Cycle: 68km

Reluctantly we left our lovely room and checked out of the fantastic Hotel Museum in Wellington. We had had a great time here relaxing and recovering after a tough couple of weeks rounding off our trip round the South Island. We were also nervous about the cycle back to Auckland and the time in comfort in Wellington gave us a chance to psyche ourselves up for the next leg of our adventure.

Wellington's only problem is that it's situated at the bottom of the North Island and is surrounded by hills. This means that the capital city is very limited in its road connections. As such there is only really one road out of town that then forks into SH1 and SH2. Both of these are seriously busy and as such things are a bit tricky for a cyclist. We were determined to cycle all the way back to Auckland so had looked into how we could best avoid the major roads.

Our solution was to head along the "cycle path" alongside SH2 and then bear left and head over the hills before picking up SH1 again and heading North to our destination, Paraparaumu.

All was well as we cycled along a little pavement inbetween SH2 (a dual-carriage way) and the rail lines. All was well until the pavement disappeared. Luckily another happy-go-lucky cyclists whizzed past us and started going up the hard shoulder of the road in the wrong direction. He then went off up the slip road and out into the town on the other side. We did the same. Brilliant. I love cycle paths. Especially when they've been well thought out like this. These are nearly as good as the London ones which also disappear and have cars parked in them and go through ditches and across junctions. Hurray!

We tried going through suburban areas but eventually wound up back on SH2 which was a bit scary and we were relieved to turn off and tackle a hill instead. The hills were fairly sizeable until we finally took a well deserved tea break and mentally recovered. This was also where we turned onto a quieter road and gradually began to climb. We passed numerous cyclists which was reassuring after the chaos on SH2 who all seemed to be out on a training ride up the valley. They weren't going much faster than us either!

I was just beginning to get concerned that we were going to run out of time if we had a long descent down to the West Coast when we came out on the top of the West Coast cliff! This was really unexpected and it was great to see such dramatic views. We could see the South Island and Kapiti Island (this is the Kapiti Coast). SH1 was about 300m below us and right on the coast. An interesting photo-journalist chatted to us and insisted on taking lots of pictures while we got cold! He was fascinated by our adventures and knew all of the hills we were talking about! He even took some pictures of Claire's goose bumps!

The descent was great fun, if a little cold, and we were on SH1 before we knew it. It was still busy this far North (by Paekakariki (!) - say that one when you're drunk! Or sober even!) and we had a fairly unpleasant 10km before turning off towards the coast again.

We were treated with a glorious sunset behind Kapiti Island before checking into the Paraparaumu YHA. This was a bit quirky with funny old furniture and the smallest kitchen in the universe. That's always a good thing in a hostel.

Feeling a bit traumatised by our state highway fun we treated ourselves to some fish and chips which were simply fantastic ("Fed up fast foods"). You got masses of great fish and chips and good salad for $9 and it was served to us on proper plates - wow!