Dave and family from Devon, UK

[CornwallDave]

Hi:

I'm Dave married to Amanda with daughter Tabatha (13). We have found this forum exceptionally useful over the last few months while we gradually built our resolve to take the plunge and aim for NZ. Bravo to all those lovely people who take their precious time to add facts and thoughts.

I am a website and software developer, and my wife teaches yoga. We have great friends in Auckland so that's our target. We have (just about) sold our Cornwall house and are renting; we have no family ties which would cause angst in the breaking, so it seems like we have side-stepped the most problematic initial obstacles. We're looking forward to a better climate, and a larger house with a view, a bit better than anything a normal person could find in the UK.

Oh - and of course it will be a huge fun adventure.

Cheers
Dave

[Taffy]

Hi Dave & Family,

Welcome to the forum! Glad to see you've made it from long time reader in to first time poster Hopefully we'll see a lot more of you around the forum.

[ebianca]

Welcome to the forum guys.

I'm sure you'll get all the answers you need from here and have some fun along the way.

Beth

[MotherBear]

from me, too. Stick around and get to know everyone.

[Andrew Family]

Welcome Dave and Amanda
We are looking at Auckland although a long way in the future. Perhaps when/if we get there and your already settled we could meet up for guidance and way to meet local people. We are only at the very beginning of the process but to know people in the area we are aiming for would be a real help. What part of Auckland are you aiming for? There seems to be so many suburbs that without inside knowledge a move to the wrong area could be easy although we will obviously rent first.

[CornwallDave]

Hi Andrew Family: Nice to hear from you and yes it wd be great to meet when we all get there.
Like you we'll rent first. We provisionally are looking at Titirangi and Oratia, but principally that is because we have some great friends who live there, and also because we loved the way the houses blend in with the bush, and have space around.
When we get more practical, we'll have to consider travel distance to school and work, but neither of these are yet settled. That may take us completely elsewhere.

I can point you to an excellent website which I just discovered from a forum entry:

Auckland Suburb Guide

Additionally, if you are bothered about schools, you probably already know that proximity is key (which I hope means that the Schoolmums Rush Hour doesn't dominate in the way it has grown in the UK with people travelling ages to get to their school of choice - we are guilty of that ourselves.) Sites to help you in this decision are:

Enrolment Zones Redirection Page
ERO - Kia ora - welcome to the Education Review Office - Te Tari Arotaki Matauranga
TKI - Schools

Plenty (too much) reading material for us all.

Best wishes

Dave