Joolzr
1st July 2008, 11:51 PM
Hi all
We’ve been in Auckland a week today, although in some ways it feels like forever, in other ways it has flown by.
OH has nervously gone off to the first day of his new job so I thought our experiences may be of interest to people about to arrive, while they are fresh in my head.
As a quick potted introduction (cos I never got round to doing it in the forum section):
We’re Scots/northerners, who had been living in Cambridge for 8 years. We were happy there but OH had finished his training – all 17 years of it, and was ready to become a consultant doctor. I finished my PhD two years ago and was working for a conservation charity, which was pretty much my dream job. But it was decision time: settle for good or try something new and we fancied a change and so decided to move abroad for a year.
After investigating a few places, Auckland came in first, partly, I must admit because of timing. OH’s job was ending with his training and we needed to move fairly quickly or he would have had to locum which can be fairly miserable. He started applying for jobs in January this year, got offered the job in Auckland in Feb and we started applying for work visas straight away. We’re rented out our house in Cambridge for 12 months and we’re fairly open to whether we stay, go on to somewhere else, or head back to the UK. I know this sounds like we’ve had it easy compared to a lot of people but OH’s training has been pretty tough and he is in a specialty which most countries are very short of.
We left the UK on the 4th June after quite a stressful time packing up our lives there and spent 2 and a half weeks in Malaysia on route. The idea was that we’d get some summer weather and have a holiday after all the stress. In retrospect, that was slightly ambitious. We both found it quite difficult to switch off from the nerves of our new start. Also my OH had a call about a telephone interview for another country halfway through which stressed us both out completely. We did some fairly adventurous travel on the East Coast, which was a big mistake as we both got serious food poisoning which lasted till after we finally arrived in Auckland. Given the chance again, I’d go somewhere easy in Malaysia like Penang or Langkawi, probably just for a week.
We arrived last Monday and have been staying in a serviced Apartment which has worked out very well. One advantage of coming in winter has been that there is a lot of availability for hotels etc and we got a good deal. We’re paying $739 a week which includes a kitchen with tea, coffee etc, broadband internet, a washer and dryer and free car parking. We got it through www.aptsinakld.co.nz but they do some in Wellington too.
My main impression of Auckland so far has been really positive. Everything has been so much easier than I had expected and seems to be approached with a huge dose of common sense. Auckland is diverse and the people very pleasant to interact with. Their stress levels seem to be so much lower than people in the UK. Even the teenagers are polite and people are very happy to help with things like directions and the silly questions you inevitable have to ask as a newbee. In a week, we have managed to get a bank account, found a house, got mobile phones, and have rented a car for the time being. Common sense seems to be applied to everything and we have been offered lots of credit, including interest free, on sensible terms- if you pay off a loan early you don’t pay the interest on the whole term like in the UK. We haven’t bought anything major yet but have found the cost of relocation to be much greater than we expected.
For those about to arrive:
• Opening a bank account was easy. All we needed was our passports with visas and $300. We get credit cards once OH’s first salary check is paid next week.
• Mobile phones are horrifically expensive. Get your handset unlocked before you leave the UK. (I’d planned on getting this done in Malaysia but the food poisoning put an end to that). On pre pay you will pay 89c per minute but I’ve taken a twelve month contract which was easy to get with a work visa. The upside is that the expense means that people don’t spend their whole bus journey chatting…
• Some goods seem a lot more expensive, others a lot cheaper. I’m impressed with the clothes but horrified by the cost of other things like bedding. Of course, it’s harder cos you don’t know where to shop.
• Food is quite expensive but seems to be of good quality. Apart from the convenience foods. Wish I’d shipped the breadmaker as the pizzas in supermarkets are rubbish.
• I haven’t found a big store to buy things like underwear and bedding yet. I miss M and S already. If anyone has any suggestions…
• OH says the driving is terrible.
• The weather can be bad on a Scottish scale and we were unprepared.
Our serviced apartment, although great in other respects, is made of cheap materials and looses heat really quickly. We can even hear the rain on the roof! Everyone says this weather is unusual but I remember saying that to folk in Edinburgh ;)
Next week we move into our rental in Parnell which I’m really looking forward to. It looked very unpromising on trade me but turned out to much nicer than expected. Some of the others we looked at were pretty grubby, to say the least so don’t get discouraged at the first few you see. Ours has a beautiful deck/balcony and feels peaceful, even though it is near the city and I will be able to survive on the bus while OH drives to work. My next task is to get the house set up and start job hunting. So far, things this end have been easier than I expected and I’m enjoying NZ more than I had expected. I think the kiwi attitude may suit me but am realistic about the long haul that is relocation.
Hope I haven’t sounded to negative and if I have anything wrong please let me know. It’s an honest mistake…. Wow, how did this get so long?
B.w
Julie
We’ve been in Auckland a week today, although in some ways it feels like forever, in other ways it has flown by.
OH has nervously gone off to the first day of his new job so I thought our experiences may be of interest to people about to arrive, while they are fresh in my head.
As a quick potted introduction (cos I never got round to doing it in the forum section):
We’re Scots/northerners, who had been living in Cambridge for 8 years. We were happy there but OH had finished his training – all 17 years of it, and was ready to become a consultant doctor. I finished my PhD two years ago and was working for a conservation charity, which was pretty much my dream job. But it was decision time: settle for good or try something new and we fancied a change and so decided to move abroad for a year.
After investigating a few places, Auckland came in first, partly, I must admit because of timing. OH’s job was ending with his training and we needed to move fairly quickly or he would have had to locum which can be fairly miserable. He started applying for jobs in January this year, got offered the job in Auckland in Feb and we started applying for work visas straight away. We’re rented out our house in Cambridge for 12 months and we’re fairly open to whether we stay, go on to somewhere else, or head back to the UK. I know this sounds like we’ve had it easy compared to a lot of people but OH’s training has been pretty tough and he is in a specialty which most countries are very short of.
We left the UK on the 4th June after quite a stressful time packing up our lives there and spent 2 and a half weeks in Malaysia on route. The idea was that we’d get some summer weather and have a holiday after all the stress. In retrospect, that was slightly ambitious. We both found it quite difficult to switch off from the nerves of our new start. Also my OH had a call about a telephone interview for another country halfway through which stressed us both out completely. We did some fairly adventurous travel on the East Coast, which was a big mistake as we both got serious food poisoning which lasted till after we finally arrived in Auckland. Given the chance again, I’d go somewhere easy in Malaysia like Penang or Langkawi, probably just for a week.
We arrived last Monday and have been staying in a serviced Apartment which has worked out very well. One advantage of coming in winter has been that there is a lot of availability for hotels etc and we got a good deal. We’re paying $739 a week which includes a kitchen with tea, coffee etc, broadband internet, a washer and dryer and free car parking. We got it through www.aptsinakld.co.nz but they do some in Wellington too.
My main impression of Auckland so far has been really positive. Everything has been so much easier than I had expected and seems to be approached with a huge dose of common sense. Auckland is diverse and the people very pleasant to interact with. Their stress levels seem to be so much lower than people in the UK. Even the teenagers are polite and people are very happy to help with things like directions and the silly questions you inevitable have to ask as a newbee. In a week, we have managed to get a bank account, found a house, got mobile phones, and have rented a car for the time being. Common sense seems to be applied to everything and we have been offered lots of credit, including interest free, on sensible terms- if you pay off a loan early you don’t pay the interest on the whole term like in the UK. We haven’t bought anything major yet but have found the cost of relocation to be much greater than we expected.
For those about to arrive:
• Opening a bank account was easy. All we needed was our passports with visas and $300. We get credit cards once OH’s first salary check is paid next week.
• Mobile phones are horrifically expensive. Get your handset unlocked before you leave the UK. (I’d planned on getting this done in Malaysia but the food poisoning put an end to that). On pre pay you will pay 89c per minute but I’ve taken a twelve month contract which was easy to get with a work visa. The upside is that the expense means that people don’t spend their whole bus journey chatting…
• Some goods seem a lot more expensive, others a lot cheaper. I’m impressed with the clothes but horrified by the cost of other things like bedding. Of course, it’s harder cos you don’t know where to shop.
• Food is quite expensive but seems to be of good quality. Apart from the convenience foods. Wish I’d shipped the breadmaker as the pizzas in supermarkets are rubbish.
• I haven’t found a big store to buy things like underwear and bedding yet. I miss M and S already. If anyone has any suggestions…
• OH says the driving is terrible.
• The weather can be bad on a Scottish scale and we were unprepared.
Our serviced apartment, although great in other respects, is made of cheap materials and looses heat really quickly. We can even hear the rain on the roof! Everyone says this weather is unusual but I remember saying that to folk in Edinburgh ;)
Next week we move into our rental in Parnell which I’m really looking forward to. It looked very unpromising on trade me but turned out to much nicer than expected. Some of the others we looked at were pretty grubby, to say the least so don’t get discouraged at the first few you see. Ours has a beautiful deck/balcony and feels peaceful, even though it is near the city and I will be able to survive on the bus while OH drives to work. My next task is to get the house set up and start job hunting. So far, things this end have been easier than I expected and I’m enjoying NZ more than I had expected. I think the kiwi attitude may suit me but am realistic about the long haul that is relocation.
Hope I haven’t sounded to negative and if I have anything wrong please let me know. It’s an honest mistake…. Wow, how did this get so long?
B.w
Julie