Two years ago I left my wife...

[rogercruse]

...in the UK and travelled to New Zealand with three large suitcases and a booking for two nights at a central Auckland hotel.

I left my wife left behind so she could organise a few minor things like shipping our household possessions, arrange for our house to be rented out and to qualify for her police officer pension before joining me.

Meanwhile, I had to a few tasks as well like find somewhere to live, find something to drive and find a job!

After a few changes of address I found small rented apartment and starting buying all the basic items that I would need to survive while I settled in and waited for the household possessions to arrive.

Returning briefly to the UK for a family wedding and to collect my newly retired wife, we returned to New Zealand. Clearly, my small apartment was 'deemed' too small and we “had” to move to a bigger rented property.

Not wishing to live forever in rented accommodation, we spent almost every weekend over the next six months looking for the perfect house and we moved in over the weekend of the Rugby World Cup final. It was a treble celebration as we had tickets and the All Blacks won!

My wife then started to get the garden organised with fruit trees & a vegetable patch but had to curtail this as she started a new job. And yesterday, we added a nice new stickers to our passports!

Our only regret… Why didn’t we move to New Zealand years ago!

[NikT]

Nick..

[Manks]

Nice! Congrats. We're about a month behind you

[JandM]

Congratulations!

[newarrival]

Sounds like you found 'your' spot

[Moomette]

Congrats on what sounds like a very successful two years

Just wanted to ask though, how did your wife manage to get her permanent residence already if she only arrived April last year? Just wondering if they'd changed the two-year rule as would save me from having to get the old stickers transfered over to my new passport if I can go straight for the new PR ones.

[rogercruse]

...how did your wife manage to get her permanent residence already if she only arrived April last year?...

I did wonder about this myself, but as my wife is not the principle, I am.

However, she did visit me soon after I arrived to activate her visa and has spent more than 50% of the past two years in New Zealand.

[kiwihusker]

Very exciting. As we are just about to move to NZ, hearing these positive stories helps me tremendously. We are in the process of selling cars and trying to get our home rented. It is quite stressful. I truly hope we get to the feeling where we are saying "why didn't we move to NZ sooner?"

[benandclare]

Nice one Mr and Mrs Roger

[Ana&Steve]

Happy anniversary!