Thanks to the change in ferry time we have a whole day to kill in Wellington and the group are making various plans to do tourist stuff while I am just looking forward to a lazy day.

Wellington is a great city, very compact with a real buzz……and it has trolley buses which is often the sign of a good city. The fact that it is warm with clear skies also helps a bit. Last night we went to an Irish bar in the very centre of the downtown area and I was expecting the meal to be a tad pricey but I had a 1lb steak (not a typo, it was the size of a baseball glove) and chips for 8 quid…….EIGHT! As I had already observed last year, it seems that it is more expensive here to buy food and cook it than to go to a restaurant and let someone else do it. I think the most I have paid for an evening meal is about £13.

I now have a replacement bank card and, unfortunately, Wellington has some excellent bike shops so I have asked to be tied to a lamp post for the day to avoid bankrupting myself…….

……it is now 2 hours later. I escaped from the lamp post and scurried straight to Capital Cycles where I purchased a splendid, and absolutely essential, NZ cycling jersey. And some slightly less essential bar tape….and…..

I have now established Bike Adventure's Global Command Centre in a town park where some pretty serious strategising is being done: