awsome

Well, things are moving along quite nicely with our emigration plans.

Saturday (17th December) we secured a short term rental on a house in Welcome Bay area, looks really nice and is perfect for us until our container arrives.

Sunday (18th December) we booked our flights with Malaysian Airlines, at a really good price. The only down side is that they only allow 20 KG of luggage per person but compared with the best quote we could find for 40 Kg allowance, we were saving over £700. That's a lot of clothes that we can buy when we get there!!

The only area that we still have had no joy with (big worry !!!!!) is securing a job. Hopefully we are worrying over nothing and will find employment soon after arriving.

Started to look at the schools in the Tauranga area and would welcome any first hand knowledge. We have a boy, Morgan, aged 12 and Girl, Bronwen, aged 14.

Further updates to follow...

Justcol

There'll be plenty of jobs advertised after xmas, the job market tends to die at this
time of year then picks up again late January

awsome

Thanks for the reassurance Justcol

BEVS

What do you do for work.

awsome

I am currently employed by Tata Steel (21 years) as a Senior Systems Engineer. This is an IT related discipline and covers a large area, such as:

Hopefully I will find something which my skill sets cover in the Tauranga/BOP area.

Margaret Parkinson

My daughter lives in Papamoa, Tauranga and loves it but she is here at the moment returning New Years Eve with Singapore Airlines. While she has been here she has been shopping for England because sorry to say the choice of clothes there is limited so don't get excited. There is no M & S, Next etc or anything equivalent. The you go to the other extreme and quality is expensive so I think people wait for the sales.

Regarding the baggage allowance she rang the airline and asked how much for a small extra suitcase and was told £40 kg. However they did up this for free giving her 25 kg and 7 kg hand luggage so that might be worth a try.

Good luck.

awsome

Thanks for the reply Margaret. We visited NZ in 2009 so are familiar with the shopping scene, not being ones for designer labels etc. I thing we will make do for a while. I believe there are a number of stores in the UK which are willing to ship to NZ now for a nominal fee and if you keep the order under $400 (I think) you are not liable for GST (VAT equivalent).

Thanks for the advise on the airlines, we will certainly drop them an email quoting our flight details and try and wangle an extra allowance for us but we will not pay the exorbitant prices that some are quoting

How long has your daughter been living in papamoa ?

Regards

Nigel

Margaret Parkinson

Hi Nigel

They have been there 5 years. They have a son who is almost 20 and works for Countdown at Palm Beach Plaza he is Assistant Manager over 70% of the store. I don't think he would have got on so well here.

My son in law has a butchers shop on the Plaza as well.

June

awsome

They have obviously settled well there -hopefully we will to!! Your son in laws shop looks divine, shall certainly be paying them a visit when we settle out there

rason

That Butchers is bloody fantastic actually

johnht

If you're in Welcome Bay then you'll be in the zone for Tauranga Boys' College and (i think) Tauranga Girls' College. Our 13-y-o boy just started at TBC at the end of Year 9 and settled in quickly (and got used to going to school in sandals and shorts ). Other alternatives would be Bethlehem College (in Bethlehem - unsurprisingly) or Aquinas College to the south of the city. The latter is a Catholic school and Bethlehem also has a strong Christian philosophy (have a look at their website) and both get good results, but you pay more to send your children there than TBC and TGC and they might be fully subscribed.
John.

Kiwikaye

Make sure you mention you're on one-way flights (assuming you are) - that usually works for a bit of extra allowance as they know you're emigrating.