The Ostrom Family Adventures

Yesterday became a fun mission down to Cambridge (gorgeous little town about 22km/14 miles south of Hamilton) to check out a cool Specialized mountain bike off Facebook marketplace. And then we stopped in a the Velodrome – a cycling paradise and then back up to northeast Hamilton to look at some mountain bikes for Mason and I.

We stopped in at OneNZ and got New Zealand phone numbers, and were pretty hungry and found a delicious hand-pulled Ramen noodle place to eat. We all tried an L&P – a classic NZ Soda with Lemon and Paeroa sparkling water (coca cola makes it now and it’s sweet and similar to a Sprite)

I think it was our day for a bit of jet lag so we rode our bikes a little through a nearby park and then had an early evening.

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Today is only Tuesday! We’ve only been in NZ 3 days, but got up had a nice breakfast of little quiches from the local Woolworths grocery store and then rode a couple km’s up to Cycle Time Bike shop and Brian helped us get fully geared up with helmets, a less aggressive seat for mom, locks, and more aggressive pedals for Leif 😉

We then rode all over Hamilton – first to the Centre to start the process of getting a bank account and had to get photos of us and our passports for our Real Me ID’s. We then stopped for a nice lunch at a New Zealand cuisine restaurant called Palate. Leif got the best grilled octopus we have ever had (yes, he has had and enjoyed grilled octopus before, fancy kid 🥰).

Next we sought out a cool bike/scooter pump track in Hillcrest park and All rode that for a while. I’m grateful for these encouraging fun men in my life as I wasn’t sure I could still ride something like this, but I could and I loved it!

Then, mum wanted us to ride further away to check out a potential middle school, which was very nice, Buuuuuut, she then took us all on a long detour on the way back to our Airbnb (not an intentional detour). We had an adventure finding our way back to Hamilton town itself. 😬🤪 🚵🏻‍♂️

We did make it eventually and feel very accomplished having ridden at least 10 miles today. Mason made dinner at the Airbnb – lamb burgers and brocolini. :).

We are tired and wonderfully sore and ready for bed. (And no sunburns miraculously – and also due to a good sunscreen ;).