ezzkazz

Hi all,
My hubby may have a job to go to in Canterbury on the south island. My question is, I find it hard to gauge the distance to travel so can someone tell me how long it would take to travel from the north of Canterbury to the south? The reason for asking is that we are looking at areas to live and was wondering how far affield we can go. His job will be in Prebbleton so any recommendations of nice areas to live and a good primary school will be helpful. Thanks in advance.

Apple12

Try multimap for size... http://www.multimap.co.nz add search for Prebbleton. I did get it for you but the link is ginormous.

Prebbleton is on the outskirts of Christchurch, so if you are city people you could live on the western side of the city, going against the traffic for commuting. Eg upper Riccarton, Avonhead... Or live in one of the small towns, Prebbleton, Rolleston, Templeton, Halswell. Any of these would be a 15 min car drive. Buses are sporadic, so count on having as many cars as drivers, especially with kids, unless you are living in Prebbleton itself.
Prebbleton is a very little town, not too much in amenities, but good for rural living yet close to a major city for city stuff.
Links for Prebbleton...
http://www.selwyndistrict.co.nz/inde...data&townid=19
http://www.prebbleton.school.nz/

And just in case you haven't figured it out, it is tricky doing this from the other side of the world - Christchurch is a major city which sits in the region of Canterbury.

lapsed kiwi

Also worth using the AA smartmap:
http://www.aamaps.co.nz/
which will calculate distances between locations and addresses.
Do you mean between north and south Canterbury or Christchurch?
Open road speed limit is 100kph, and 80kph is a reasonable average speed to use for planning trips outside of cities.

Wiz'n'Ton

As a few have mentioned, Prebbleton is a village type area to the South West of Christchurch. Travel distances from there?
30 minutes to central Christchurch during rush hour, 15 mins any other time.
35 minutes to beach, non-rush hour
Around 1.5hrs to Hanmer Springs (North and in the mountains),
Kaikoura 3hrs (North and on the East coast),
Akaroa 1.5hrs (South and on the coast),
Queenstown 6hrs (West and in the moutains),
Omaru 3hrs (South and on the coast),
Dunedin 4hrs (South and on the coast)
Nelson 5hrs (Northern tip of South Island)

If you are looking at living in Christchurch then there are a whole bunch of nice areas around. Halswell is well thought of, with a great primary school, and it's only a stone's throw from Prebbleton. Otherwise there is Rolleston (away from the city), Riccarton (close to the city), Sumner (by the beach) and Cashmere (on the hills).

Good luck with it all. Christchurch is a great place!

ezzkazz

thankyou all for the info and I do appreciate it.
We dont mind small town living. In the city isnt what we would be looking for but would like to be probably within an hours drive away I suppose, give or take. We are looking at renting but with the intention of buying but what we dont want is to have to put our 6 yr old daughter in a school in an area and then take her out again in a years time because we have chosen the wrong area.
We are going to take a weeks reccie trip soon but its good to get an idea of where to start and what areas to look at. I suppose Prebbleton would be the obvious answer seeing as thats where my OH job will be but have no clue as to what its like
As for my original post, what I was trying to gauge is how long in hours/mins would it take to drive from the top of canterbury to the bottom(in a round about way).
thanks so far

Karen

Apple12

Hi Karen, when you get here you will find that your question doesn't make much sense =)

If you define Canterbury as being Arthurs Pass (in the mountains) to Christchurch (say Sumner beach) it would be 2.5 hours west to east. If you call it north Canterbury (Amberley?) to south Canterbury (Ashburton?) then it would be say 2 hours.

This won't help you in the least decide on where to live, as this is very arbitary, the boundaries are usually rivers or mountain ranges.

Small town living the way you think it in the UK doesn't really exist. You have a city with 400,000 people (Christchurch) and then you have some very small sattalite towns (pop a few thousand if you are lucky), with farmland in between. The exception to this rule would be north of Christchurch, but Prebbleton is to the west so this doesn't really affect you.
From Prebbleton west to the mountains you have a few very small towns if you like rural living, Christchurch in the east is bigger city living. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but the more names you get thrown at you, the more confusing it gets.

I think if you try to get the perfect area for your first place to live then you are putting unnecessary pressure on yourselves. It is pretty difficult to make these choices from the other side of the world. Once you get here, and you realise that Prebbleton consists of a garage, a shop, a church and a school, then you might decide it is just too small to have what you need. On the other hand it might be perfect. Trust in the judgement of your OHs new boss, they will be very aware of this and will probably be able to find you a place to live etc. Take any help offered =) Many people do find that the first place they live is perfect, many do not, don't put too much pressure on yourselves.

I hope I am explaining this ok, it will make much more sense once you get here!

ezzkazz

Thank you Apple,
Your post makes a lot of sense which is more than my original question did.
I think you are probably right about my hubbies boss to be wanting to advise us. My hubby had his interview with 3 bosses from the company through Skype which was rather a strange experience for him and one of them said that he made the move from the UK a few years back so hopefully they will be quite understanding about the whole moving thing. They are willing to fund a weeks trip for Eric (hubby) so he can go over to see how they run things so I and our eldest daughter will go too to get a feel of things in NZ. It cant be any longer than a week really as I will miss my other little girl whos only 19 months as she wont be coming with us for many reasons.

We will know for sure if he has the job next week, mind you it was between Eric and another guy already in NZ but with no experience and they have ruled him out. I'm no expert but now it only leaves one candidate!

lapsed kiwi

How about Lincoln? Quite a nice little town and the college gives it a bit of life.

southerner

Another view of Canterbury is even larger than that - from Lewis Pass in the north to the Waitaki River in the south (5-6 hours driving) and from Arthurs Pass in the west to Akaroa in the east (3 hours). The distances in NZ are deceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeptively long, especially if you are used to fast trains or doing 80 on the motorway.

From a Christchurch commuting point of view I understand in practice that Ashburton is about the furthest out (1 hr south), with Oxford, Rangiora and Amberley being other 'outliers'.

ezzkazz

the job agency whos dealing whith my OH's job has recommended Lincoln also. I am not dead set on a certain place its just I would like to narrow it down a bit as we will only be there for a week.

Joshlin

Hey there

Can i be nosey and ask where your hubby will be working.
I work in one of the two garages in Prebbleton and as already mentioned its not really a big place at all. Lincoln is pretty nice btw- but full of uni students, not a bad thing, they just dont have any money to fix their cars !!

Lee

ezzkazz

Hi Lee.
My husband will be working for Meadow Mushrooms. If you can give us any advice about places to live etc and maybe a good primary school in the same area, that would be great. I know where to come to get my car fixed then

Wiz'n'Ton

Just goes to show what a small place ChCh is - as Meadow Mushrooms are one of our (Select Industrial) clients! My colleague Steve has been out to their site a number of times. I believe it is in the industrial area on the Western side of the city.

From their location, then a number of lovely areas are well within easy striking distance. As mentioned, Rolleston & Lincoln to the West, Cashmere to the South, Rangiora to the North a definite option as you can skirt the city to get there.

As others have mentioned, don't feel that you have to rush into things. When you get out here take a couple of weeks to explore and see where suits.

Good luck in wherever you decide, and download Google Earth (www.googleearth.com I think) and you will get a real birds eye view of everything - it's great!

ezzkazz

thankyou Ton for that.
I have done the google earth thing, very cool.
How do you mean Meadows are one of your clients? Just curious.

If my OH gets the job then we will plan a week here as any longer I will miss my youngest daughter as she wont be coming. Hopefully we will be rent our house in the UK for a year so will be looking for a rental to begin with, just wanted to narrow it down a bit so we can rule out a few.
Hopefully may know something about whether he has the job in a couple of days so it might be or heres hoping

Joshlin

Ah Meadow Mushrooms, just up the road(as most of Prebbleton is). They are just opposite the Mobil garage, I work at the other one-used to be a BP, but the pumps got taken away last year so its just a garage now-no fuel.
Meadows I would say are the largest employer in what is in the main a village as already mentioned.
When I got the job we looked briefly at houses in Prebbleton but they are expensive, very nice but pricey! The houses in Stonebridge Way are very very nice. Prebbleton primary school seems fairly well thought of and is not that big. There are two new sub-divisions being built at the moment so the place is expanding all the time.
We live in Halswell and it suits us fine. It takes me 6 mins to drive to work on the back road. Our son goes to Halswell school which is very well thought of and well attended.
pm us if you want to come round for a coffee and a chat when you are over and I'll give you our details.
good luck.
Lee & Vicki