Leighlou

Ian ................more! ! ! ............. Brilliant, honest account and dying to know how it all turns out.

hjmilligan

Story is great Ian keep it going.

jleroux

Brilliant story, I had to print it off to read it later because it's very long.

Thanks for giving us thinking about moving over to NZ a idea of what is going on in your mind not forgetting of all the things you got up to on your journey for a new life.

Keep the story updated please!!!

Scottish Family

Hi Ian

You told me you had every Friday and Monday off till March, so pleeeeease get the finger out and start typing man! We are all waiting.....

Cheers
Shirley

teebrown

I was reading this thread on the other site when it crashed a while ago..........I am sooooo pleased I have found it on this site, I was griped and still am.

LOVING IT!

BEVS

Yupididoo Ian.
It's update time again please.

Yotty

Bevs has spoken Ian!!

Nerine

Oh come guys.......on it IS Australia Day!!

Scottish Family

Aye and the 25th was the Scottish Poet Robert Burns' day. So what! We're in New Zealand.

smiges33

boy does this take some time to read. entertaining to say the least though.

Ian & Sharon

Sure enough Robbie was there to meet us, first impressions were that he was a scruffy bald short bloke with yellow teeth; second impression after talking to him face to face was how could this bloke run a business! We made our way to his car which was the usual four wheel drive, this made me laugh. Christchurch is the flattest part of NZ but there are more 4x4’s here than you can shake a stick at, bizarre! We loaded the bags in to the back of the car and fastened both car seats in the back, the inside of the stunk of pipe smoke, not what you want with a new born baby, but hey he was taking us for a look around so we could not really complain.
After we had left the airport we went down the main drive in to ChCh city, it looked so nice and green which is what NZ is all about really, saying that every main road out of any airport always looks good, it has too really to give visitors a good first impression.
The thing I noticed about ChCh was the width of the roads and the lack of traffic, ok it was by now mid morning but it was still Friday and Auckland was usually packed by now, some of the houses were huge but as Robbie explained this was Merivale which is an up market part of the city. We went past or through Hadley park, if you have not been to ChCh this is a huge park in the middle of the city which is quite simply outstanding, there was loads of things going on and it looked like a great place to take the kids, we turned down the next road which went past some big school right next to the river, what a beautiful outlook this was picture postcard stuff. I looked at Sharon and even she was amazed, this was the tip of the iceberg. Robbie took us down the “strip” which is a collection of bars looking over the river, there were people having morning tea at different café’s and some people sitting on the grass across the road, relaxed lifestyle came to mind. We did the city tour which was good but ChCh seemed small in comparison to what we were use to and even Auckland was a monster city in comparison! We stopped off at one of the many malls and went for something to eat, I had a test that I was going to do, and quite simple I was going to smile at people just to see how many smiles I would get back! Well that test went well, it seemed that every person I smiled at smiled back, all good I thought, we’d be right here it was just a case of finding an area we liked.
So that was the next thing on the agenda, as we did not know where anything was we left the “tour” up to Robbie. We started off in Cashmere and made our way through past Mt Pleasant and over to Sumner, yer they were ok but not really our cup of tea. I suppose if you were coming from the UK straight to ChCh then they would be outstanding and some of the houses had great views of the ocean but as with anything with a view there was a price to pay for that, also we were different simply because we had to live in a place with every amenity close by, simple due to the fact the Sharon had not passed her driving test. She had tried back in the UK but packed it in after 45 lessons, the last lesson she had she asked the driving instructor about a faint tapping noise that was coming from outside the car? It turned out she was far too close to a line of parked cars and actually had taken out every wing mirror!
We started to make our way back to Robbie’s place, he lived on a “life style” bloke in a place called Swannanoa, now for people who don’t know what one of these are I’ll explain, it’s a block of land between 2 and 20 acres most people who have one have the fascination of being able to grow there own veg and be able to keep horses, cows, chicken, sheep or even pigs which is great if your in to that sort of thing or want to tell your friends back in the UK that you’re doing the “good life” and are now self sufficient even tho you still shop twice a week at the super market.
Robbie only had his block to make money, the plan was to split it in the future and sell most of it off. He told me that most people that buy these “lifestyle” blocks were pomes who just wanted one people they could, most people usually last a few years on them and when they get fed up of being a slave to the garden the flog them, don’t get me wrong I’d love one just so I could buy a ride on mower and tell my mates back home that I own a few acres!
Anyway, that was me going off topic yet again!
We drove through a place called Kiapoi which was cute, it was a small village situated on a river it would do us and went straight to the top of our “where to live” list. It was ideal because everything was within walking distance of some nice housing estates, talking of houses we could get a lot more house for our dollars down here a quick look in the estate agents windows confirmed this for $350K we could get a palace!
So that was it then, our first day and we had already chosen an area to live, well that’s was if we returned to NZ.
We started to make our way back to Robbie’s house and I said to him that because it was Friday night we needed to get the ale in! You see I have always had a pint or two after work, I don’t drink on a school night but love a couple of pints after work, in NZ I’d always found a good pub where I could drink on a Friday and just because we where down the South Island why should that change. Robbie said he’d have to get some bottles in Rangiora, Rangiora what was this, he told us it was a small town similar to Kiapoi but to him it had a better feel to it, fine let’s have a look!
Well we drove through the main street and looked at each other, Sharon just simply said “this will do” I agreed and within 10 minutes we’d changed our minds and it was all go for Rocking Rangi!

Nice Guy

Superb as usual.

So when's the next part???????

Am Loolah

Love it - particularly Robbie living on a lifestyle bloke ...

Yotty

Hey Am don't knock it till you've tried it!

jads

Great story as Usual!
What year was that when you landed in ChCh?

Cheers Jads