“Hello

I just read your blog page titled “moving to New Zealand” – about Halloween. Cracked me up that they have ant-trick or treating signs available at Kmart. We are moving to New Zealand from Seattle, and I am wondering, how will we carve pumpkins on Halloween if its in the Spring? I figure they won’t have pumpkins in October in NZ, no? Did you celebrate it in March or April? Or were you able to get pumpkins in October? At the local grocery store?”

We responded:

Hi Kristin–

Halloween was tricky. We did, in fact, manage to find some ’small’ pumpkins that we could carve for the event. You can see one of them in our images. BUT, they were few and far between and a little rough to carve.

That being said, once March and April came along, we were able to find the big pumpkind in time for fall–and we carved them for the fun of it! Nobody in New Zealand carves pumpkins, so it was really fun introducing people to the practice and ‘teaching’ them.

Our Halloween parties there were the things of legend. All in all, the country is warming up to the idea of celebrating the 31st — but it will be some time before it’s as crazy (if ever) as here in the states.

Have fun!

The one real benefit of a bus is that you wouldn’t have to be driving through snow yourself, if you hit that (which isn’t guaranteed, but is definitely a possibility on the South Island).”

There’s also some talk on car rental for those of you out there interested. The hitchhiking aspect hasn’t been covered, but I can attest that it’s done quite regularly on the South Island and w/o any of the urban legends assosiated with hitching in the U.S. Hit the forum chat for more info!

“Me and my family want to move to New Zealand and are going through an agent at the moment but have now sold our house and want to move faster . Could we just go and get a job and apply out there without returning to the UK?”

My answer:

Yes, you can simply move out to New Zealand and apply for a job and attain a work visa later. However, it is a little risky. NZ has a visa-free condition of about three months for people living outside the UK—if you’re coming from the UK, it’s six months. After that time period, you must then apply to stay longer–which means you must also adhere to their conditions of extension.

From the immigration website, I pulled this info:

You will need to show us:

* A passport that is valid for at least three months past the date you are to leave New Zealand.
* Proof that you have plans and the means to leave within the period of your permit. Suitable proof may include:
o confirmed or open-dated travel tickets out of New Zealand, or
o enough money to buy a ticket within the period of your permit.
* Proof that you have enough money to support yourself during your stay. This means:
o NZ$1000 per person per month of the visit, or
o NZ$400 per person per month if accomodation has already been paid for – we will require proof of prepayment, such as hotel prepaid vouchers.

So, all in all, you’ve got about nine months to get yourself situated, land a job, and grab a visa. If you think you’ve got the skills to quickly set yourself up, go for it. You wouldn’t be the first person to move first and apply later.

Have a question? Email me at: michael@groovygreen.com