Where to live in Christchurch?

[Kirsty33]

Hi everyone!
After a fantastic holiday travelling around NZ last Christmas, my husband and I have decided to move to NZ. We fell in love with Christchurch, so we think this will be where we will relocate to, but having two young children in tow, I'm interested in living in a suburb that would benefit them. I'm not sure if this is the kind of question that can be answered in this section of the forum (I'm a bit new to this!), but does anybody know which areas of Christchurch have the best schools? I welcome any information that anyone has.

Thanks, Kirsty :)

[MotherBear]

I don?t know whether any of our Christchurch members are still looking in or not, Kirsty so I?ll post these links to various school-related sites in case you can glean any useful info from them.

Look up reports on schools

Search for schools in your chosen area

Map site that shows the location of schools

School zones

So pleased that you enjoyed your trip downunder and it's helped you to make up your mind about immigrating there. ?

[LilAmy]

Hi Kirsty,

Stu and I plan to head to Christchurch about Aug/Sept time so I'll let you know our thoughts and what not if you can pop a wee reminder on the forum about that time.

Not sure how long we'll be there for but we'll let you know what we find.

Amy

[Kirsty33]

Hi again,
Thanks for the links Mother Bear, I have emailed a couple of the schools to get some information from them directly. Also Amy, that sounds great! I will post something closer to the time as a wee reminder. Have you been to Christchurch before? Make sure that you visit the Art Centre - it's fantastic!

Kirsty.

[LilAmy]

We went for a few days last year and really liked it. Mainly stayed rund the city centre area but it had a nice feel to it.

Hopefully we can get work down there and stay for longer and get a better feel for what its like to live there.

[kokopeli]

Hi Kirsty, Hello to Everyone else!

It seems like a lifetime since my last post, so I thought I'd log back on... ;)

After well over 120 days and nights on the road, we've finally decided to park up the the campervan and try living in a proper house again. After a truly grand tour of both islands, we decided to give Christchurch a 'go'.

We've been in the city about a month and have just moved in to a brand new rental about 6km south of the city. The kids have started at the local school so feel free to PM about zones and stuff. Chch is very 'school zone aware', but our choice of school was ultimately decided by the availability of a rental house we actually wanted to live in. We looked at a lot and most of them were either horribly bad or ridiculously expensive. Again, if you PM me I'd be happy to give you some pointers.

CH

[Glenda]

Hiya kokopeli. [smiley=039.gif]

So glad to hear you've found somewhere to settle! Gosh, you have certainly spent a long time travelling in the campervan ... I'm sure it has been a worthwhile adventure, though.

Good to hear you've found a rental home you can live in, also schools for the kids. Hope you are all enjoying life in Christchurch.

:)

[kokopeli]

Hi Glenda, it's good to see your house is coming on!

We've had a fantastic adventure, although we're still a bit upside down. We like Chch, although we could have stopped at a dozen different places or more....

I'll try to post a proper story later, but I'm afraid I've got a familiar tale to tell about our container. You know the one. You pay for shipping door-to-door. The NZ agent adds on a stupid amount for the MAF bits...

The bottom line is that we 'released' the NZ movers, got a refund from the UK and sorted it out ourselves. All's well that end's well :)

[MotherBear]

Hi Kokopeli,

Good to hear you're settling somewhere after your long adventure. I bet you've got some stories to tell. It's not good news about the NZ agents though. History repeating itself over and over again. I really don't understand why there isn't some sort of control over them.

Hope things go well for you in Christchurch. It's handy to have a member in the South Island again, as most of the others are in the North.

Fingers crossed for a happy start to your new lives downunder. 8-)

[KiwiHopeful]

?Chch is very 'school zone aware', but our choice of school was ultimately decided by the availability of a rental house we actually wanted to live in. ?We looked at a lot and most of them were either horribly bad or ridiculously expensive. Again, if you PM me I'd be happy to give you some pointers.

Since we're hoping to settle in Chch I'd be interested in hearing more about your housing experience? What exactly constitutes 'horribly bad' and 'ridiculously expensive'? I'm not so crass as to ask exactly how much your paying, but a nice range would be very useful to me. Of course, feel free to tell me to MYOB! ;D