Two years ago yesterday I arrived in Auckland from Vancouver. I came as a skilled migrant through an accredited employer (I'm an academic), so my resident visa had a couple of conditions on it (stay in that job 3 months and in that field/industry for 3 months). Thus in January 2013 I applied to have those conditions removed.
Like others coming to NZ with a resident visa I had travel conditions until the 2 year mark (yesterday, in my case). So I was required to apply for either a permanent resident visa or some sort of variation (extension really) of my existing resident visa. As I've lived here for more than 184 days in both years I applied for permanent. There is a form to complete and you also need 2 recent passport-sized photos. There is a handy photo place on the mezzanine level of the same building in which INZ's downtown Auckland is located.
I arrived at the downtown Auckland branch at 1016, was at the desk at 1024 and called to one of the officers at 1032. Left the office with new visa in my passport around 1100.
It's been a good couple of years; I see myself sticking around for a while. I blogged about it yesterday, which you can read here: homai te pakipaki. Like so many others, finding and participating in this board has made the migration process less mystical and more fun. It's great being a member of JandM's army