daviesl

Thanks again everyone. If anyone is in the construction trade, do they know where is busy at the moment - I know work tends to move around the country abit - but does anyone know where OH is most likely to get an apprenticeship?
thanks

Tom1983

Why just Auckland v Christchurch???

There are other fantastic areas of New Zealand not listed here. Wellington rivals Edinburgh as being the most beautiful capital i've ever been to and then Napier, and Hamilton come jointly in lovely places to live

But for the arguments sake, for safety reasons anyone would chose Auckland over Christchurch. Just when people were thinking it was dieing down, 2 lovely 4 pointers woke me up at 1am which I was not impressed with. Even had a powerful 3 pointer that stopped my celebrations of beating the music ruining nation in the rugby for the first time in many many years. Made better by witnessing the worst Irish performance i've ever seen in my lifetime. A chance of a disaster happening in Auckland is very very unlikely as like Akaroa Pennisula, it's on a dormant volcano which won't erupt again.

Auckland also has that city vibe about it and the harbour is beautiful. We thoroughly enjoyed a weekend visit there but in our opinion we were glad we didn't move. We were moving out of city life from London and whilst there's way less people in Auckland than London, it did seem cramped which we didn't want. Wellington though, we do like.

Of course I always have positive things to say about Christchurch despite the condition of the place. We took advantage of the first sunny weekend since we've been here by having a surf lesson followed by fish and chips on Sumner beach, and then sunday was a lovely stroll around the gardens and hagley park. Beautiful

Had the earthquake not happened, it would be a no brainer for me but since Auckland is a lot safer and has it's advantage points, many would be silly not to go for Auckland. Rent is cheap in Christchurch and house prices are very cheap but try getting contents insurance. Ethan Hunt would struggle to help

chippy64

Auckland is built on an active volcano field and just like earthquakes no-one knows when.

http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/?t=292 is just one of the websites that talks about this.

When we decided to move to NZ, one reason for choosing ChCh, (aside from it being our favourite place) was that the North Island had volcanoes and most of the quakes . That has changed - well the quake part but if we ever made the decision to move from ChCh, it would be to somewhere else on the South Island.
I liked Auckland for a few days visit but didn't feel that I wanted to live there.
Different strokes for different folks!

theghostofdustybin

If you want a city centre, dont move to CHCH. Other than that the main differences are related to population. This is the same for all major centres in nz.

Auckland - more people therefore more stuff and more traffic, further north warmer and wetter.

Christchurch - less people therefore less stuff and less traffic, further south cooler and drier.

chippy64

+1

Justcol

I wouldn't say auckland is wet, usually warm and dry through spring , summer and early autumn..not the case this year though

theghostofdustybin

Not wet, just wetter than chch...

luvwelly

Wellington's probably drier than both but windier and also on a known earthquake faultline....if I were sinking money into property rather than renting, I feel it would be safer in Auckland than either Christchurch or Wellington in the shaky ground stakes.

Justcol

Ahh I see.

but in Aucks the moisture comes from above not up from beneath the ground

theghostofdustybin

in my experience in the summer it just hangs about in the air and it's a known fact that clammy is good for niether man nor beast

I'll check when I am up there next week

BEVS

I'm very confused by this business of a plumbing apprenticeship. I thought you had previously stated that your husband was already a plumber ( from past posts) .

The only thing I can think is that once here and with residency , he blanket covers all the plumbing firms in the area and see if he can get taken on with a firm under a PGDB limited license with a view to being an adult apprentice.

Apprenticeship Training Trust

NZ Plumbing online