The Ostrom Family Adventures

The rest of last weekend with Joan and Juliana was incredible as well. Part of my goal in posting on this blog is so we remember everything we have done and seen this year in NZ – that and to share this adventure with our loved ones. I’m sorry for the delay in posts at times, I’ll try and catch up this week since we have 1 week before Leif’s school term break and we will be headed to the South Island for the first time.

After our magical bioluminescent swim Friday night, we had a gentle morning and had a chance to look around the Tutukaka art gallery and chatted with Fei and found the album of a local musician that we now love.

We then had a delicious brunch of waffles with peaches and berries, and Leif had strawberry ice cream on the waffles (truly just frozen blended strawberries).

We wandered around the marina looking for (and some of us calling for) Stumpy-the stingray who lived in the marina after getting caught accidentally by a fisherman and his tail was injured and cut off. We didn’t find him Saturday but met him Sunday. (Ask me when you see me next just how to call for a stingray. Mason loves it. 😉

For the afternoon, we rented wetsuits and snorkel gear and went 15 minutes up the road to Whale’s Bay and snorkeled around the rocks there for a couple hours.

Everyone enjoyed having the wetsuits and would have stayed in the water even longer if we could have that day. Mason and Juliana found several urchin shells, I found shells in a little cave at low tide that was beautiful and Leif and Juliana got super comfortable in the water and started diving with their snorkels, starting to clear them with ease when they rose back to the surface.

We ate a lovely dinner at Schnappa Rock restaurant by the marina and then stayed up for a while practicing watercoloring with Aunt Joan.

Once it was dark enough, we convinced Mason and Leif to get down to the beach again and all enjoyed the 2nd night of bioluminescent swimming. It wasn’t quite the same as encouraging Juliana and Aunt Joan’s first time skinny dipping the night before, we all worse suits and were looking for it, but the Sea was still sparkling and it was amazing.

Sunday morning sunrise was incredible as well. There is so much beauty in this world, it’s hard to find new ways to describe it all.

We watched the yellow globe peak timidly over the horizon before bursting out of the sea in all it’s brilliance, silhouetting the high peak rocks and sugarloaf rocks in addition to Tawhiti Rahi and Aorangi islands (otherwise known as the Poor Knights islands), where we wound be in just a few hours.

We checked into Dive! Tutukaka center and hopped on The Perfect Day boat with a bunch of other snorkel enthusiasts – the silly fun young kids at the bow of the boat were our favorite boat time entertainment as they squealed and giggled as the waves splashed and soaked them – and us. We saw a shark lazily cruising – showing off its dorsal fin on the surface and then a pod of dolphins ushered us into the Aorangi bay where we anchored for the afternoon.

The boat had wetsuits, snorkel gear, food, SUP boards, kayak’s and a lily pad for lounging or a “bit of wrestling” as they said. We snorkeled most of the afternoon and were immersed in schools of fish as soon as we slid off the boat!! It was crazy how many fish there were. We also saw a small stingray flutter down for a snack and a nap just under one of the arches.

Leif and Juliana were fearless diving around and checking everything out.

On the way back, we toured the Rikoriko Cave – the largest cave by volume in the world – going in with the entire boat, the colors of the water and the rocks were gorgeous and the echo intimidating.

We went between the islands and then out and around the high peaks and sugarloaf rocks.