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Extended trip to New Zealand, How can I achieve this?
Sebbie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So hopefully in a few months I will be graduating with a bachelors degree in software engineering. I have been in this program for what seems like forever. I've also been at my current job for four years on and off (I usually take breaks or work part time during my semesters) and I've recently come to the conclusion that I don't want to start the 9 to 5 grind right after graduation.
My girlfriend has always expressed that her dream is to go live abroad for a few months to a year for the life experience. I never would have seen myself doing this but recent events have opened my eyes and I think I need to do this for myself and to please the woman that I am madly in love with.
She would love to go to New Zealand and has raved about it for the 5 years that we've been together. I would like to make this possible.
Basically we'd need to find a way to find jobs there to just pay for everyday expenses such as food and shelter. I have no clue how we'd find a place to stay either.
The thing is I have no clue what this entails. I have no idea where to start looking or what kind of questions to ask. Would I need some kind of work visa? Where would I get this? How much money should I save up beforehand? Is it even possible to do these kind of things? As you can see I'm very ignorant on the subject. I checked google but I never know what I can trust and what I can't. I'd like to note that we're not necessarily looking for work in our specific line of work (besides I doubt I could get a job in IT for just a few months).
So anyone have any advice?
My girlfriend has always expressed that her dream is to go live abroad for a few months to a year for the life experience. I never would have seen myself doing this but recent events have opened my eyes and I think I need to do this for myself and to please the woman that I am madly in love with.
She would love to go to New Zealand and has raved about it for the 5 years that we've been together. I would like to make this possible.
Basically we'd need to find a way to find jobs there to just pay for everyday expenses such as food and shelter. I have no clue how we'd find a place to stay either.
The thing is I have no clue what this entails. I have no idea where to start looking or what kind of questions to ask. Would I need some kind of work visa? Where would I get this? How much money should I save up beforehand? Is it even possible to do these kind of things? As you can see I'm very ignorant on the subject. I checked google but I never know what I can trust and what I can't. I'd like to note that we're not necessarily looking for work in our specific line of work (besides I doubt I could get a job in IT for just a few months).
So anyone have any advice?
"It's funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating."
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As I live in New Zealand, I know you can make a living doing the "orchard pickings", moving around fruit orchards during the spring months picking fruit and staying in hostels. However, in this current economic climate I wouldn't bank of this mode of employment. But it is probably your best bet anyhow. Investigate the seasonal work available and go from there.
www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/ for working in New Zealand information.
New Zealand is not an incredibly expensive place to live, especially if you don't mind living rough. I don't have much experience in OEing abroad but among the countries I've visited, I think NZ is one of the cheapest first world countries around.
So, yeah. If you do decide to come along, be sure to go to the South Island. Beautiful country.
What does "OEing" stand for?
Thanks for the information.
Check out the page and see what you have to do. The big issue is likely that you have to show that you have enough money banked to make the idea feasible. Who knows how much that actually is or if you have it.
Edit: It says right on that page, you need at least 4200 NZD, which at current rates is pretty much 2600 USD.
OE - Overseas Experience. It's um.. Kiwi (New Zealand) slang for spending a few months/years working overseas.
2) If you're in a city, you can temp - just get an office job to cover costs.
3) You can stay in a bakpackers, until you get work, then you can get a flat.
You'll love it. North Island or south. You'll get temp work enough to cover your costs. If you're in the North Island especially, you'll find a pretty healthy IT industry too.
I'm from Canada and from the website I can see we're pretty much in the same boat as americans in terms of requirements. I don't know what kind of winter weather you guys get but considering that we've had a couple of days in the -40 degrees Celcius this year I'm sure I would be fine. The NZ summer would be ideal though.
So from all your advice I take it that I can find plenty of help to figure out how to stay there? Would it be best to find a job beforehand or it doesn't matter?
We're still undecided as to when we'd go and from a recent discussion we've had I doubt we'd go this summer. I think we were aiming for something around January so we could avoid our winter.
Thanks again for all the tips
Like I said, it's not like canada in february or anything, but if you're interested in doing things like surfing or more things where it'd be nicer if it was warmer, go in their version of summer. If you go in their winter, its gonna be windier and colder.
Jan is ideal. The middle of summer. Winter in NZ is fine, and as everyone has stated, the skiing etc is awesome. But summer and the beaches are where NZ is at... imho
You will struggle to find a job before you are physically here - Unless you're in a pretty niche industry and there is a really strong need. There are always people coming into NZ, and most recruiters will politely tell you to come and see them when you're actually in the country. Dealing with someone outside the country usually isn't worth the grief. But dont let that put you off asking how much temp/bar/whatever work there is around at the moment.
So I'd save up enough to set yourselves up cheaply for a few months, just in case. But that needn't be a lot. Backpackers, and general cost of living will be pretty cheap.
Starting in one of the bigger cities will make life easier in terms of getting a job. Auckland is the obvious choice here, but Wellington etc will work too.
Once you get some money etc, you could buy an old van/car and start to see the country.
If you go to Wellington, you have a huge advantage in getting a job. Wellington is dying for software engineers due to brain drain: clever CS grads go across to Australia to get higher paying jobs than NZ can possibly pay. I walked into my first job from Hudson's (a tech-oriented recruitment consultancy) in less than two weeks, after one interview. I didn't like that job 6 months down the line, then got another job after one interview, which I much preferred, at Victoria University of Wellington. Had I not wanted to pursue my PhD, I would have stayed.
Wellington is far far nicer than Auckland, in my opinion. I would not even consider Auckland because
a) The city is not as nice (IMHO)
b) You will finder it harder to get jobs (although there's more CS there, the market is much more competitive than Welly)
c) Auckland is so big enough to make you want to need a car. I never bought one in Welly, and hardly missed it.
d) Because the Auckland market is more competitive for tech jobs, moving to a full visa is harder. The Wellington immigration office hand them out for Wellington tech jobs like candy. Again, never had a problem here.
I would recommend staying at least for a year. If you want to get the life experience you think you do, that's the minimum I would say you should stay. Anything shorter and you will be afraid to make friendships as there will always be a nagging feeling that they are not friendships that will last. That will only hurt you in the long run. I miss the friends I made in Wellington a lot, they're good friends and would like to see them far more than I do.
This also means it doesn't matter when you arrive, a year means you'll see everything. If you arrive in winter, that might give you time to save up cash to tour the South Island.
Just for some frame of reference with respect to the weather:
I'm from Saskatchewan and was dating a girl from Auckland, NZ. She came to visit for Christmas '05, staying with me. She said it was colder than anything she's ever had to deal with, and she's lived on the north island and the south island as well (she was attending school in Dunedin, the colder(est?) part of the south island). So, even during their winter, you're going to be experiencing relatively warmer temperatures. I wouldn't worry about the weather much.
Knowing you're Canadian, you're definitely going to want to go with the Working Holiday plan. It was really the best plan so far as I could see when I was going to visit her. As for having some work lined up before you go, I'm not sure if you're going to be able to swing it. I know they have Kelly Services offices down there (I was working for them up here and my local office loved me, so I could count on a solid referral to their offices in NZ), but they couldn't really do anything for me until I was actually in the country. I would imagine the Immigration website for NZ that was linked would have advice on lining up jobs of the seasonal, fruit picking variety.
BUT I'd also throw in that for a "holiday" of sorts, you can't get much better than travelling to the south island (ROAD TRIP?!) around the Queenstown area and trying out a fruitpicking job.
As a tourist town Queenstown is more expensive to stay than elsewhere, but from a lodge/campsite base everything is within 40 mins driving distance.
You can do sightseeing in general (it is fucking beautiful up there in summer) or the 'adventure tourism' thing (bungie jumping, gondolas, jetboat rides etc.) if you have money to spare.
I'm in NZ so admittedly my opinion may be slightly skewed, but I've been to many countries and the Central Otago area is my favourite place in the world to travel to.
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generally the temperature in the South Island hovers between 5 and 15 in the winter, its not that bad.
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Also, there's a lot of wine areas that, if you're any sort of fan of wine, you must check out.
Oh, another thing you might want to be aware of is that in NZ, for some reason, many of the houses they constructed weren't insulated properly or at all, so even though it's only -5 or so, it can seem worse than it should be when you're indoors. Really, not much of a big deal, but something to know so you're not scratching your head when you're down there.
My Fiance' and I have moved back to NZ to settle, and realised that NZ hibernates over the January period. Its a combination of Christmas, and the summer schools hols that means that heaps of people dont even come back to work till the 19th of Jan. This means that recruitment is slow over this time - Moreso for Perm roles, but still. I'd call a few people and ask what you're likely to expect.
Quite a few places have a summer holidays slow down - Europe in August almost dies for recruitment in my experience. Anyway, the seasonal agricultural work is going to be the most reliable source of work for you - there are almost always shortages of labour, and in the outlying regions like where I am from they have to set up specific relationships with recruiters overseas to get labour in sometimes, so travellers who wander about and come to them, with the right visas will probably be liked. The only problem is the recession - it is hitting NZ like most other places so recruitment or work related stuff will no doubt be going through some pretty hard times - so you really need to have a good level of savings just in case getting a job takes you a couple of months.
Assuming you can find work I think you'll have a good time. People back home generally seem to like Canadians - I've had a couple of friends/family come over from there to spend long periods of time in NZ for work or other and they've always been treated pretty well. Its the age old story really, NZ being an English speaking Commonwealth country tends to like people from similar countries, and this will give you an edge over other temporary migrants. It certainly has helped me in the UK for similar reasons I think
I want to stay for about a year, but I'm not really sure how I want to divide my time. I want to try Wellington and get some kind of temp work and get a flat or something. Are there many furnished flats? I really don't want to have to buy furniture just to sell it in a few months. Fallingman, I'd love it if you could give me some contact info for a recruitment firm. Just so I could have some idea what to expect jobwise.
I'm also interested in spending some time on the South Island, doing some hiking, skiing and the like. Ideally I'd like to get try to get a job working at a ski resort. But it sounds like it might be pretty tough to get a job there because it's so popular. Does anyone have any experience with that?
I'd like some recommendations on how I should split my time. I'll probably just have to kind of feel out how everything goes, but I'd at least like to have some kind of plan.
Does anyone know how long it takes for approval for the visa? I just applied for a passport, so I'll probably have to wait for that (about two months) before I can apply.
Thanks for all of the great information. I'm pretty excited about the trip and I'm just starting to plan. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions later.
But winter = skiing/snowboarding. Depends what you're into.
My sister used to work at the Mount Ruapehu Ski Fields on the North Island but I can't remember exactly how she got it sorry. From memory, she did have a little experience in tourism beforehand but I don't really think it was the deciding factor. She just applied on the website, drove down there for an interview and got the job.
The biggest problem you'd have would probably be the economic crisis, which means less tourists and less staff needed at the fields.
Split your time? You mean where to go? I dunno. Get to the beach in summer, somewhere around Mt Maunganui or the Coromandel would probably be the best place to go, though they get really popular and it may be hard to find a camping ground. Then in the winter, you probably want to go down to the south island.
I can tell you where not to go as well.
Also, I should really warn you guys, if next years summer is anything like this one, it'll be freaking muggy. It's nearly 9pm at the moment and I'm sweating excessively. It's disgusting. I actually think spring would be the best time to arrive in the country.
And lastly, none of you guys may have any clue how rugby's played but the Rugby World Cup will be happening around September 2011 so I'd recommend checking it out if you're in the country while it's happening.
Re flatting scene in Wellington - there are more unfurnished flats that furnished in my experience, but the latter can be found usually. Flats usually range from villas through to apartments. I would suggest you look around Mt Victoria, Cook, Aro Valley, Kelburn and Pipitea areas - which are the inner Wellington City suburbs and from which it is easy to walk anywhere. Worst time to look for a complete flat would be at the start of the year - Jan/Feb - everytime I've looked then has been far harder work than at other times of year - due I guess to that being the start of the academic year/new jobs for grads.
Given that its one of the most visited tourist areas in the country you might want to qualify that statement. I've visited the West Coast a number of times and would put it near the top of my list of places to see.
I was talking more about Greymouth and Westport, they're pretty dull towns outside of a couple of attractions (off the top of my head there's Shantytown, which is pretty great for kids, and the Monteiths brewery, which isn't bad). I'd forgotten about the coastline though, it is pretty cool (despite the black sand). The Southern Alps are part of Canterbury, if you were also thinking of them.
Speaking of the area, I'd also recommend spending a couple of nights in Nelson. It's a bit of a hassle getting their from Picton (where you'll be dropped off if you take the ferry across Cook Strait), the road is a really shitty but it's a pretty cool city.
I'd also throw my recommendation here for ignoring Unco-Ordinated. EDIT: Sorry Unco... I didnt get to see your subsequent post.
I'm from Auckland, went to University in Dunedin (Sth Island), lived in the UK for six years, and have just moved back with my fiance'. We did a big tour of the South Island after the move and the West Coast of the South Island is some of the most stunning natural beauty in the world. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this either. Milford Sound, Fox Glacier, Rugged West Coast beaches etc. We thought it was the best place we went to.
Milford Sound:
Some Waterfall we drove over:
Random WC Beach:
Fiordland:
Gillespe's Beach:
These are all pictures I took.
A little research will further prove the point. It is remote however. But that's why its so special. Also - the roads are really good. Driving was great fun.
Also - a few people have mentioned Auckland. I'm not so much going to tell you they're wrong, but in its defense:
Auckland is the largest city in NZ, by far. It gets a lot of stick from the rest of the country - very similar to London in the UK. Having lived abroad - Auckland is the only place I'd live. My experience of living and working (and growing up) in Auckland is beaches when its hot (surfing is a 45 min drive away) - working in the city, and beer/wine overlooking the harbour after work. But then I would say that.
The point is, I'd take it as given that you'll love it. Some places you'll see beauty and some you'll get a great cosmopolitan experience. Just dont go looking for crowds on the West Coast of the South Island ;-)
Everyone has stories of places they didnt like. We had a particular town in the South Island that really didnt impress... It didnt stop it being one of the best holidays I've ever had - and I'm a kiwi! I was embarrassed it took me so long to get down there.
The Alps stretch almost the entire length of the south Island. They aren't really within a single province.