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!