Paramata - Ngaio x3nights (Wellington) (28km)

Graham cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast (I stuck with cereals for a change - lots of left over Christmas food had filled me up!) and then he kindly drove us to the PAC and SAVE to restock and then to the start of the Colonial Knob track. Again, we couldn't believe how much people want to go out of their way. Graham and Marilyn didn't even know who we were and yet wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to helping us out - they even offered to have us on our way back up to Auckland after our walk.

The Colonial Knob track is almost all steps to the first look out and then a short climb further to the trig point. We all struggled with the steps due to over eating and spoiling ourselves over the days before but we did make it to the top eventually!

You drop down over fields and then rough pine forest until you hit a road that passes through a small village. We had our heart set on the cafe half way along the road but soon realised a cafe in the middle of nowhere wasn't going to be open on Christmas/new year week so we trudged on disappointedly to find somewhere for lunch.

We eventually gave up and ate on the side of the road before picking up the track that zig zagged up and around the hills all the way to Ngaio just outside of Wellington.

Thanks to Facebook, we'd managed to find some free accommodation for the next few days. We'd been instructed by our host, Lois, to meet her two boys underneath the railway bridge, which we did.

Stirling and Quinn met us and walked us to the house where they gave us some squash to drink while we waited for their mum to come back home.

Lois and her husband Rowan came back with arms full of shopping to stock the fridge full of food for our stay - we stayed three nights and despite our offers to cook or buy ingredients, they cooked every night and gave us breakfast in the mornings.

Luke and I slept on an air bed in the lounge so we tried to be up and out as early as we could so we weren't in anyone's way, but it was so comfortable compared to our usual mats that getting up was near impossible!

From their house we could jump on the train and be into Wellington in 15 minutes so we did our resupply for the first South Island stretch and bought Luke a new waterproof ready for the somewhat unpredictable weather we were expecting!