New Zealand

Oops, I did it again! Another working holiday visa that is. This time for New Zealand. So on the 25th of January I took off from Brussels airport, early in the morning to go to New Zealand in style. Ok, the plane from Belgium to London was nothing special. But lo and behold, the plane taking me from London to Sydney was the very impressive Airbus A380, spankin’ new. Nothing beats a fresh plane.

But of course, the plane can be as new as you want, it’s where you are located in the plane that is important and there my friends was the catch. They placed me just after the kids section, you know, usually the section that separates first class from second class, where all the babies and families are placed. Bugger, I knew what this meant… crying, yelling and a whole lot of other noises. Needless to say that I hardly did any sleeping, not that I’m very good at sleeping on a plane anyhow. The plane came equipped with a massive library of digital entertainment and even a webcam installed on the tail of the plane !! Say bye bye to the waiting game to actually start using the movie player. As soon as you set foot on the plane, you could start enjoying the digital library.
Anyhow, 13 hours to Singapore, a quick 1hour refueling stop and then on to Sydney, another 11hour leg. Not something you want to do every week. In Sydney I had a 9hour layover, so I had booked a bed in a hostel downtown. Too tired of hardly sleeping on the plane I just went to bed and tried to rack up some rest. Apparently it was Australia day, but to be honest, I could not be convinced to go out and join the festivities after being ‘on the road’ for over 28 hours.
Morning struck and my final leg to New Zealand was about to begin. A relatively short flight to Christchurch (+/- 3hours). The weather was already in the upper twenties centigrade so quite a change from winter time in Belgium. Not that it bothered me too much.

It was straightforward to go through customs and immigration and I got my entry stamp and am now allowed to stay for a year in New Zealand on a working holiday visa. The last one that I can claim since I am getting too old for this stuff and since Belgium has only 3 countries with whom it has working holiday agreements, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Better make this one count I suppose.
In Christchurch I found a place to stay through Couchsurfing. My great hosts gave me tips, food and a great base to start arranging boring stuff such as setting up a bank account, getting a tax number, getting a sim card, looking for a car, looking for work …
The easiest is the sim card, just pay 5 NZ dollars, and you have one. No forms to fill out, nothing, just pop it in your phone and you are set. Too easy !!
Bank account, pretty easy as well, just make sure you have a NZ address. Same with the tax (IRD) number, which you need when you work. Then the lookout for a car. I wanted a station wagon since I am thinking of surfing and having the option to sleep in the care when needed. What can I say. Every car that you see has something wrong with it. At least the cars in the price range that I am looking for. I was not too keen to buy a car off some backpackers since they are the ones who generally tend to skip maintenance on a car. I’m not saying every backpacker does this, but just, I preferred buying a car owned by a local. So after a few days of looking at cars I finally settled on one, an old 1990 Ford Laser 1.5 manual. Owned for it’s entire life by an old lady, and now owned by a middle aged Belgian visitor. Let’s hope I don’t run into too many problems with this one.

Then ordered some third party insurance and I am ready to hit the road. Insurance is actually not that bad, 200 NZ dollars for 9 months of third party insurance. I guess it doesn’t hurt being over 30 🙂
After all these things sorted out there is only one thing left to do… find work. I did apply for a software development job in Christchurch. Was called in for an interview at the recruitment agency. They asked me to provide some references which I still haven’t done yet. Not actually sure I want to stay in Christchurch and not even sure I want to commit to an IT job. Will see what I do.

So where am I writing this ?? I left Christchurch and went to Nelson, where I visited some of my friends that I met in Australia a few years back.

Yes, this was before this blog’s existence, but it was also on a working holiday visa ;-).