Hello from sunny New Zealand

Hello to you all from sunny New Zealand!

Firstly apologies for the time that it has taken to get and email sent out to you all.
We’ve been in NZ for a week today and it has been a roller coaster ride!

The apartment that we have rented for the first few weeks didn’t really live up to the expectation of the web advert. The TV has 3 channels that work, the BOSE doesn’t receive any radio stations, the DVD player isn’t plugged into the telly and there are no cables anywhere to make it work, the washing machine has quite a light weight limit, the dryer sounds like it is about to break free and make a run for it and there is no internet connection! This has made it quite a challenge to do the things that we need to do given that Oakley arrives a week on Friday.

On the plus side, we have plenty of room to live in, Max is downstairs and we are upstairs so Kate & I are sleeping brilliantly and Max has Fire Engines to look at as the Fire Station is our neighbour – although I think Kate has been doing more looking than Max!

Life outside of the apartment has been brilliant. I have a 25 minute walk along the water front to get to work so manage to take in the sea air every morning. Kate has been out and about with Max taking advantage of having the time to go to storytelling at Te Papa (the New Zealand national museum) as well as visiting various suburbs looking for houses, play parks, etc. It has been great just looking around and being near to the sea at every turn. That is what we came for! The views are spectacular and the weather is, well, the weather is real! You get proper rain and proper wind with lots of proper sunshine too. The blue sky is really blue and the sunshine is a welcome change to the dull greyness of the UK.

I started work this Monday and to say that I was thrown in at the deep end is an understatement. I arrived at 8.30am on Monday to be presented with my laptop, screen and docking station and a project meeting to attend at 9.30am. With some quick introductions I headed into that to find out that my arrival has been built into an incredible level of expectation that I am the resolution to all current SLA issues which amount currently to more than $NZ 1million. Day 2 had me in back to back meetings with 2 different departments in MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) dealing with some juicy issues around their SLAs! One meeting was with a rather feisty lady who will need some careful management so that will be fun I am sure. Today has finally given me time to have my HR chat over the phone with Auckland as well as following up on a heap of actions from Tuesday. All in all great fun and I am being made to feel very welcome indeed. Oh – and I have a desk by the window with views out into Wellington City.

Kate has today heard that her nursing qualifications from the UK have been accepted in New Zealand so that she can now proactively look for work. There are so many opportunities here for Kate so that shouldn’t take too long at all.

Max is having a brilliant time. He is sleeping better than he ever did in the UK and that has to be a result of the fresh clean air and all of the walking he is doing. He was a complete star on the flight here. After a very exciting few hours including being fed he slept for about 6 hours on the Hong Kong leg and pretty much did the same thing on the Auckland leg. By the time we got onto the Wellington flight he was so tired that I think he was asleep before takeoff! Since then he has loved every minute of it. Since arriving in Wellington Max has become a professional bus, train and plane spotter and as there are loads of all of them he is constantly pointing and trying to get himself on any type of public transport he can! The trip up the Wellington Cable Car was very funny with the passengers subjected to loud Chu Chu’s from Max for the duration of the journey. He was in his element.

Our admin is going well too. We have managed to sort out Bank Accounts, Tax numbers and a mobile phone so are feeling a bit more settled. The biggest news this week is that we have found a house! We will be moving in to our new rental next week, probably Wednesday. The address for those of you who are interested is;

6 Ensign Lane,
Whitby,
Porirua 5024
Wellington
New Zealand

You can find it on Google Maps here. It hasn’t quite met my desire to have a sea view from my bedroom window but it is a step in the right direction and will allow us to be in the area that we ultimately have found that we really like.

When you arrive down the cul-de-sac the house just looks like a large double garage. You go down the first flight of stairs to a large lounge, kitchen and dining room. There is also the master bedroom with walk through wardrobe to the large bathroom which has a corner bath in it. From the lounge you exit French doors to the deck which overlooks a large garden.
The next flight of stairs down goes to the other 3 bedrooms, one of which will make a lovely guest room with its own decking and a Utility room with shower and toilet and a laundry hatch from the upstairs bathroom. I have reliably been informed that this sends your dirty washing to the fairies who wash and iron it for you. Excellent!
The garden is large and is perfect for Oakley and Max – once the pond, complete with Goldfish has had a fence put around it.
We will post a walk around video to the blog (http://thecalvertsnzadventures.blogspot.com/) as well as other photos that we have taken once we are in.

We currently don’t have a landline for that address but my contact details are at the bottom of this email and Kate’s mobile number is +64 21 633 504.

All in all it has been a really hectic week but it has also been great fun getting to know a little bit about Wellington and the surrounding area. We are now looking forward to having Oakley join us next week which in turn means that this weekend we have to buy a car!
Please feel free to get in touch with us and as soon as we have a landline and Internet connection at the house we will be available for webcam and Skype chats.

We hope that you are all well wherever you are and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Love and best wishes from Neil, Kate and Max
xxx

Neil Calvert
Customer Care Group Manager

Eagle Technology Group Ltd,
Level 5,
135 Victoria Street,
PO Box 1403,
Wellington 6140

Mobile: 021 274 9212
Office: 04 802 1041
Switchboard: 04 802 1400
Fax: 04 802 1410
Email: mailto:neil_calvert@eagle.co.nz

Today is a good day!

So, today we finally heard that our passports, visas and mass of other documentation submitted as part of our Residency application are in the post and should be with us tomorrow!

After the frustrations of the last 2 weeks jumping through the numerous Immigration hoops this is indeed welcome news.

It means that we will definitely be leaving on NZ38 on Tuesday 17th February at 21.05!

Hoorah!

Now the final clear down of the house can conclude hopefully with a tenant in place too - someone is coming to view tomorrow at 11.45am so we have everything crossed that they want it. That really would be the cherry on the top of the icing on the top of the most delicious and moist (favourite word) cake you can imagine.

Although I imagine it is illegal to take a photo of your visa and post it on the internet I think I may have to chance it in order to mark the moment properly...

Take off from Wellington airport

Mount Taraniki splitting the clouds on the way to Auckland

A 360 degree view of Wellington harbour from Te Papa

Photos from the camcorder

A few photos that I took on the camcorder...


Mount Taraniki


The Sky Tower in Auckland


Sky Tower close up

Back in the UK

I'm back...and it's freezing cold here!
What with Portugal's sun and warmth and then great weather in NZ I have clearly become accustomed to decent weather!

The flight home was OK. The Auckland to Hong Kong leg went really quickly. As it was a night flight the cabin lights were turned off after dinner so I managed to sleep a decent amount.

The plane landed early in HK so I managed to get a shower in one of the pay lounges. It cost about £12.00 but was worth every penny as I felt more human and ready for the longest leg - 12 hours + from HK to LHR. That was a bit of a killer and seemed to take forever. I did sleep a bit but not as long as I thought as when I woke up there were still 6 hours to go...

I managed to find out the name of that volcano that I saw on the flight from Wellington to Auckland. I watched some of the NZ culture shows on the HK to LHR flight - there were some good NZ cooking shows and one of them was from New Plymouth in which lies Mount Taraniki. It definitely looks like somewhere we need to go and visit!

I have a few extra photos and some video that I am going to upload this evening and then I think that is it for this blog for the time being.

It will become a regular communication method once we are out there, so don't forget it is here...oh...and you can comment on anything I write, so please do feel free to do that...it'd be nice to know what people are thinking once we are in NZ.

So, final post for the time being a bit later on.

Until then...

Final days in Auckland

So here I am again in Auckland - this time getting to see a little more than just the airport.
First impression - I'm glad that the job will be based in Wellington.
I was quite sad to leave this morning to head North...I guess that is a good sign really!

On the flight up I was sat on the LHS of the plane which was a little unfortunate as we were flying North so I saw lots of sea...oh...and Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings! Not sure the name of the volcano, but there it was poking up about the clouds, the only elevated object for miles and miles. It split the cloud around it. I managed to get some video so will share that once I am home.

I spent my last evening in Wellington eating in the Crazy Horse restaurant over the road from my Hotel. It is Wellington's best Steak House...according to them of course...but it was rather excellent food. The New Zealand Pinot Noir is also very good indeed...ideal to wash down a decent piece of pink cow!

So that's it really - mission accomplished.

Some other quick NZ observations;

- far less PC than the UK - which is refreshing. They even say 'bloody' on Breakfast TV and on Wednesday morning the presenter, in response to the new government's proposed carbon tax said that it was 'the bloody dairy farmers fault!' In the UK that would immediately have 10,000+ complaints and be posted all over the BBC website!

- they have a large alcohol problem...people do seem to drink more than even we do in the UK, but you don't see violence on the street.

- they have the worst child abuse record of the developed world, especially in Mauri families - which is not something that I have heard before. A case similar to the one that was hitting the UK media when I left to come here has also happened in NZ, but it appears that it is quite a frequent occurrence. The government are just getting really strict on the issue it seems.

- It's windy! When the Southerly blows in across Wellington, it is really windy, but then the skies clear and the blue skies return. They don't seem to get the grey overcast cloud that the UK gets.

- The people are very friendly - there is no animosity towards Brits, probably as there are so many Scots here!

- The Asian influence is huge. In the same way that there are many Indian's in the UK, NZ has many Chinese, Japanese and Hong Kongers (what are they really called? Chinese now I imagine...) but that means really good Asian food, especially Malaysian and Sushi!

- The new prime minister, John Key, is very accessible and seems like a decent bloke. He even phoned in to the Radio 1 equivalent here and chatted for 10 minutes. You'd never get Gordon Brown doing that!

- Living and working here will be good fun!!

I doubt I will get the chance to write any more now.
I have the day to kill tomorrow with a check out time from the Hotel of 10am so I am hoping to get to the airport in time to find a shower before the Hong Kong leg.
I think I am going to head into the city centre for a look around and then come back out to the Hotel to collect my luggage before starting the journey home.

So, until I see you all back in the UK...
Have a good weekend!

Yesterday afternoon's drive around

After my interview yesterday I hired a small car from Avis and drove around to see some of the areas that the team had mentioned.

These photos are of Island Bay, about 15 minutes south of Wellington CBD with a trolley car route to and from the city centre. There was a small row of local shops including a butcher and baker on the way into the area so some local facilities.

The local dive centre 'Splash Gordon' is also located in Island Bay which is a bonus. They operate the local boat charter and they also have a club.

Then I drove North a bit to Whitby. This is about 20 minutes north on the motorway out of Wellington. A lovely drive but it can be busy in the mornings. There is a train link to Wellington too so that could be an option.

Whitby has more modern housing but feels less of a community than Island Bay. There was a village centre which had a supermarket, Plunket Nursery, Vet etc. so good for local facilities.

Some of the modern estates reminded me of the film set from ET!

Finally I headed East into the Hutt valley and briefly visited Upper and Lower Hutt.

This is quite urbanised and the route back to Wellington was busy even heading into the city at the end of the day when everyone else was heading North. It was good to get a comparison though.

I met David Swann for dinner at 7pm - we had a few beers and then went for an Indian. The food was excellent as it has been all week. A good amount of Asian influence as well as loads of Sushi...hoorah!

We had a really good chat about the role and began to discuss the offer which should be ready for me on Friday. The best news was the relocation package - Eagle will pay for our goods plus ourselves to get to NZ which is excellent. That frees us up to work out what is best for Oakley...

All in all a good day!

Interview day one

To be honest, it couldn't have gone any better.

I headed out at 8am to get some breakfast and happened to end up in the local Eagle breakfast cafe, so after ordering my coffee and Eggs Benedict I was a little shocked to hear my name being called out. I looked around and there was Andy Coote, ex head of Consultancy at ESRIUK who I knew was out doing some work for Eagle!

The office is lovely and has a really good feel and so far all of the people I have met I know that I could get along with.
The GIS team is only 35 people and bar 2 they are all based in Wellington, the other 2 being in Auckland covering sales within that city.
There is a great team feel and they have all been very welcoming towards me.

I have just come back from lunch with 3 of the team including Scott Campbell who moved here from ESRIUK 5 years ago. Having a beer at lunchtime! That rarely happens in the UK but is a reasonably regular thing here, especially when the weather is good...

I have been given some good heads up on where to live so am about to go and get a car to have drive before meeting David Swann in the lobby of my Hotel at 7pm to head out for dinner. I have more meetings tomorrow afternoon with the Head of Professional Services and 2 of the other account managers. After that David is meeting me on Friday in the Auckland office to do the negotiation of the offer so hopefully I can get all of that squared away before heading home.

So - I'm off out to get a car now, then dinner, then I will probably wait until tomorrow to update this as the Eagle internet connection is letting me upload photos no problem, unlike the hotel wireless!

All in all it feels really nice and I am sure that it is somewhere that I could work, which is great.
Now just to negotiate the deal!

Further Wellington adventures

Tuesday 18th November

I have spent the morning and early afternoon wandering around Wellington.

Firstly I went to Te Papa -The New Zealand Museum. It is a really good experience and there is a lot of things for little people to do. You can touch a lot of the exhibits which really makes a difference. There is an entire floor dedicated to the Mauri in which they have re-created a Mauri temple. It is quite excellent.

The entrance to Te Papa


Wood carving in the Mauri temple


The Mauri temple

After that I wandered along the waterfront again - it's another beautiful day here today and ended up at the Wellington Cable Car. This is the lazy way to get to the top of the hill for views over Wellington. I passed by a lovely kids play area which has a huge slide... Max should like that!

Wellington Cable Car bottom station



Views over Wellington

Cable Car top station

The Scout Hut!

Children's play park slide...

Wellington CBD

I had a walk around Wellington's CBD area yesterday evening.

It's pretty much like any city you might walk through really - lots of high rise business buildings, streets with shops on, etc. although it feels a bit different. It took me a while to work out what it was - it's quiet! Despite the fact that I am in the Central Business District which houses the seat of government in NZ, it is incredibly quiet. I was out at about 5.30pm so most people were heading home after a days work and it was still pleasant to be out. The pavements weren't overcrowded and the roads, although busy, were nothing like London, or Aylesbury for that matter at the same time of day.

There is a good selection of shops - nothing like you would get in a major city at home, but enough to be going on with and there is definately a cafe culture. There is lots of on the street dining to be had and more coffee shops that you can shake a stick at! The coffee here is excellent - really smooth. There are plenty of small independant owners and so far I have only seen 1 Starbucks!

Oh - and it's windy - really windy! When you walk along the harbours edge at times it is difficult to walk against the wind. I can now see why landing a large plane is such good fun!

Looking back over towards the city from the waterfront

I managed to find the Eagle office too - in fact it was pretty hard to miss. It's about 5 minutes from my Hotel so that is nice and convenient for tomorrow morning.

The entrance to Eagle Technology Group

Eagle's tower block - they are on the 5th floor

The sun was up way past the time I eventually crashed and burned. Still not sure which time zone I am on so I went to bed at about 6.30pm I think. Woke up at 1.30am so I read for a bit and then managed to get back to sleep so feel OK this morning.

The Internet connection in the Hotel is pretty ropey...

I'm going to try and get some photos uploaded as soon as I can.

Tuesday's plan is to go to the museum and also take a ride on the cable car...

It was raining in Auckland!

So I ended up in economy class for the Hong Kong to Auckland leg, but I must say that the ANZ long haul leg room is excellent. The food was pretty good too, but it did make me appreciate the Premium Economy upgrade!

It was 5 time zones, not 4 so we are in fact 13 hours ahead here. It is currently 16.25 in NZ and 03.25 in the UK - that hour difference must be due to the return to GMT?

There was a small baby on the flight 2 rows in front of me who spent quite a lot of time screaming. I thought Max had a shout on him, but this little lad really did scream when he got upset rather than just shout.

Despite that I did managed to get some sleep so arrived to a grey and drizzly Auckland not feeling too bad. Although it is a really long journey it seemed to go by quite quickly and there were a good number of small people on the flight - one family came all the way to Wellington and their little lady seemed quite happy about the entire trip so that was quite reassuring...

I couldn't believe that it was raining...typical, although it was warm too - a lot of people were in shorts and coats!

Auckland airport is quite nice - modern feel to it - the Sushi bar sits next to McDonalds so there is some culture at least! I had some nice Nigiri Sushi for lunch. I also managed to collect loads of free maps for the whole of the country, 2 accommodation guides, a New Zealand Lnely Planet and a Wellington street map. I think I'll need another bag for when I come home at this rate!

The runway was quite wet so watching planes take off was quite exciting...

I boarded my flight to Wellington OK - it was 15 mins late due to bad weather.

You couldn't see any of the scenery leaving Auckland - just thick white cloud. After a rather bumpy ascent we broke out of it and the cloud cleared as we headed South, then all you could see was coastline, green mountain ranges and lovely blue seas. It really becomes clear that this is an island community when you look down from 30,000 feet.

It got even bumpier as we approached Wellington. The You Tube video really is true - it was a very exciting approach and landing - strong cross winds despite the clear blue skies - so you get the feeling that you are going sideways and the plane bounces around like a rollercoaster. Most people had a smile on their face so it looks as if it happens more often than not!

I have checked into 'Just Hotel' - you probably have an image in your head about what the hotel is probably like and you'd be correct... The taxi ride from the airport was NZ$35. They have trolley buses in Wellington though so I will try to use those instead. May hire a car tomorrow to go and have a mooch about.

Just about to grab a shower, charge up the new video camera and then go for a wander to see what I can see.

First impressions; amazingly green country, beautiful scenery and friendly people...

More later on.

Arrived safely in Hong Kong

Well, the first leg of the journey is over.

An hour ago I landed safely in Hong Kong a little over an hour ahead of schedule.

This meant that I had time to check into a pay as you go airport lounge, get a shower, find a drink and get access to free WiFi!

The flight was excellent. I have never flown Air New Zealand before and it was superb. That impression was of course accentuated by the fact that a friend of ours, Rachel, who happens to be a Stewardess for ANZ was working on the flight and she managed to get me an upgrade into Premium Economy. The flight was full otherwise I may have had a bed, but it was certainly better than economy - more leg room and much better food, perhaps the best airline food I have ever eaten. So I watched a movie and then slept so don't feel too bad...

I ended up sitting next to a chap who is the president of the motor racing club in New Zealand. He moved to NZ from the UK 15 years ago. Apparently NZ has a huge motor sport culture where many people build and race their own kit cars. It is also very cheap as a hobby in comparison to the UK. Interesting!

He also said that the NZ attitude is one of 'if you want to do it, just go and do it'. There are very few rules about what you can and cannot do, some of which are a good idea and others seem not to be such as you don't need car insurance, or boat insurance...

He talked a bit about Wellington, mainly that the weather can be really bad so it could be a good idea to live a bit further North. He mentioned a place called Whitby just up the west coast but still only 20 mins from the CBD. That could be worth a look. Once you get up on the hills which surround Wellington you get out of the microclimate that the landscape creates. I'll try to take a trip up the coast whilst I am there.

Wellington is well know for its winds as this YouTube video shows

Let's hope the pilots know what they are doing! All good fun...

So now I am in departures waiting for the next leg to Auckland on flight NZ038 departing at 19.15.

It's 17.40 here in Hong Kong and the sun is just going down. It was 28 degrees outside...

It's 9.40am at home so I am 8 hours ahead already with another 4 time zones to go...

More from me soon...