Christine - Medical Practitioner

We are Richard & Christine and we moved to New Zealand with our 3 children (aged 19,16 and 13 years) and our 2 dogs in February 2023.

The most challenging part of the process once we had gotten over making the actual decision to move (not easy) was the waiting for our visas to come from Immigration New Zealand. It felt like a lot of work happened and then there was a long quiet wait… one does not get any information from INZ as to what stage of the process the application is at. No idea if there are issues with the medical or not, or whether indeed your case is even being looked at yet. This was frustrating both for us and our superb NZ shores agent Sanj.

First impressions of NZ were sloughtly clouded as we arrived to a grey Auckland, just having been through torrential floods and then a cyclone. Despite this people were incredibly friendly and helpful and so happy we had come to their country.

We have not yet started looking for items we are missing from South Africa but we have spotted several South African goods shops. Rooibos tea, Mrs Balls chutney as well as some other favorites are on the supermarkert shelves! We have heard some Afrikaans and SA English spoken around us and met some of our ex Capetonian friends, so we are not feeling completely 'alone' here.

Our advice to other migrants is to take all given time expectations for administrative things and add more time… that will reduce the stress! Increase the length of what the moving company tells you it will take for your container to get here, increase the length of time they say it will take for your dogs to get here.

Expect things to look different when you get here- most notable the housing- most are wood built houses.
Pack wisely into your 30kg suitcase as your container will take a long time to get here. Definitely put your waterproof jacket in your suitcase! There are often 4 seasons in a day.

Many things are easier once you are physically here eg. dealing with estate agents to find a house, dealing with schools and universities. It is also much easier once you have a NZ cellphone number as this then allows you to register for some sites eg Trade me that is restricted without a NZ number.