He ended his relationship with Sydney model Lara Bingle before returning to the tour amid unprecedented media interest.

An upbeat Clarke thanked his former Australian teammate Shane Warne for his friendship and support during the toughest period of his career.

"I have spoken to Warney, I've spoken to all my friends and family," Clarke said.

"He's been a wonderful friend of mine for a long time.

"He's excited to see me back in New Zealand and he has wished me all the best for the first Test match."

Clarke was addressing a swarm of 50 members of the media at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium ahead of the Australia v New Zealand Test match, starting Friday.

Clarke refused to discuss his personal life or his break-up with Bingle.

"It's been a very interesting couple of weeks but it's great to be back here with my teammates," Clarke said.

However, he conceded the attention he’d been facing over the past week was part of the job.

"It’s part of what we do. Being a professional athlete, it’s not just what you do on the field, it’s what you do off it as well."

He defended his decision to leave the team last week: "It was obviously something that I felt was important and needed to be done."

Clark would not give details of why he left, but said, "I guess that’s part of my personal life and I felt I needed to do that at the time".

Media were warned before the press conference that certain lines of questioning would lead Clarke to "walk away".

The Age with stuff.co.nz