The Ostrom Family Adventures

Matariki is a newly recognized (by the government) holiday in NZ – only in the last 2 years do schools and work places close to allow Whanau (families) to celebrate and honor ancestors and be together. It’s impressive to see this country working through the challenge of honoring the Māori culture and history in this modern world.

We took a much needed day off of driving and hung around Hamilton. Mason took the boys biking though Pukete bike park and the ladies walked around Hamilton lake.

We had meat pies and Lamb stew and flat white coffee at the Verandah cafe and then walked to an OP shop (second hand shop) and went treasure hunting. Found a couple beautiful kites and a sport kite and walked home.

We all walked down the street to the park and flew kites for a bit and then walked to the Matariki celebration down by the lake. We love living so close to everything.

Then on Saturday morning we packed PB&J’s and drove east to the little town of Paeroa (where the classic Kiwi soda L&P is from)

Then we went to hike around the karangahaka gorge and along the old railroad tracks on what’s called the Window’s walk.

Walking along the old railway there are multiple tunnels where we could see a few scattered glowworms (when we could get all the boys to turn their torches off ;).

There were several “windows to the gorge” from the tunnels that made this hike even more magical.

We ate lunch by the river and then drove north into the Coromandel peninsula. It was a really winding road across the mountains that run up the middle and then we burst out into green valley’s falling off into sandy beaches or rocky cliffs touching the west side of the Pacific ocean.

We made our way to a cute airbnb under a house a 4 minutes walk from Hot Water beach. This is a gorgeous beach south of the famous Cathedral cove, and has a geothermal area you can find 2 hours before or after low tide. Māori Iwi in this area used to cook food under the sand here. Now people come with spades (shovels) and dig out their own little shallow hot pools and then go between the cool ocean water and their hot pool.

We went to the beach that first night around 8 and found only a couple other small groups digging pools. We used head lamps and our feet to find the hottest sand (really really hot in places) and then dig down a bit around there. If you go too deep, the sand and water are just too hot to stand in. It can get up to 64° C or 147°F.

The stars were out in all their glory and it was a beautiful winter night.

We had so much fun digging though, we went again the next morning.

Then had a lovely brunch at Hot Waves Cafe and 3 of us had Beet Eggs Benny with Pink beet hollandaise sauce that was amazing!!

From here we went up the coast to Hahei and Cathedral Cove.

We hiked along the coast past Gemstone Bay, Stingray Bay and arrived at Cathedral Cove!

We realized afterwards that on the NZ winter solstice, the boys and I swam in the gorgeous blue Pacific for hours. Such a perfect way to spend a sunny winter day.

This was one of our best days! We hiked in and took a water taxi out.

It was an epic but too brief of a visit with the Whanau.