Yes, when Residence is granted when you are already in NZ, then your visa is activated as soon as it is put in your passport, and you have two years' travel conditions starting from that day. They run for two years then stop, whether you have ever been out of the country or not. If you are out of the country and your travel conditions run out, your Residence lapses, but you can make arrangements to get PR (or one of the alternatives if you don't qualify yet for PR, see sidebar
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...quirements.htm) from outside the country if you do it within three months of your visa lapsing.