Bike thieves' escape route ends with cliff rescue at Eastbourne in Wellington

Dave Woulfe is stoked to get his stolen bikes back. Photo / Supplied

A dodgy escape route chosen by two bicycle thieves ended up with one of them and a police officer being rescued from a cliff face in Wellington.

A 26-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman have both been arrested after they led police on a wild goose chase around Eastbourne yesterday.

The man is due to appear in Hutt Valley District Court today and is charged with receiving stolen property, unlawfully taking a bicycle and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle

At about 10.30am on Sunday police received a report from The Boatshed owner Dave Woulfe that two of his bikes had been stolen from outside his business in Days Bay.

"I ducked into the shed for a minute just to have a chat with the staff and a local fisherman came running in saying the bikes had been stolen.

"Luckily he'd got a rego and description of the car," Woulfe said.

Police caught up with the pair at Point Howard near Seaview.

Woulfe said when the thieves saw police they ditched their car, which was also stolen, and tried to escape on the bikes.

But with the ocean on one side, a cliff face on the other and police in front of them, there were not many options.

"They wound up getting cornered against the cliff and basically tried to scale it to get away from police," Woulfe said.

Police arrested the man on the ground but the woman continued to climb the cliff. One police officer followed her in pursuit.

At about 11am the Fire Service was called in to rescue the woman and the officer who had both become stuck on the cliff.

A section of Marine Drv was closed and cordons were put in place between Port Rd and Point Howard to make way for emergency services.

They were brought to safety with the help of four fire crews.

Woulfe said it was the icing on the cake for what had been a bizarre summer.

"We're having this crazy summer where we've had the worst weather in supposedly thirty years.

"Then when we do get a good weekend, Wellington's harbour is closed to swimmers because of sewerage issues.

"Now, we've got people trying to steal our bikes."

Woulfe said after the dramatic scenes which followed the theft, he is just glad he has got his bikes back.

"They're good bikes we couldn't really afford to lose them so I'm stoked to get them back," he said.

Each bike is worth about $1000.