hour and a half riding side by side chatting. This has been a rare occurence on the North Island simply because of the weight of traffic.

We finally reached the end of our quiet short-cut and turned West towards Raglan. At this point we also swung into the wind and the dipping sun which made for fairly tough conditions. People we'd chatted to in Otorohanga and the Persimmon Tree Cafe had told us about a "big" hill which wasn't on our profiles (we didn't have any for this particular section) so we were a little nervous. The climb must have been about 300m but with the wind it was quite long. It wasn't very steep luckily.

The final 15km of this long day were very undulating with some steep ascents and descents. The wind really made this hard and we were very relieved to drop down the final hill into Raglan. We arrived at our hostel pretty much at dusk and were relieved to find that this chilled out place lived up to its reputation. I was very tired so we nipped to the shop and bought some light food for dinner and went to bed nice and early.

Caving!

The day started in the best possible way - without an alarm being set. Then leaving the bikes behind we walked to the glow worm cave to buy tickets for the day. We'd looked into doing an adventurous abseil, rubber-ring combo but it was pretty cost-prohibitive so instead we decided we'd look at the two original caves which gave Waitomo its name.

First up was the glow worm cave. We had a little time to kill so browsed the tacky souveneirs with the mass of Japanese tourists. On the tour itself we walked down into the cave and saw a 16m deep shaft, stalagtites, stalagmites, columns and a big cavern that a few famous people had sung in (eg Dame Kiri Te Kanawa & Justin Timberlake!) Then we boarded a small boat and our guide manouvered it around the Waitomo River which carved the cave so that we could see the 10,000s of glow worms that hung under the roof. The glow worms are the larvae of the mouthless fungus knat and emit a green glow to attract insects into their web. Although this is quite gross it looks amazing and it really was like a galaxy of stars above us. As the little French girl in the row behind us said: "C'est magique!"

We really enjoyed this trip and it was far better than we had expected. We had time between the two caves for a spot of lunch and then we took the cross-country route to the Aranui Cave. We ran out of time half way along our route after taking in an unexpected hill-top summit so had to short-cut onto the road but we made it in time. The Aranui Cave was also spectacular - no glow worms (as no river flowing through to bring in the bugs to eat), but a colony of wetas and loads and loads of stalagtites, stalagmites, columns and "rock flows". Some of the rock formations were so white that they looked like molten wax. This was also a super trip with an informative guide.

Before we turned home we took in a "bush walk" which turned out to be an excellent walk through collapsed parts of the Ruakuri cave system. We walked through little tunnels and to lookout points which were suspended over the river. After this we picked up the Waitomo Walkway (that we bypassed on the road earlier) through farmland following the Waitomo River back to Waitomo. It was a really pleasant walk and on the way we met a tree enthusiast with a dog called Yo Yo who didn't let us get a word in edgeways. A good job we were fairly interested in trees and birds!

Having checked out the general store there was nothing really to cook with so we went back for more pumpkin patch pizza at the Morepork Cafe.

Cycle: 96km

We decided to get the hell outta Mokau campsite because it was grotty and we had a hilly day ahead. Our first view of the day on looking behind the PVC curtains was of drizzle and grey skies. By the time we'd eaten and loaded up the bikes the drizzle had stopped so we were able to get warmed up before the drizzle started again.

We cycled along the coast for a few km and then turned inland for the rest of the ride. The first section was through the Awakino Gorge and we really enjoyed it despite the wet weather. We were still optimistic that the sun would burn off the cloud! We exited the gorge through a tiny tunnel and then the rain hit as we continued following the Awakino River through more open countryside which had some amazing limestone cliffs and karst formations all set in very green grass. It was a shame we were so wet and getting miserable as it would probably be a really spectacular ride in good weather.

We stopped at a small town called Piopio and sat outside the only cafe so that we didn't get their upholstered chairs soggy! It wasn't flash but we got some hot food and drink in our tummies and got back on the bikes. We'd been pretty upbeat before lunch but the persistent showers wore us down in the end and we were thoroughly fed up after two large hills and another downpour when we arrived in Te Kuiti. We nearly went into the Warehouse for an early challenge(hopefully more on that later)...

...instead we made use of the conveniences and rallied for the last 20km to Waitomo which seemed to take forever and were really tough! This was the eighth day of cycling in a row for us and we were feeling it. The final approach to Waitomo was undulating and each hill seemed bigger than it should. We finally arrived at the Kiwi Paka YHA and after a bit of confusion got the right room. We treated ourselves to a pizza and bottle of wine at the Morepork restaurant on site and then made our way to bed. Ti-red.

Cycle: 89km

I was expecting today's ride to begin on the coast but unfortunately SH3 head out of town just inland so there wasn't much to see. The state highway rolled along and after a quick break in Waitara the traffic thinned dramatically much to our relief.

We stopped in Urenui for some snacks outside the local supermarket and a quick look at the views from the town park. The rest of the town surrounded a little lagoon where the river met the sea. The sun was shining and this looked really beautiful with the reflections in the water.

The land today was mostly agricultural but towards the end of the day we veered closer and closer to the coast. We occasionally had good views of the sea with a green band of fields full of curious cows. Near the end of the day we ate some nuts and raisins overlooking a river estuary with amazingly clear blue-turquoise water. This was a really beautiful spot on an otherwise average day's cycling.

We finally arrived in Mokau and were a bit confused when we reached the end of town and hadn't reached our campsite! Checking the map it turned out we still had a few km to go. Bad news now, but always good news in the morning when you have a little less distance to cover.

Seaview Motorcamp, recommended by our host in the Taranaki Cafe turned out to be a big disappointment. We were duly placed in the "Pink Palace" which on first impressions could have done with a major overhaul. The double bed looked okay but there were stains and hairs on the single bunk beds... I was glad we were using our sleeping bags! Worse still were the showers. These looked like they had been cleaned in quite literally a million years. I am, perhaps, a little prone to exaggeration, but not this time. My shower had a half-smoked cigarette on the soap dish which a spider had managed to colonise. Nice.

Slightly in denial about things we ate our dinner, watched Chris Tarrant on the TV and went to bed. Luckily we were tired enough to pass out fairly quickly!

Cycle: 56km

Mount Taranaki had disappeared into the cloud again but we thought we needed a a little exercise so decided to do the cycle up the North Egmont anyway! It was our whole reason for staying two nights in New Plymouth and would be our last big climb so we had to do it.

The highway out of New Plymouth was busy and fast so we whipped along to get off of the road asap. We turned off at Egmont Village and began the 16km climb (according to the road signs) up to North Egmont (we were cheered by this as the lady at the i-site yesterday had told us it was a 23km climb!). The climb started very gradually but as with the shape of a volcano steepened as we neared the end of the road. The last few km were very steep and through thick sub-tropical rain forest. The road didn't go all the way up but finished at an altitude of 950m, phew! The summit is actually at 2300m-ish so we were well off this. You can get to the top in summer but there was not enough time for us to get up, nor were we properly equipped to try with the top 1000m or so being covered in thick snow. Unfortunately there was so much cloud that we couldn't even see the top so our best views were yesterday when we cycled round it. There was an information centre and The Mountain House cafe so we occupied ourselves in there for while. The cafe manager stoked the fire for us (her only guests) and we sat with our backs to to dry our sweat! The manager also recommended that we book the blue cabin at the Mokau campsite, where we were headed tomorrow night, as this was one of her favourite spots.

The ride back down was quite eventful. We had to cycle through some road works and got covered in mud, much to the amusement of the workmen! Then we stopped to say hello to some Shetland ponies and fed them an apple. We almost got to rescue a young boy who asked us for help because he couldn't get in his house but his parents showed up in the nick of time! Back on the main road we whizzed along (because it was downhill, we had no baggage and were inspired by watching coverage of the 2008 Paris-Roubaix cycle race on the TV last night - it made me realise how slowly we cycle in comparison!).

Back at the ranch Scott heated up the bolognaise he made last night and we watched Mission Impossible 3 on the TV. It was brilliant and yet again gave us a taste of a homely life which we really enjoyed.

Cycle: 106km

After a great night's sleep in the luxury of our motel room we were pleasantly surprised to rise to a fairly sunny day. We were both excited about our plan of trying to cycle round Taranaki by the more inner "ring" round.

Hawera really is nestled right under Taranaki so we were looking for signs of it as we left town. Claire, chief navigator for the day, led us through a network of farming back roads up to the inner mountain ring road. As we turned off the state highway we realised that a big triangle of cloud in front of us was the huge volcano shrouded in cloud. A little disappointed that the mountain was covered we pressed on.

The skies directly over our heads were glorious. After four days of fairly nondescript cycling, bad weather and mediocre accommodation today reminded us why we were cycling round New Zealand and how magical our days can be. Taranaki gradually unveiled itself as the day progressed and as we worked our way round the volcano the sun fell behind us and the snow clad sides fell into their true white colours. We were treated to amazing views of this volcano with green fields in front and blue skies behind.

The only down point of the day came when we approached a road closure. The road was closed to "all vehicles". We thought we might be able to sneak round but the road was closed where quite a large bridge had been washed away. The resulting gap was completely impossible to cross so we had to extend our day's cycling and tackle a few more hills.

In the end our potentially shortest day on our return route up the North Island turned into our longest! Luckily it will probably be the best so was definitely worth it.

We checked into our motel room in New Plymouth just as it was getting dark. I was feeling very, very tired after such an unexpectedly long day with some serious undulations right at the end.

The hostels in New Plymouth aren't too great so we splashed out (again!) in a motel and enjoyed the TV and ate a nice home cooked meal in our little kitchen. We had been considering sacking off our ride up Taranaki but after a shower and a little rest both decided we definitely wanted to head up it the next day!