Ruzuna

Thankyou,

Divine Comedy

I wish you all the best with your decision it must have been a hard one to come to. I also have had the same feelings after a year of being here, its SO hard
I always think that fate has many plans and we take some paths for a reason.
You gave NZ a go and that took more bottle than most people have. We only regret the things we didnt do and not the things we did
All the best.

love30stm

dont get me wrong I have had my down days, but i dont expect it to be like England, and thats a good thing some days and a bad thing some days....

I moved to a different City within the UK and took me 5 years to settle, so i expect it to be longer in New Zealand... saying that some days I love it some days i dont...

but Im with my lovely family in this beautiful country that I have yet to explore all yet.... and still feel exited some days at the discovery of NEW things...

all Im saying 6 months is not long, Ive been here nearly 14 months and am still discovering things

lapsed kiwi

6 months does seem a ludicrously short time to make a decision - especially as the OP has not had a NZ summer, and has experienced a particularly bad winter. We promised ourselves a 5-year trial period, but three years in are fairly sure to be staying.
On the other hand, easy access to varied countryside is something that the UK has much more of than NZ, so if you need this, maybe NZ isn't such a good place to be.

Ruzuna

Thankyou

Ruzuna

You have just said it, you have your lovely family with you . I came on my own with 4 Dogs no partner to share good and bad days with.huge difference

Mattyk

Sorry to hear your moving back to the UK, we come over to Christchurch in a couple of weeks and are hoping for a wonderfull adventure. Good luck getting back home.

One question I have is why do you not get great access to the countryside in NZ as we are bringing our German Shepherd over who loves long walks? Why in country bigger than the UK with a tiny population can you not get access, is it all farm land where you not allowed to go?

Again best wishes getting home, we cannot wait to leave and are going to give it at least 3 years as we know the first 12 months will be tough.

Matt

Ruzuna

Thankyou The uk is much more Dog friendly certainly in the countyside, also from a training and showing point of view the standard and competition is much more competitive and great fun certainly the Munster tour in Ireland, with very high standards, and very easy access to Europe for further competitions nearly every weekend. My dogs are my life as are the puppies I breed. 6 months may feel a short time to some but I think once your mind is made up there is not much point in wasting time, life is very short, and dogs is even shorter. My dogs are my family and all of them are very precious to me.

Ruzuna

We have a super moutain here behind us and I look at it most days thinking how my dogs would just love to roar around there, but they not only have wild pigs up there, they spray something called 10/80 and if eaten by your dog will kill it, no cure. A lot if the land is private and no access. It is a great shame because you would think it would be ideal for dog lovers. I had a lady bring a dog to the kennels in the first couple of months we were here and she just wanted to take it for a walk before she left it here for 2wks and she was back in 20 mins because a dog had run out of a property and attacked hers that was on a lead. I hear a lot of these type of stories, I won't street walk mine as I don't want them marked or the agro. I believe the South Island is different. I used to walk about 500 metres with 6 Dobes and they could run for hours on the moors, chasing rabbits and squirrels we would very rarely come across other people, (rare for the UK ) most weekends we would load the van up and go to a show usually within a 2hr drive have a great day win or lose, great social event, here we would have to drive on average 5hrs to a show that for the Dobes is over in an hour.

kissfritz

Hi there - just came across your post by accident but wanted to say chin up chuck Even if you have spent $ to move to Oz the good news is the door is always open, you can always go home. So with that in mind give yourself a bit of breathing space - why not think of this time in NZ as a bit of a holiday from the UK instead of a life sentence and enjoy it as such - you might actually start to feel better about where you are if you do that as the pressure is then off for this huge move you have made to feel perfect.

I moved to oz about 4 years ago as my partner is australian and i adjusted better to oz than he did to the UK plus i was up for the adventure and I also thought the quality of life here was prob better. After 4 years here I would prob not move back to the UK BUT that doesnt mean that life here is perfect or that there havent been some really sad and lonely times when I have wondered if I had made a terrible mistake leaving my old life, my friends and family behind.

I guess I am trying to say that emigrating to oz is not for everyone and if you are 100% sure then go home. Some people seem to settle in instantly and never look back and that's great for them. Other people, like me, take much longer to settle and with this in mind maybe give it a bit longer before you head home. Best of luck

Ruzuna

Thankyou for that it all makes sense. With taking the dogs home I just have to plan so far in advance

chocolate cake

I've no dogs, but in the short time I've been here I've found that general access to the countryside isn't as liberal as in the UK. Sure I've done some excellent walks and bike rides, but it's the general access that can be disappointing.

Browner_

Yeah, its strange but in many ways and places there is less accessible countryside than in the UK. Certainly for dog walking many places are full of sheep or full of 1080 poison. But for me, coming from the south of England, is to notice that NZ just doesnt have the patchwork of country lanes and villages that England does. There are towns and then the rest is wilds, which is often quite difficult to get into. There is much more accessible countryside in Surrey and Hampshire than in the Wellington region.

Im a dog hater but I once took a neighbours dog for a short walk in NZ and it was a horrendous experience. I got pestered or attacked numerous times by other dogs, finally being savaged by someones loose Staffordshire. Never again.

Black Sheep

I don't think there's ANYWHERE else in the world that has the easy instant access to the countryside that the UK has, the fantastic public footpaths system. It's the main reason I want to return there, the thing I most love about UK. It's like the whole country belongs to everyone. You can explore every nook, every historical cranny of any place in the country that takes your fancy - just stop your car any old where that beckons and you'll find a footpath you can explore. It somehow makes it easier too if financial circumstances force you to live in a smaller home with a smaller 'section' (god I hate that word, but I'm so used to it now) even if you have children, in a village or market town for instance, when you know you have miles of walks in any direction that are accessible, or that you can visit the horses 'up close' in the paddocks down the road any time and pretend they're ' yours', LOL.

That's a brave statement to make in a thread like this, LOL!! Makes it easier though for me to say that my sentiments about other people's dogs, especially breeds like Dobermans and German Shepherds, that I have far too often met running free, are pretty much the same. My husband, a dog lover himself, was one of many bitten by a particular doberman at one of many cocktail parties where the dog, the beloved pet of the childless party giver (who was someone 'of importance' and therefore 'above the normal rules'), had free reign. At party after party, after each 'incident' the partygiver would apologize profusely, the victims would mumble words like 'oh, it's nothing' (blood running down their torn pants legs), and 5 minutes later the dog was back mingling with the guests! The partygiver used to invite me over to play bridge in the daytime, and she'd always be waiting on her terrace as I hesitated, after parking my car ,as the infamous doberman sniffed around outside my car door - "Don't worry, it's ALL RIGHT" she'd shout down to me, "she doesn't bite women!"... Aaah, o-o-ohkay, LOL!

Have you read Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a small island? He didn't find it particularly amusing himself to come across pet dogs running free on his country walks, and described vocalizing very strongly his annoyance at the dog owners... I was grateful to him for that, dogs running loose was the one and only thing (other than noticing a bit late that the 'cows' I was sharing the paddock with were in fact bulls!) that could ruin my beloved English country walks.... I've had dogs myself, but I never let them run free in any public space - I only needed to see my dachshund behave unexpectedly viciously (luckily without actually doing harm) towards one person to be ever wary ever after with all my dogs

Mattyk

Most dogs big or small are a reflection of their owners, and if they cannot be bother to spend time training them you will get a disobedient animal. I've a German Shepherd who is great but I'm not happy for her to be around small children because they pull and poke dogs and think nothing of it.

People cross the road when i walk my dog but she has never shown aggression to anyone yet!?!?

Sounds like a lot of NZ dogs are free to walk the streets is this so. We are going to Rangioria nr Christchurch does anyone know if my dog will be allowed to roam free and bite folk??