The story so far...

The story so far...

We’ve been in New Zealand for two and a half weeks now so it’s about time we gave you a full update as to our adventures so far...

I’ve already mentioned that the apartment didn’t live up to expectations...well, it got even more interesting during week 2! I got back from work on Monday to find 2 messages from a Solicitors on my UK phone. They got my number from a sign that Kate & I put on the front entrance to the apartments for the couriers that were going to be delivering the boxes that we sent from the UK. The intercom to the apartment didn’t work so this seemed to be the most sensible option given that we didn’t really want to miss the delivery. Well, the solicitors were calling me because they had been trying to gain access to the apartment we were renting for months as the owner had defaulted on his mortgage. No wonder he was reluctant to reduce his rate for the extra 2 nights that we needed!

To cut a longer story short, I finally managed to get them to agree not to change the locks until we had left – which was 08.30am last Wednesday! The apartment owner is a massive bloke whose Grandfather captained the Maori team when England, The All Blacks and the Maori All Blacks player together in the 60’s. There were also Tai Kwondo trophies all over the walls – so I am pretty pleased he doesn’t know where we have moved to...unless he finds this blog of course!!

Over the weekend I also attended my very first car auction and managed to come away with a nice little bargain... We are now the proud owners of a Subaru Legacy GT Twin Turbo. Loads of poke and loads of boot. Would you look at the size of that exhaust!


Scoobee Doo...

Black and shiny...

We also went to Wellington Zoo which is on a hill over-looking the city. It was a lovely day and Max had a great time using the word ‘animals’.

View from Wellington Zoo

"Animals!"

Chimp palace

Explorer Max

Needs to grow a bit to see over the steering wheel...

Hippo riding

Animal...

As if all of that wasn’t enough to be going on with, on the Sunday evening whilst cooking Max’s tea I managed to finally break the milk tooth that I have been caring for, for the past 36 years.

I was munching on a bit of carrot at the time. In some way fortune then smiled on me as I managed to find the only dentist in New Zealand if not the world who is performing mini implants with small titanium screws to replace small teeth like this one. I am booked in to have my new tooth built on my Birthday – nice! That's the 19th March in case you were wondering! ;o)

The week still wasn’t quite finished with us! We had been talking to the shipping company about delivering our container – we had found the house in Whitby and had a car to get us there and had the date of rental to start as Wednesday 4th March so getting the container there on the same day seemed like a good idea. The shipping company were OK to release it – they had unpacked it and separated out the items that MAF would be interested in and had re-packed. Then came the upper cut – because our residency visas had been issued to us after our container arrived in New Zealand (arrival is defined as when the vessel crossed the 12 mile limit!) we were liable to pay GST – General Sales Tax on the perceived value of the goods. Given that Kate & I had estimated the replacement value to be something like NZ$60,000 that made my heart stop somewhat as GST is 12%. I then found out that NZ Customs had applied as estimated 2nd hand value of NZ$15,000 and that left us owing a little under NZ$2,000 to have our container released. After a long chat with the Chief Customs Officer for Client Services which included a discussion about the ambiguity of the information they offer on their website and on their fact sheets (this states that you need to prove residence when you arrive in order to defer this GST payment – it mentions nothing about the legislation introducing the date dependency already mentioned) he did all he could and reduced the value of our container to NZ$7,500. I duly paid my money and told him that I would be writing to Customs to pass on my opinion about this whole episode to them...

Then we moved in to the new house...and all was well again...

6 Ensign Lane

Our letter box

We arrived at 9am on Wednesday and received the keys.

At 12pm our container arrived and Max had a great time running up and down the ramp.

Making sure that everything is done properly!

Lorry...

About 15 minutes later 3 more blokes arrived and they proceeded to distribute cardboard boxes around the house which took all of 20 minutes.It is everything that we hoped it would be...it even has similar decor to our ‘old’ house in Thame (still available to rent or buy should any of you have come into a spot of cash and want a fantastic investment opportunity!) and our furniture just fits.

We spent the day unpacking – well, making a first attempt at least and getting ready for the imminent arrival of Oakley dog. This of course included our first visit to ‘Animates’ pet shop to purchase his new bed, bowls, toys, food, etc. Mr. MAF BioSecurity arrived in the afternoon to scrutinise over the aforementioned items and gave us the clear. That isn’t to say that it was just a formality. It was detailed enough for him to unpack both tents, find the inners, shakes them from the back to the front and remove anything found inside in a clear plastic bag for incineration. Being the Scout that I am, there was in total one dead beetle and a blade of grass – but taken away they were! Max had a great time using the deck as a new play area and enjoying the warm weather during lunch.

Lunch Al Fresco

Enjoying the view over a spot of lunch

Planes fly in the sky

New deck...new road

Is there a bug in there?

We think we’ve done an OK job of getting kind of sorted so here is a quick photo tour of the new pad...

The front door (from the inside!)

The stairs up to the front door

The main feature of the house - the laundry chute in the bathroom.
You put dirty washing in here and it magically appears clean a few days later.
I think we have New Zealand cleaning fairies included in the rent!

The bathroom and Max's new turtle potty

The corner 'spa' bath

Neil's walk through wardrobe

No - this isn't Tracey Emin's latest 'bed' creation - it is just the
current clothes filing system!

The new telly!

The lounge from above

The lounge

The kitchen from above

The kitchen

The dining room from above

The dining room

The stairs to the downstairs bedrooms

The guest room - we'll get a bed in it soon!

The downstairs utility plus the all important
laundry chute!

The downstairs utility - including loo and shower

Since arriving in Whitby I have managed to find the local bus service to get me to the train station and take the train into Wellington, followed by a brisk walk into the office. Total journey time is under 40 minutes and still allows me to walk along the seafront to the office from the train station.

We have also been to the beach with Max...

Pebbles in my shoes Mummy...

Driftwood

These pebbles are tasty!

Black water at the shoreline

Dirty hands...

Hole digging

Then the big day arrived! Oakley joined us here on Friday. I collected him from Air New Zealand Cargo on Friday afternoon. He was delivered in his crate – he was asleep at the time – having been cleared by MAF in Auckland. He really didn’t look as if he had just flown half way around the world and to say that he was pleased to be out of his crate and see me would be an understatement. I immediately took him to the beach around the corner from the airport for a run, swim and a feed and then I brought him home.

Over the weekend we have had an explore of the local area. On Saturday we found the local dog walk which will more than likely become the regular morning yomp – it takes us up over the hill behind the house so is a good leg and lung burner. Here are a few photos of what we see on that walk...

Leaving the house

Over the bridge

Along the boardwalk

Up the hillside

The view over Whitby

Looking back down the hill

Views to the hills

Across the water to Plimmerton and Titahi Bay

Into the Eucaliptus trees

The very noisy Cicada

More views as we head down

Looking over Whitby Village Centre

Possums spread Bovine Tb so are controlled using poison
The Department of Animal Health are responsible for the ongoing
battle to protect New Zealands agriculture which accounts for 50%
of exports

More Whitby views

Back home...

I have also found the local dive shop and club – a convenient 5 minutes away in the car. They meet every Tuesday evening at 6pm for a dive and the first Wednesday of the month for club night. I’m heading for my first dive in a couple of weeks time and can’t wait.

Oh – and we bought a new telly – a very nice Sony Bravia V series. Just 32” but it is full HD...not that we can receive anything on it at all! We came home and I excitedly opened the box, fitted the stand, plugged it in and went through the start up menu to find 1 channel! We deliberately bought this one as it had a Freeview receiver built in...but nothing, nada! We have a ‘man’ coming around hopefully tomorrow to test the signal on all 3 aerials that we appear to have on the roof to see what can be done about it. I think I have found out why so many Kiwis have Sky – it’s nothing to do with content, it’s the only way to get a decent picture! I guess we’ll find out if we need to go that way in the next few days. The XBox 360 does work however, in glorious full HD 1080i – yee haa! The BOSE is thankfully non regionalised so NZ DVDs – mainly Bob the Builder for Max – work, so we don’t need to buy a 2nd one which is a bonus.
**The man has been and has fitted a signal booster and has had a professional 'fiddle' and we now have 10 channels...Sky could be iminent...**

Today (Sunday) we headed north in the car and found ourselves at Waikanae Beach. It was amazing as you can see – and only about 20 other people about. Max had a great time playing in the surf and Oakley had a good swim. I am sure that we will make that a regular trip as it is only 20 minutes or so up the coast from us. We found a cafe for lunch and then headed home over the Akataeawa Pass which was an experience. The Legacy’s 4 wheel drive and multiple turbos handled the road beautifully! The pass is a very windy single track road which was more like skiing than driving it was so windy and narrow at times. Good views from the top though... Max slept through the entire experience.

Looking towards Kapiti island

Oakley heaven...driftwood!

Making an entrance

Miles of empty beach one way...

and the other...

Land ahoy...

Looking at the ocean

Run away...

There's more beach this way...

Entering the surf...

Digger...

Max determined to get even wetter!

Walking through the surf

Max and Dad getting wet feet

Oakley enjoying the waves

It really is true that around every corner is another view that you could just sit and stare at all day!

And so begins out third full week – hopefully it will be a slightly cheaper one than last week!

Kate has a few job applications that she is completing this week and is also heading to have a tour of Lower Hutt Hospital. It does look as if there are a number of opportunities out there that fit Kate’s experience and passion for dealing with community health. She also has been told that her qualifications have been ratified by the New Zealand nursing council so we have fingers crossed that this round of application completing pays off.

We have a few child care options for Max too so are going to look into those this week – he needs to have some time with other children as I think he is becoming bored with Mum and Dad! He has had a chance to play with some little people at the story telling sessions at Te Papa (NZ museum in Wellington) that Kate has taken him to as well as some other group sessions. He’s been absolutely brilliant and has coped so well with everything that we have thrown at him. He’s still sleeping better than he ever has done so the air is certainly doing the trick. As you will have seen in the Waikanae Beach photos he is loving the adventure here. His also has familiar things around him again after unpacking and that has helped him feel more settled.

Oakley will be acclimatising and will no doubt quickly get rid of his UK winter coat. He has found it quite hot here over the last 3 days but I am sure that he will get used to it very quickly. The 3 sea swims that he has had already are doing their bit to remove the memory of his flight!

As for me – another hectic week at work awaits...more customers to see as well as the Senior Exec Summit on Tuesday where I am to be introduced to many more of Eagle’s customers. Despite the pressure to deliver that I am under – my arrival has apparently been long anticipated and the expectation has obviously been building over the past 2 months – I am really enjoying the challenge and my new work colleagues are all good fun – an eclectic bunch of Kiwis, Americans, Malayans, Scots, Irish and Brits. I am also going to try the cycle to work thing – well, to the train station at least – and then along the front in Wellington to the office. Doing that 2 or 3 times a week should have a positive effect in a reasonably short period of time. The cycle to the station will be great – it is downhill for about 8km and then a quick 4km dash along Highway 1. The cycle home will kill me!

We should also get a landline phone and an internet connection sorted out by Thursday at the latest so we can finally get on line in the evenings and give more frequent updates.

**Tuesday update - we're connected! We finally have a landline telephone with a $10 per month unlimited UK call package and an Internet connection. Hoorah!**

For now, we hope you are all well and look forward to hearing your news soon. Stay in touch!

Love from Neil, Kate, Max and Oakley xx