The last ten days have passed in a blur of activity and, by securing
\na work permit and finding a house to rent whilst we find one to buy,
\nwe have now cleared the last two major obstacles in the first phase
\nof our move to New Zealand. Just over a week ago, after four days
\nand 1500 kilometres of house hunting, we have found a great house to
\nrent in a rural township, 35 kilometres north west of Auckland.
\nAfter several days of viewing disappointing and nondescript suburban
\nproperties, we knew that we would find it hard to live in a home that
\nwas wedged in amongst others. Having spent too many years in a small
\napartment listening to every neighbourly noise, such places were not
\nwhat we had envisaged when we decided to move halfway round the
\nworld. Firm in our resolve to find a place where the kids would have
\nspace to run amok, a community where we could enjoy life and make
\nfriends and yet within commuting distance of my new job, we searched on.<\/p>\n
Having been told that rural rentals are rarer than hen’s teeth, we
\ncontinued north to a place called Kumeu[1] and popped into a real
\nestate agent to enquire anyway. It just so happened that one such
\n‘hen’s tooth’ was back on the market that morning and the description
\ncaptured our interest. As the agent couldn’t contact the outgoing
\ntenant, we drove out of the town and up the hill to view the property
\nfrom the road. Whilst the neighbouring Tuscan style villa, nestling
\namongst the vineyards on the other side of the road had the edge in
\nterms of setting, the large house opposite, set back from the road
\nand with a large garden and patio to the rear was certainly in line
\nwith what we were looking for.<\/p>\n
Later that afternoon, we were able to have a look around the house
\nand it seemed to offer most of what we needed and wanted plus a few
\nother things like a sunken mosaic bath and a dressing room for the
\nlady of the house! Although it was a little over the budget we’d
\nset, we both knew that it was the best place we’d seen all week and
\nthat the township was just the type of place we could see ourselves
\nsettling in. Subsequent enquiries showed that the house was well
\nplaced for access to good schools, local amenities, farm shop and a
\nreasonable 30 minutes from my office. We have since signed on the
\ndotted line, paid our bonds and deposits and will hopefully move in
\nat some point during the coming week.<\/p>\n
With six humans, four cats, eighteen bags and cases, two bikes and
\nnumerous boxes of stuff to move up country, not to mention my
\nupcoming daily commute, it was obvious that even our eight seat
\nfamily car would be woefully inadequate. Having driven a long 600
\nkilometres back to Foxton on Sunday and spent Monday running around
\ntrying to work out what we needed to do first, we headed to
\nPalmerston North on Tuesday to look for the second car and trailer
\nwe’d need to move north. During a quick lunch break, we got a call
\nto say that a package was awaiting collection at Palmerston North
\nAirport’s Courier Post depot. When I drove over to collect it, I
\nfound it contained a letter from NZ Immigration and my passport,
\ninside which I found my brand new two year work permit. I was
\nstunned; partly because it had been processed and returned to me in
\nunder two days but also because, after a good few years’ research and
\nplanning and a large leap into the unknown without any guarantees, we
\nwere now in New Zealand, with a home to move to, a job to start and
\nthe permit that holds the key to our future.<\/p>\n
I’ll admit to being a little overcome for a moment or two as it all
\nsunk in and I felt a wave of relief pass over me. It was only then
\nthat I realised just quite how much pressure I had put myself under
\nto keep focused on getting the job and permit we need to stay in New
\nZealand, occasionally at the expense of my family’s feelings, if the
\ntruth be told. I think that it was then that I appreciated just what
\nwe are in the process of accomplishing as a family: for all the
\nrelocation programmes on television, comparatively cheap air travel
\nand desire for different lives, uprooting a family of six from an
\nestablished life in one country and moving them to another far away
\nis something that is hard to quantify and appreciate until you
\nexperience it for yourself. After sharing the good news with SWMBO
\nand our dear friends Peter and Rae, we celebrated by buying a second
\nhand car and returning home to cook a family meal of chicken piri
\npiri. During this, SWMBO and I drank a toast proposed by our
\ndaughters with a white wine charmingly called ‘Cat Pee On A
\nGooseberry Bush’. With a spooky twist of synchronicity, upon reading
\nthe label, we discovered that the wine (which helps raise money for
\nthe SPCA, in case you were wondering) is produced in the valley that
\nwe shall be moving to. Be it fate, destiny, the prayers of friends
\nor sheer coincidence, it made us smile.<\/p>\n
After many calls to shippers and Customs, it seems likely that next
\nweek we will finally be reunited with the shipping container with all
\nour worldly goods in it next week after living out of 18 cases and
\nbags for three months. This being the case, we now have just two
\ndays to get ourselves packed (of course, we have bought more stuff
\nsince we arrived) and ready to leave at 0600hrs on Tuesday. It’ll be
\nan eight to nine hour journey as a convoy to our new place, with
\nSWMBO driving one car with half the kids and her cats whilst I’ll
\ntake the remainder in mine, along with a load of boxes and bags in
\nour newly purchased trailer. Having bought the truck secondhand, we
\nsplashed out on a trailer because every Kiwi family seems to own a
\nfour wheel drive ‘ute’ and a galvanised trailer with which they haul
\ntheir sheep, cattle, white goods, hunting dogs, old mattresses,
\nbuilding materials and mother-in-laws, depending on the task at
\nhand. As we drove back from the vehicle testing station, I turned to
\nSWMBO and asked her how it was that our lives had come to resemble a
\nCountry & Western lyric – just a man, his gal, his truck ‘n’ his
\ntrailer, driving into the setting sun. We thought it was funny but
\nyou had to be there, I guess.<\/p>\n
Joking aside, there’s hardly a day goes by when we don’t pinch
\nourselves to check that it isn’t all a dream. In just the last ten
\nweeks, we have abandoned the Northern autumn, snorkelled in the
\nPacific, paddled the Tasman, made new friends, hiked the mountains,
\nbeen interviewed many times, swum with dolphins, joined schools,
\nattended clubs, seen Venus and Mars in the same night sky, drunk
\nlovely wines and fretted over papers and formalities. Whilst we have
\nhad the odd blue moment and it is very early days yet, each day seems
\nto confirm the rightness of our decision – days where the girls can
\ncycle to school with minimal risk, days where one’s word is still
\nenough to close a deal and days where the local pastor lets folk use
\nhis open wifi connection for free because he’s paid for it anyway.
\nLeaving the friendly folk of Foxton and Horowhenua in the week to
\ncome, we can only hope that we find their like amongst our new
\nneighbours in Kumeu.<\/p>\n
[1] http:\/\/www.kumeudistrict.co.nz\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The last ten days have passed in a blur of activity and, by securing a work permit and finding a house to rent whilst we find one to buy, we have now cleared the last two major obstacles in the first phase of our move to New Zealand. Just over a week ago, after four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[258,259,264],"tags":[760,761,260,261,762],"class_list":["post-216892689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emigration","category-family-friends","category-ponderings","tag-emigration","tag-family-friends","tag-house-home","tag-immigration","tag-ponderings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216892689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216892689"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216892689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216893214,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216892689\/revisions\/216893214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216892689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216892689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216892689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}