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Yesterday was an important day for us, we submitted our NZ Skilled Migrant visa application. The application process is pretty thorough - we had to submit so much supporting paperwork that I had to buy a super-sized envelope to fit it all in - and it took us a few hours to gather everything together and check and re-check it all again. Luckily the NZ Immigration Service office is literally over the road from my office, so I was able to drop it off by hand at lunchtime.
So it’s just a waiting game now. We have been told to allow up to nine months for it to be processed, but I’ve heard that a friend of a friend just got their application turned around in a few weeks.
Needless to say, we’ll keep you all updated on our progress - getting Residency is pretty important as it entitles us to stay in NZ indefinitely (but we won’t be citizens, so can’t get NZ passports yet).
More soon (hopefully!)
Yesterday I took the day off work and we made a lot of progress on our NZ Residency application. Well, when I say that, what I actually mean was we got our medical examinations, chest X-Rays and blood tests done.
Sophie was really well behaved, she got quite bored but was still quite happy by the end of it all. We have all had the same cold recently - it’s gone from Sophie to Candi to Me - so it was quite funny turning up for health assessments, all coughing and sneezing. I felt like we had to justify ourselves, “we aren’t normally this ill, honestly!“
It shouldn’t take long before we have all the results back, then we just need our completed application forms, ACPO Police Check certificate (waiting on this from the UK) and all supporting evidence - ie exam certificates etc, then we’ll be one step closer to our NZ Residency.
The NZ Immigration Service says we should allow up to 9 months for our applications to be processed, but a friend of a friend just went through the same thing and theirs was approved in six weeks. I guess they don’t have much of a backlog at present.
We’ll keep you updated on our progress. Watch this space!
Wow, things have been so busy we’ve really been neglecting this blog. I’ll try and bring things up to date, then we’ll hopefully find it easier to stay on top of things
- Carl, Cindi and Kei came to stay. They had a great time, we hired a bach up at Waitarere Beach and stayed a few days. Carl, Cindi and Candi took part in a run and got certificates and photos to prove it! As with all family visits, time went by too quickly and in no time at all they had to fly back. Hopefully we’ll see them again soon.
- Sophie is nearly 2! It’s amazing how quickly time has gone and when we look at photos taken when we arrived in NZ (just over a year ago) we’re struck by how young she looks. She’s not a baby anymore! All her friends in coffee group are having their second Birthday parties at the moment, our weekends are fully booked!
- Work is still good and busy for me. Our friend Graham (a Canterburian from Pru days) was looking for work in Christchurch but ended up looking further afield - I managed to get him an interview at Trade Me and he accepted - he’s now living and working in Wellington. Sophie likes playing with “Jim”, as she calls him
- DIY around the house continues. We’ve sanded and varnished the front door, painted the lounge, utility room and en-suite bathroom. An incident with an overflowing basin resulted in an insurance claim for the vanity in the upstairs bathroom. Luckily the carpet + floor aren’t badly damaged, we managed to catch it before too much damage was done. Honestly, who makes a basin without an overflow outlet?
- The weather is getting colder… We still get nice days - Friday and yesterday were fantastic for instance - but when it gets cold, it feels freezing. Looks like we’ve got more bad weather ahead.
- My parents have booked their flights for a visit in Feb next year. Hopefully they’ll get good weather!
- Norman and Shirley arrive soon - I think it’s less than six weeks now. Hard to believe it’s twelve months since they were here last. Looking forward to seeing them again and I know Candi can’t wait.
- Our residency plans are continuing. I re-visited the immigration process and it seems that 12 months’ NZ work experience gives us a big boost in points. We’re now comfortably in the ‘automatic selection’ zone and to be honest it looks like acceptance is just a formality at this point. Police and medical checks notwithstanding of course.
I think that covers most of it…. you’re now up to date and we’ll try and keep this blog updated more frequently! Cheers
Yes, just for a change (lol) I’m posting some more Sophie pics for you to enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »
OK, so I know we didn’t post anything while we were over in the UK, so here is a quick summary of the rest of our time over there…
We left Wellington on Thursday evening and flew to Heathrow via Auckland and then L.A. It’s never what you could call a pleasant experience, I can think of much better ways to spend 30 hours than jammed into an uncomfortable Economy class seat in a 747, but I have to say that this time it wasn’t as bad as we anticipated. Sophie is now 18 months old, which means she is mobile and gets pretty bored if she is forced to stay in one place for too long. However, the timing of the flight meant she was really tired by the time we took off from Auckland and had a good sleep, much to our relief. In fact, she only really started to give us problems about 2 1/2 hours from landing at Heathrow, but by then we had all had enough.
We’re currently staying with Norman and Shirley in Epping and getting used to being in the UK again. I managed to sneak off with Norman for a quick pint yesterday, we went to a traditional English pub in Epping High Street (open fire, oak beamed ceiling and everything) and I had a great pint of the guest ale, Sussex Gold. It’s surprising how busy everywhere is, even Epping High Street is a bustling metropolis compared to Whitby! The roads are so much busier here, driving isn’t much fun at all and we’re not used to how unfriendly everyone seems. I suppose it’s what you are used to, but even in Wellington CBD you normally have a bit of smalltalk when ordering coffee, going into a shop or whatever. Here it’s very much “all business”, nobody really makes eye contact or says hello unless they have to. That’s probably a bit harsh, but that’s how it seems sometimes.
Still, it’s nice to be among family again and Cindi has made a surprise appearance not once but twice so far! Today we allwent to a local place called Kids Korner, where local parents take their kids to shout at them. Just kidding, but you would be forgiven for thinking that was the case. Sophie and Kei had a nice time and Sophie surprised us all by staying awake and alert for 11 hours straight (3am to 2pm - yes you read that right!) We aren’t too badly affected by the jet lag this time, Sophie’s still a bit topsy-turvy but hopefully she’ll come right soon enough.
Lots more UK adventures to come, stay tuned!
Did you notice that the image at the top of this blog has changed? We went for a walk around the inlet a couple of weeks ago and I took that picture, looking back towards Whitby from the coastal walkway near Camborne. It’s actually a panoramic photo made up of several shots. You can’t see our house as it’s behind a hill, but the picture is taken facing in the right general direction.
Some of you will have seen the view from our house, looking out over the inlet (either in person, or from us taking the laptop out on the deck during a Skype video call!), but for those of you that haven’t, here is the view we have in the morning:
And here’s the same view in the evening sun:
Sometimes when it is really still, the water is smooth like a mirror and the hills get reflected in its surface. I keep meaning to grab the camera when it’s like that but haven’t managed it yet 
In case you aren’t aware, it’s summer here in NZ and we’ve been having some lovely hot weather. Candi is a keen gardener (well, keener than me) and every evening she is out in the garden with Sophie, watering the plants. I took this video the other day and you can see how Sophie’s technique is progressing
I am still getting used to the fact it is Xmas next week. Yes, there are Christmas decorations up all over the place, but I am thrown off a bit by the warm weather - it’s supposed to be cold at Xmas, dammit! I’m not complaining, it just feels strange and I know I will get used to it.
Candi and I are really looking forward to Sophie’s second Christmas - last year she was too young to comprehend what was going on but this year she should get a lot more out of it. Just watch this video of her wearing her Xmas Elf hat and you’ll see what I mean:
We’re going to miss seeing our friends and family over the Xmas period, but it’s not long until we’ll be in the UK so we’re looking forward to a mini-Xmas then!
Last weekend we took the 3 hour ferry ride to Picton and spent a long weekend on the South Island. We stayed in a great bach in Belvue Bay and our friend Graham travelled up from Christchurch and spent the weekend with us.
We were in a great spot, just off Queen Charlotte Drive and within easy reach of Havelock, the Marlborough wine region and Anakiwa. It’s also pretty scenic round there…
Today Soph and I hosted coffee group. It was loads of fun! We decided to have a halloween party - any excuse to dress up really
We had all sorts of costumes: a ballerina, a worm, a magician, a vampire, a butterfly, a bunny, a Minnie Mouse a hula girl and of course a lot of yummy mummies!
The children all seem to enjoy themselves and so did we.
Click on the picture below to see all the photos. I made the pumpkins and photo frames you see on the table. Not bad for a stay at home Mummy hey!
Love and kisses to everyone I miss you all like mad.
Mrs BrownXXXXXXXXXX
Since we had a return flight to the UK that needed to be used within 12 months, it was a case of ‘use it or lose it’ and we decided to come back to visit friends and family for a couple of weeks early next year. Here are the dates for your diaries:
Arriving in UK - Fri 25 Jan
Leaving UK for NZ - Sun 10 Feb
We don’t have a proper itinerary yet, but hope to see as many of you as possible. (Hint: expect us to be busy at weekends, so arrange to see us midweek if you can!)
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The weather here has been hit and miss, we’ve had a few days of good weather followed by a week or so of awful weather - high winds and nasty rain. The weekend was pretty good and sunny, even if we did have high winds yesterday. I guess we’re not quite out of winter yet, maybe in a few more weeks… (hopefully!) We must love bad weather though, we seem to be always following it around the globe.
Just recently, it seemed like summer was right around the corner, the clocks went forward so the evenings were lighter and we had temperatures of 18 degrees - it was great to see a bit of sunshine. I even came home from work a few times to find Candi and Sophie standing outside by our new gas BBQ, dinner prepped and ready to go. But then, just as we were getting into the swing of summery things, bang, we seem to have found ourselves right back in the middle of winter. Our overnight temperature has dropped as low as 3 this past week and we’ve had really strong winds, which has meant us having to turn those oil heaters back on and postponing all BBQ cooking for a while.
On Wednesday morning I was in work quite early and managed to keep my cool when we felt the effects of a 5.6 earthquake passing through from its origin near Hamner Springs (South Island). There are more details on the Geonet and NZ news websites:
New Zealand Earthquake Report (Geonet)
Quake felt in Wellington, Christchurch (NZ Herald)
South Island shaken by 5.6 quake (Stuff)
It was only the second quake I have actually felt since we arrived, but this one seemed to go on for quite a long time (I was on the third floor at the time so that may have had something to do with it). It felt like a kind of slow, rolling motion rather than violent shaking. Certainly an experience, I’m just glad it was minor and there were no serious effects.
The clocks go forward next weekend and it feels like the weather is getting better by the day, so this weekend we did loads of outdoors DIY in preparation for summer. I pressure-washed the bottom decking area and replaced a couple of outdoor lights, while Candi took down the tired basketball hoop (which was in a stupid place anyway) and tidied up a couple of the rusty metal fixings round the front of the house. She also weeded an area round the side of the house and now has a snazzy vegetable and herb garden, complete with asparagus, onions, rocket, lettuce, broccoli, fennel, dill, rosemary, spearmint, thyme, oregano, cabbage, tomatoes, celery, spring onions and bay leaves.
We’re really tired now, but at least it feels like we have accomplished something.
Here are some more photo sets of Sophie for you to enjoy. Click on each picture to open the Flickr photoset in a new window.
Following on from the previous post…
We went for an interesting walk around the Craters of the Moon Park, there were steaming craters, boiling mud and plenty of other reminders that the planet we live on can be pretty strange.
The next day we all drove up to Rotorua in the camper van, pretty easy going and we were there in under an hour. When we arrived, Candi, Sophie and I checked into a fantastic apartment-style hotel, Tuscany Villas. The room was really comfortable and the huge spa tub in the bathroom was fantastic. Rotorua has a very distinctive sulphur smell, kind of eggy and you can smell it with varying intensity all round the place.
Norman and Shirley checked into the campsite, then came back to collect us. We all went to Te Puia to experience a bit of Maori culture and see some more geothermal activity.
We got to experience a traditional Maori greeting, then we all went inside their hut (taking our shoes off first - most important) to see a performance of traditional singing and dancing. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week we decided to take Norman and Shirley on a trip up the North Island to Lake Taupo and Rotorua. We hired a campervan and picked it up on Thursday, from a caravan site at Lower Hutt. Here it is outside our house:
Sophie’s car seat was fixed to the seat in the back and she was ready to go:
We headed North up State Highway 1 and took turns driving, 100kms each. The van was a diesel automatic so it was easy to drive, even Shirley had a go.
We stopped at Taihape for a break and got great coffees from Soul Food Cafe.
For some reason we couldn’t quite fathom, there is a huge gumboot made out of corrugated iron on the outskirts of town. At least it was a photo opportunity!
The scenery is stunning, especially on the Desert Road. The mountains looked beautiful covered with snow and it was strange to see them on the horizon while all around was dry, brown scrubland.
We had a quick stop on the shore of Lake Taupo and headed into town. We found a nice campsite and booked in. Norman and Shirley stayed in the van overnight and we stayed in a well-equipped unit.
The next day, we had breakfast in Taupo before heading off to the Huka Falls.
Candi and I had a ride on the jet boat, which goes really fast and the guy driving gets really close to all sorts of obstacles and does lots of high-speed spins. It was excellent
We headed next door to the geothermic water-heated prawn farm where several large specimens were consumed:
It may have been three weeks since Sophie’s actual Birthday, but her party wasn’t until today. It was at a local church hall and she had a joint party with Grace Tia (Grace’s Mum, Cathy has become great friends with Candi and the girls were born around the same time).
The party was a great success, although we had a mini drama soon after arriving - the balloons started bursting all on their own, which resulted in a few tears. After the second balloon burst, we decided to take them all down and move them outside the hall, as it was probably better for everyone. Sophie loves balloons and she got a real fright when the first one burst, but I don’t think it has put her off them too much!
On Saturday morning, Norman and Shirley arrived from the UK to stay with us for three weeks. We all went to Wellington airport to meet them and surprised them by waiting right outside the gate (it’s not like at Heathrow, you can wait for people as soon as they walk off the plane). Because they had already been through customs at Auckland, we were out of the airport in no time and heading back to Whitby.
They had a good flight and they’re almost over their jetlag already. We’re really pleased to have them staying with us and it’s so nice to see them after what seems like ages - it’s been 3 months since we left the UK
Some photos here - it’s a shame the pics of Candi with her parents didn’t come out very well (too blurry in all the excitement!)
We’ve been hearing from our friends and family in the UK about the wet weather they’ve been having recently. The floods of the last few days have even made the news over here (which is normally mostly about how the All Blacks are doing!). We have been scouring the UK news websites for areas we recognise, since Berkshire and Oxfordshire are amongst the areas most badly affected and we were there during the last Caversham floods - in 2003, when the water came within inches of our front door. It’s not a situation we want to find ourselves in again.
We found a flood picture gallery on the BBC Berkshire website which said more than any news story could. There was even a picture taken from outside the pub where we stayed when we got married in Aldermaston - children being rescued from the local school . Some of the pictures really bring it home, it must be terrible for those affected.
The situation doesn’t look too good; nearly 50,000 homes are without power, 150,000 homes are without water supplies and scumbags are looting abandoned cars, adding to the misery. Parts of the M4 were closed following a landslide, trains were disrupted (a powercut caused Reading station to close for 2 hours) and the wet weather is set to continue.
This time last year, the UK was basking in one of the hottest summers ever. It’s a completely different story this year.
Last weekend, we went away to Solway. It was far enough away that we felt like we’d actually been somewhere, but not too far - less than an hour’s drive. We took some pictures, click below to see a photojournal…
Rimutaka Panorama
Lots to blog about from the weekend, here’s something to whet your appetite. On the way home from our weekend away, we stopped and took some pictures at the top of the Rimutaka moutains. This shot is lots of pictures stitched together and will hopefully give you an idea of the scale. As you can see, the weather was fantastic (but a bit chilly).
I can’t write a long post just now, but I know some of you are dying to see some pictures of the Birthday girl…. click on the pic to see the ones I took this morning.
The new house is slowly being beaten into shape. We’ve had a nice guy round to fix the roof - nothing major, but it was leaky in a few places due to poor repairs carried out by the previous owners. We have also made a start on decorating, after a bit of discussion we decided to fix up the guest bedroom first. The walls were a navy blue colour, which needed three coats of underlay to hide. It’s hard work and has taken us all weekend just to do that, so we need to do the topcoat(s) next. I’m hoping we can get it done sometime during the week… Sophie depending!
It’s Sophie’s Birthday this week, one year old already! I can’t believe how quickly that has come around… Twelve months ago, we didn’t have any plans to visit New Zealand, much less emigrate. In an incredibly short time, we have dropped everything and moved halfway around the world to a life we hope will be the best thing for our family. We want to look back in years to come and be proud that we had the courage to leave behind everything that we knew, in order to give our family a better quality of life in an amazing part of the world.
The only thing we are missing is our friends and family. Other than that, neither of us feels like we are ‘missing out’ on anything in the UK, even the British summer isn’t making us homesick. The Kiwi winter is a new experience for us and (so far, at least) isn’t as bad as we had been led to believe - the weather this weekend was actually really nice, with clear blue skies and sunshine. We are just really looking forward to the Kiwi summer!
Being winter, we have all been suffering with the usual colds, but spirits have been pretty good on the whole. Check out these pictures of Sophie, eating toast and jam with her Mum one morning:
Cutie, eh? There’s bound to be plenty of pics of her Birthday, so check back soon!
We are looking forward to welcoming our first houseguests, Norman and Shirley, who are arriving in a few short weeks. After that we don’t have any firm plans for our next visitors, so get saving people! The guest room is going to be stunning, you have to see it in person
First update since we moved in to our new house last weekend… let me tell you what’s been going on.
First of all, having our own house is awesome. I can’t tell you how nice it is knowing that we can actually change anything we don’t like. As it happens, we don’t like a lot of things, but at least they’re ours to change! We have already made a start in a few areas - I have been busy replacing the light fittings and Candi has been busy tidying up the garden. We haven’t started to tackle the mammoth task of painting / redecorating the walls yet - but there’s plenty of time. We’re trying to prioritise the many tasks ahead of us, but the upstairs bathroom is definitely top of the to-do list - burgundy walls and matching bathroom suite are really not our style!
My daily commute Read the rest of this entry »
Our house purchase is going through, we agreed to go ‘unconditional’ this Wednesday and we settle next Friday. Yes, you read that right - we will own our house by next weekend! How weird / awesome / scary /cool is that?!
We are really looking forward to it, it will be so cool to finally move into our own house. There’s a load of stuff to do DIY-wise, but we are up for it. We are working on an action plan - prioritising everything that needs doing. I guess replacing the burgundy bathroom suite is probably top of the list…
Meanwhile, we are loving Kiwi life… Candi comes in to Wellington to meet me for lunch sometimes, she manages to park right outside the building. Try doing that in London (or even Reading). Yesterday, she picked me up and we drove round to the Chocolate Fish Cafe and got milkshakes. We walked up and down the beach for a bit - Sophie loved it - and marvelled at the huge mussel shells, they were as long as my hand. A world away from the tiddlers we are used to in the UK.
Sophie is at the stage where she seems to learn to do something new every day, it’s amazing to watch. She has 4 (and a bit) teeth now and her favourite pastime is to kneel at her toybox and pull all the toys out one by one. It takes a while, because she has soooo many toys of course… She stands unaided for a few seconds at a time and walks with a bit of assistance. She babbles away in her own language and we are taking bets on how long it will be before she is walking and talking. Not long, we reckon. Not long at all.
So we’ve been in NZ about a month, got the basics in order and as I said in the last post, we found a house we really liked in Whitby. The sale was a tender, which basically involves sealed bids opened at a predetermined time - we were delighted to get a phone call this afternoon telling us we were successful and (subject to a good survey) the property is ours! Here are some pics to give you an idea.
OK, so it may need a bit of tidying up, but nothing too major and to be honest it will be nice to be able to put our mark on the place. The best bits about the property are the things that can’t be bought - the size of the plot, the fact that it’s not overlooked and kid-friendly and of course the fantastic view of the inlet. It’s got lots of space, the rooms are all large and it’s only a 20 minute train ride from work (not that different from what I have now) and it’s far enough out of Wellington to be nice and quiet, but close enough to major shops not to be too remote.
Also, if you convert what we are paying into pounds, the same money would probably have bought us a shed in Oxfordshire (and only then with a 5x multiplier 30 year mortgage!).
The house purchasing process over here is a bit different to what we are used to in the UK - it’s a lot simpler and can therefore take place much quicker. All being well, we expect to move in on 24th May - just 2 weeks away! All that needs to happen is for us to get a favourable builders report (survey). Fingers crossed for that, it is happening on Monday…
That’s all for now, check back for updates as we get them!
First, apologies for not posting sooner. We don’t have broadband at home so we’re stuck with using a modem (I know, shocking isn’t it?) and it’s so slow it’s hardly worth bothering with. I have super-speedy internet access at work, but it’s not right for me to be working on my personal blog when I should be working - especially with me being a contractor.
So… what can I tell you about our progress, one month in to our lives in NZ? We have bought everything we need for our house, latest additions are a washing machine, Read the rest of this entry »
Our first week seems to have flown by, I guess mainly because we have had so much to do and it has kept us both busy. We have bought the essentials – toaster, kettle, microwave etc and Candi has been busy organising everything, so it almost looks like a proper home now.
Our priority now is getting our own car sorted out (we are hiring an old Mazda at the moment, which is a bit of a shed – it has already had clutch problems at some traffic lights in rush hour, which was far from ideal! And I thought my days of driving a crappy old rustbucket were over!). After a bit of a think, we have decided that Read the rest of this entry »
Joe and I went to look at a car auction yesteday morning, but it didn’t open and we gave up in the end. We expect this is because it is Easter, but there did seem to be quite a few cars there and could be worth a look some other time.
We went to the Queensgate shopping centre and ran around the Warehouse, buying basics like a toaster, kettle, ironing board etc. We had an overflowing trolley full of stuff, but it was very reasonably priced and didn’t break the bank.
We also went to the nearby BigSave and bought a coffee table and 2 chests of drawers – they are being delivered on Tuesday. We looked at sofabeds, but didn’t buy one – we don’t need one immediately as we don’t have anyone coming to stay just yet! But there is a good selection there, so we may go back.
We are thinking about hiring a car for a while, just until we buy one of our own. I will ring around a few places tomorrow and see what prices are like. It will be good to have our own transport, so we can do a bit of exploring!
We got to Heathrow in plenty of time for our flight – so early in fact, that we had to wait for the Air NZ check-in desk to open. We were taking full advantage of the generous baggage allowance (2 pieces of up to 23kgs each) so we were fully loaded and a bit apprehensive when our luggage was on the scales… As it turned out, we needn’t have worried – they were all over but it didn’t seem to matter. The heaviest bag was 29kg, but luckily we weren’t charged any extra (and didn’t have to frantically jettison unnecessary stuff to bring us under!). We also had 3 large-ish bags as hand luggage, as well as winter jackets so we definitely had our hands full going on to the flight.
The first leg, Heathrow to LA was only about half-full so we had an empty seat next to us, which was great as it meant we could spread out a bit. Sophie was very well behaved during the whole flight, she managed to sleep quite a lot and remained in a good mood, which helped our state of mind too! The Air NZ staff were extremely friendly and attentive, noticeably more so than the Emirates staff we had last time. The entertainment system wasn’t as good as Emirates, but there was still a good selection of movies. The ‘airshow’ channel, which shows distance flown, ETA and current location was more advanced than I have see before, it was a bit like Google Earth, with a 3D model globe and animated plane.
After hearing some horror stories about the LAX transfer lounge, we were expecting the worst, but as it turned out it wasn’t that bad. We got directed to the front of the line as we had a small child and had the once-over from a Customs official, then we had 2 fingerprints taken (index fingers of both hands) and a photo taken from a webcam-type camera. We then had to wait in the transit area for about an hour. It reminded me of a bus station or something similar - not much to see but there was free coffee, soft drinks and light snacks. Candi spread our jackets out and sat with Sophie on the floor while she played with her toys.
After a bit of a wait, our flight was called and we went back to the plane and took the same seats we had before. There were slightly more passengers on this leg, but the flight still wasn’t full and we kept the empty seat next to us too.
This leg of the journey felt much longer than the last, but I think that was mainly because it remained dark outside the plane and we only flew over ocean the entire time. Plus we were really tired by this point, but thankfully we all managed to get some more sleep.
When we arrived in Auckland, we had to clear Customs, claim our baggage and then check in for the domestic flight to Wellington. The Customs official was nice, he asked a few questions about how long we were staying for, whether I had work and somewhere to stay lined up, but apart from that there was no drama. He said “Welcome to New Zealand” and waved us through. We loaded up our trolleys with all our bags and trundled round to the Domestic check in desk. Apparently, it’s a 10 minute walk from the International terminal to the Domestic one, but we caught the bus instead and used the saved time to get coffees.
The internal flight to Wellington was even less crowded than the international ones we had just had – we had an entire row to ourselves, which meant I was able to scoot across the aisle to take some pictures. The sun was still quite low in the sky, so we got a great view of the NZ landscape below.
When we arrived in Wellington, there was a (large) Airport taxi waiting for us, but we were pleasantly surprised to see Joe and Susanne there as well. We said our hellos and all drove back to their house for much-needed showers!
We went up to the house we are renting to have a look around – there is some basic furniture in there now as well as a TV, DVD player and stereo.
Joe drove us to Horokiwi, which is the next hill along. I took some pictures looking back at our houses – ours seems very exposed, right on the top of the crest! I will be posting the pics soon.
Things are coming on nicely… last week the shippers came and packed up our stuff, then we had the cleaners round to do a ‘deep clean’. Turns out they didn’t go quite as deep as they should - they are coming back tomorrow morning to finish the job properly (I wasn’t happy with their efforts first time around and when you pay someone nearly £300 you expect a good job otherwise what’s the point?)
We spent Saturday with my parents and Sophie actually started crawling! It wasn’t entirely unexpected - she has been making the right sort of moves a lot recently, but we had been hoping she wouldn’t actually start until after the flight! Ah well, looks like we are really going to have our hands full on the way to NZ!
Today we had lunch with Lou, then went back to our house in Cholsey to do a few bits of tidying (Lou helped and looked after Sophie for a bit too). Then we went round to see Cindi for a bit.
We get ‘checked out’ from our Cholsey house tomorrow lunchtime - hopefully there won’t be any surprises and we can get most (if not all) of our deposit back. Every little helps when you’re between jobs!
After that, we travel to Epping to stay with Candi’s folks for a couple of days before we leave on Wednesday.
Anyway, if you’re thinking of contacting us once we get there, you may find this useful:
I had my first day of being ‘between jobs’ today - I had my last day last Friday and I don’t start at the new one until 10th April. There’s plenty to be doing in the meantime though - the house looks like a bomb has hit it and we have the packers / shippers coming on Thursday. Sophie has a fever (she is probably just teething) so it means that one of us has to look after her all the time… productivity is low at the moment!
We are still going through our stuff and sorting it into 3 piles - stuff that is being shipped, stuff that is coming with us in our luggage and “other”. The last section is to get sold or given away - if not it goes in the bin. It’s a very cleansing process - just imagine going through all your drawers and cupboards and sorting everything into one of those categories. Yes - I really do mean everything!
When it comes to it, is there really that much stuff that you cannot live without?
I guess what is making it harder is that we won’t see the shipping container for 12-16 weeks… that is a long time to live without something, if the item is that critical you will have bought another one by then anyway.
Today was a good day. Candi went into London and got our temporary visa applications processed - we now have valid visas for our stay and I can legally work in NZ. Yay!
I also received a signed copy of my employment contract in the post, which I had been waiting for.
Preparations for the move are progressing well… we have sold our car and Candi’s parents have kindly lent us theirs to use while we prepare to leave the country. We have had some quotes from various shipping companies and have chosen which one we want to use (they have an office in Lower Hutt, which we think will be a bonus if anything goes wrong) and we are busily going through our stuff, selling what we can and giving away / binning the rest. We have even given our cat away to Lou, which Candi is sad about but we know it is for the best. I am not sure how he would cope with the long flight.
I am working through my notice period at work, handing over stuff, doing documentation etc. I feel like I should be ‘winding down’ but in fact I am as busy as I ever have been. Ah well, just over a week to go and it’s my leaving drinks on Thursday - expect Friday will be a write-off too then
All in all, things are looking rosy and we’re all set to go. We’re trying to see as many of our friends as possible before we leave - we won’t get to see them for at least 6 months, maybe longer.
Incidentally, the picture above is pretty close to what the view from our new living room will look like.
It’s official and I can announce it…. WE ARE MOVING TO NEW ZEALAND!
While we were over there, I had several meetings and interviews with prospective employers and managed to secure a job offer with an internet-based company. The job starts on 10 April and we are very busy at the moment, selling most of our stuff and organizing the relocation. As you might imagine, there is so much to do but we are making good progress - we even sold our car yesterday (which was a bit of a worry, what if it didn’t sell?) and are getting quotes from international moving companies about shipping some of our furniture.
It’s a very exciting time and it’s not without it’s problems, but hopefully we will manage to get everything sorted in time.
Stay tuned for updates, we intend to keep this blog updated as we go.
Just a quick note to say we made it back safely - Christchurch -> Sydney wasn’t too bad (3 hrs) and Sydney airport was OK, they even had free internet kiosks.
The next leg, Sydney -> Dubai was 14 hrs and was a bit of a killer :-s
We had about 3 hrs to kill in Dubai airport and looked round the shops - the stuff seemed fairly cheap, but not amazingly so. They had a couple of cool laptops, one of the HP ones with a built-in webcam looked cool running Vista, but when I worked it out it was about £800 - which I am sure is about what you would pay here… need to check. We bought some bottled water for the next leg of the journey, but that was about it.
The final leg was Dubai -> Heathrow (7 hrs) and seemed like a walk in the park compared to the previous flight. We arrived back in Heathrow on schedule and the UK weather was overcast but mild - still a bit of a shock to the system after the great NZ weather we have been used to.
Our airport taxi guy was waiting for us as expected and we got driven home without incident.
So we are home now, with our body clocks all screwed up (it’s 15:00 on Friday and my body still thinks it is 04:00 on Saturday?!) but that will sort itself out given time.
The house is immaculate (thanks auntie Lou!) and Tigger is pleased to see us. Just the unpacking and stuff to do now and I am looking forward to a nice hot bath.
Speak to you all soon. Thanks for reading this blog and leaving all those comments, it meant a lot to us while we were on the other side of the world!
We arrived here safe and sound around 11:30 and where met at the airport by Graham who commented on the fact we had caught the sun - “feel the burn” more like it
We drove home and dropped the bags off and went out for lunch at Jack Flashes where I had a divine banana smoothie. Too much good food I am on a strict diet when I get home! It was a lovely lunch after which we went home to relax before our dinner at Dux de Lux. Sophie decided to scream the whole way there which wasn’t ideal but she cheered up after a bottle and a lot of fussing from Mom, Dad and Uncle Graham.
We are now back at Grahams’ folks home having some wine on the balcony. Sweet joy! Well it’s early to bed for us tonight as tomorrow will be quite taxing. We have to unpack, sort and repack, deciding what we want to keep, leave here or throw out.
Night, night and lots of love from me in New Zealand. Can’t believe this is my second to last post boo hoo. See you all very soon, not long now.
Thanks to everyone who sent their comment it’s been a wonderful way to keep in touch and thank you to Graham again for putting us up. We owe you
Lots of love
CandiXXXXXXXXXX
It was our last full day in Wellington today *sniff*
I had some more stuff to do in town, but Candi and Sophie came and joined me after and we all met up with “Unkie Joe” for a Subway lunch in Lambton Square, then left him and did a bit of touristy “walking up and down aimlessly”.
What a nice place Wellington is - it kind of reminds me a bit of Sydney, but Read the rest of this entry »
So as the sun went down today, there was another lovely photo opportunity which was too good to miss.
We all took Speights for a little walk - Even Sophie came with us as she was wide awake after her afternoon nap.
Here is a pic of Joe, Susanne and Speights, with the sun going down behind them:
We went to a viewpoint and I took a photo looking Read the rest of this entry »
Today, we were all invited to a neighbour’s BBQ just over the road. A lot of people from Joe and Susanne’s road were there and it was nice to meet them all - they were really friendly. There was plenty of food and drink and Sophie was really well behaved too. We put up her ’sun tent’ so she could sit in the shade. She seemed to enjoy it:
The house is a little further up the hill, so the views are even more spectacular. They also had a great deck which gets lots of sun in the afternoon.
Candi had some fun taking pictures of some of the ferns too:
Yet another day of beautiful weather - and the wind didn’t get above a slight breeze either. Everyone we met assured us the weather was always like this and it never rains
Sophie was up at 06:40 today and she obviously thought this was a great time to be up, so she woke us up too. Thanks, Sophie! I was allowed to have a bit of a lie-in and Mum brought Sophie back to join me after she had breakfast - poor thing was tired - so we both slept until about 10:45.
The weather was great again, so we decided to go for a walk down at the bottom of the Hutt valley. After about 15 minutes of struggling Read the rest of this entry »
It was Valentine’s Day today. It turns out Candi bought me a card a few days ago, but obviously didn’t drop enough hints, because this morning when she gave me mine (along with some yummy chocolate stick things) I had to think fast about why I didn’t have anything to give her… At all. Nothing. Not even a card. Seriously.
Being half asleep, my brain didn’t function at all and I failed hopelessly. Oops! Luckily, she took it pretty well and is almost speaking to me again now. I’ll have to make it up to her somehow… Later I tried telling her this entire trip was one big Valentine’s Day present, but she wasn’t buying it
Today I had to go into Wellington for 10am and afterwards Susanne drove us up Mount Victoria, which has great 360 degree views of Wellington and the surrounding areas. Here is a shot of the waterfront area of the city:
It’s really easy to get up to this viewpoint; you just Read the rest of this entry »
Up at 8am today - thanks to Sophie for the alarm call! She has been as good as gold on this trip (well, most of the time) and has only been grumpy when we have kept her in her car seat for too long or not let her sleep when she was due for a nap.
We looked at some ‘open’ houses yesterday and got a bit of an idea of how much we could get for our money. Surprisingly (we thought) houses on the hillside are cheaper than those on the valley floor. Despite the fact that there are better schools, it is Read the rest of this entry »
The picture above was taken last week when we were at the Gibb’s holiday bach in Moana, using our ‘backup’ camera, the JVC digital camcorder. The results are not too bad, considering - previously I have felt a little underwhelmed by the quality of the shots it takes in stills mode. I am also really glad I brought my polariser with me for the Canon DSLR, the difference it has made to the sky in some of my pics is amazing.
I’ve just had a look at my cousin’s photos on Flickr and the latest ones are of the snow they had in the UK recently. Compare and contrast with the pics of scenery in NZ I have been posting recently - I know where I would rather be!
We have been really lucky with the weather since we arrived, today was the first day which hasn’t been constant sunshine, but even then it brightened up later on. Apparently this is pretty normal for Wellington, what starts out as a bad weather day can clear up and vice-versa.
In true techie style, I have had to ‘unlock’ two mobile phones since arriving, to allow them to work on the Vodafone NZ network. Unlocking phones is something that I have paid for in the past, and it’s not unusual for people to charge 5 or 10 pounds for it back in the UK. However, a bit of Googling and I have found a website that lets you unlock mobile phones for free. (You may need to click on the flag at the bottom of the page for it to display in English). It definitely seems to work and now I have a UK mobile which works with a Vodafone NZ pre-pay SIM card. Handy!
That’s about all the news I have, Candi is doing an excellent job of posting all the important stuff…. signing off for now.
I have taken heaps of pictures since we arrived (luckily I brought the laptop, so I can free up space on my memory cards when they get full). I have uploaded a few of the best ones to Flickr and created a set. Click here to see our New Zealand picture set.
I have also changed the picture at the top of this page, it’s now the view this morning from the Gibbs’ bach at Moana. Check out the low wispy cloud!
There’s only 50 pictures in the set there at the moment, but I will continue to upload them overnight and keep adding more as we go. Hope you enjoy them, let me know by leaving comments.
Just wanted to say that I have taken some great pictures, but I haven’t had a chance to sort through them yet. They will be uploaded in aday or two, when we get somewere with internet access. For now, you’ll just have to imagine it!
We fly out tomorrow night, I had my last day at work today. I thought I would be excited, but instead I was rushed off my feet all day and didn’t have time to think about it.
It’s great to think that I won’t be back in the office now until 26th Feb. I haven’t had such a long, exotic holiday since our honeymoon back in 2004 - I think I deserve it!
We’re full of anticipation and getting a but nervous as it dawns on us what lies ahead. What will the flight be like? Will it get delayed? How will little Sophie cope with travelling for nearly 30 hours? What will the weather be like when we finally arrive?
We are hoping everything will go smoothly and we will learn from others’ mistakes (eg no forgotten passports!)
Next update will come once we arrive - unless we have some time to kill and find internet access en-route :-p
Today we woke up to a light covering of snow, I took this pic on the way to the train station. I was expecting delays, but was pleasantly surprised when my train arrived on time.
Apparently the New Zealand summer has been pretty poor so far, but at least it is warmer than it is in the UK right now. We are hoping to see some nice weather when we arrive there next Saturday. Keep checking back for updates and pics.
Hi! This is the first post on this new website. We are going to use this to keep you all up to date with what we get up to on our 3 week trip to New Zealand. We fly out on Feb 1 and fly home on 22 Feb. While we’re out there, we will be spending time in Christchurch and Wellington.
We promise to post lots of pictures (and maybe even some video) and tell you all about what we get up to. Don’t forget to post comments and / or send us email.
Watch this space!
