The Ostrom Family Adventures

It began as a summer stormy day, cloyingly humid and warm but overcast and threatening downpour as we ran the pups in the park and drove East out of Hamilton toward Moana (the Sea).

We saw two huge herds of big but delicate-appearing redish deer off the side of the road – one in a kale field, and many beautiful country hills and well cared for hedge-rows before we started up into the Kaimai Mamaku mountain range that separates the Waikato from the Bay of Plenty.

The sky opened up on the way down out of the mountains and it poured for a bit as we drove into Tauranga. It’s incredibly strange to drive into such a cool and beautiful seaside town to do something as modern and mundane as looking at a car. But, we like multitasking, aaaand we are running out of time to find a vehicle to have for the rest of the year.

We opted for Mission First mentality and went straight to the car we wanted to test drive. We have been looking and test driving cars and trucks all week and have narrowed it down to an SUV that is able to fit at least 2 bodies laying stretched out in the back with the seats folded down. (Yes, it was my idea, but Leif made it reality and climbed in the back of every car and stretched out to see if he would fit. 😁) We found that a Subaru estate wagon would probably fit a full coffin even. (It takes a lot to keep a 12-year-old interested when car shopping).

We found 2 VW Tiguans that we really liked but one had a lot of Kms, and the other was pretty expensive. The 2017 one in Tauranga was the perfect in between. We had considered the exchange rate between US and NZ $$ so we were able to pay for it all at once and drive it away within about an hour of getting insurances set up (both drivers and mechanical) and the ownership changed. It was soooooooo smooth! We couldn’t believe how well it had gone. . . . . More on that later.

Mason and Leif went to go check out a “dirt jumper” bike they had seen on FB marketplace in the new ride, while I got to get to the beach and explore (in our friends car).

I watched the sea and the surfers and waited for Mason and Leif on Moturiki island which was gorgeous!

We then had a lovely lunch and hiked up Mt Maunganui which was about 45 minutes of stairs up to a really cool Kapehu Whetu (Star Compass).

Since we are watching our friends pups we had to rush a bit back down and get back across the mountains to them, but we will definitely be back to these beaches soon!

Now begins the less fun part of the last 2 weeks. . . .

On the way home as Mason and Leif were driving our new-to-us, drive-it-all-over-NZ-car, the transmission went into emergency mode and would only used gears 1,3, 5, and 7 which we thought was odd.

Thankfully, they were able to make it back the hour more to Hamilton, but we couldn’t drive it again for 2 days, because of the holiday on Monday everything was closed. Stressful. Once Mason reached the deal ship on Tuesday they sent a tow truck out to pick it up and tow it back to Tauranga and found on Thursday that it was a Mechatronics unit (sounds like a Transformer) that had to be replaced for $6000!! But, they offered to let us just return it since we were in the window still.

We thought about just letting them fix it and getting it back in a month, but worried there would be more problems afterwards, and they would give us a little loaner car in the meantime but nothing we could move bikes around on. so we have now decided to return it and have a little loaner car until the Dealer can send our money back on Monday, at which point we have to go find another car.

This has been a bit discouraging, but not tragic by any means. We move out of our friends house today, which means Phase 2 is nearly over and we move into our rental for the year. I’ll post again soon with photos of that house and the (hopefully) good news that we have wheels and an end to the car buying adventure (it’s not as much fun).

Mason has been working in a couple CrossFit gyms coaching and everyone loves him. Leif and he are mountain biking and dirt jump biking almost everyday, which Leif loves.

Leif starts school Monday! We met his teacher yesterday and it is going to be an awesome year for Leif. 🙂

We are missing all of our loved ones back home, but do feel like we are finding our places here in NZ.