escapedtonz

Yip I have Geonet notifications on all the time so I know about any decent sized quakes due to my work. It is something always worth knowing.
I was on duty when the big one hit at 00.02 on the 14th. Had to look after things whilst my colleague in Wellington got under his desk as I was on my down time at that moment. The shaking on the 24hr video conference we have going was pretty severe and then it hit us in Hamilton. Took maybe 20 seconds for the shockwave to travel 500km's!!!
We had to call in the structural engineer asap and then evacuated our Wellington office at 2am.
In the 2.5 yrs we lived in Wellington we felt many earthquakes and endured many a severe gale with horizontal rain. Not pretty.
Doesn't take long for the regular barrage of bad weather and earthquakes to make you re-evaluate where you're at.

wez130

I went to Wellington for 3 days last December, it rained on the first day but was sunny after that, and i must have been really lucky as there was no wind for the whole 3 days!

Found a cracking little craft beer pub there though, 8 wired Tropidelic on draft was beautiful.

jayandbill

We've lived in Tauranga Bay of Plenty for 7 years having moved to NZ in 2009. We're retired so can't say much about the job opportunies. The city is growing rapidly, which means the traffic is too. in spite of more roads being built. getting in and out at peak times can be a challenge. When we first came here that wasn't the case. House prices have also risen significantly and still rising. Weatherwise it's OK but just as in the UK, changeable and unpredictable but no extremes of heat or cold. One thing I would say, wherever you settle do try to make sure that's where you'll want to stay because moving house is very costly. Agents fees are much higher than the UK and Solicitors fees are ridiculous. To sell and buy the combined cost could be $17000+. stupidly, we've moved twice at a cost of over $40000 in fees in total, OUCH!. It's not uncommon for Immigrants to move a couple of times before settling so do your research.
Facilities are OK, there is plenty of out of town shopping, but the city ( rather a small town by British standards) can be quite dead as a result, except on a weekend when the drunks are out in force. Lots of restaurants and pubs but not a great deal else. A cinema, a theatre. and a domestic airport. For me, the lack of a rail service is a major bugbear. It takes 2.5 - 3 hours to get to Auckland by car, 7 hours to Wellington. There is a train to Wellington but it takes 11 hours from Hamilton, which is an hour from here by car.
My advice is, do your research. It's all out there on the internet. Read the NZ Herald online to get a good idea of life in NZ
Finally, the South Island is beautiful, but can be very cold and severely earthquake prone, but I'm sure you're aware of that. You'll miss central heating wherever you decide to settle. Buy a house that was built after 2007. it will most likely have double glazing. They're a bit slow in NZ in admitting it can be cold here. If you're used to shopping at Lidl or Aldi you'll find supermarkets here pricey. I hope I haven't been too negative, but the grass is never as green on the other side as we hope.

Pom_Chch

Re earthquakes - you are dead right about south island, this weeks events have proven that theory. However, the whole of NZ is prone to earthquakes so realistically I wouldn't single out the south island. We're sat right on the "ring of fire", which covers the whole of NZ, so no where is safe technically. There are people who fled Chch and moved to Kaikoura, Wellington, Hanmer and well look where that got them! You can't predict the buggers either so no one knows where, when or how large they are going to be.

Just my two cents.

PS - I don't miss central heating