Moving forward slowly....

At present Stephanie is having her qualifications verified in Wellington NZ, this normally takes about 4 months although the website promises sooner, they allow you to watch as the stages of the application are dealt with online, and just recently our status changed and the process is very nearly complete.

The Costs...

The costs for having Qualifications vetted is $450 NZ Dollars more than the EOI. This has been paid at the start and is non refundable.

The cost of sending off the EOI (Expression of Interest) is $400 NZ Dollars, to be paid in due course - It is only one payment per application, not per person.

To be honest though we did have to promt them a bit by sending a couple of e mails, after which things seem to move on a bit, as the documents (All of Steph private and originals) have not been returned which was becoming a concern...I can also confirm they did reply to both e mails and responded within a week or so....

Its been a long while that we have had to wait, and in that time many other considerations have been made about the potential of NZ as new information is obtained, even so we are still very interested in moving there. Seeing the process move forward has secretly excited Stephanie somewhat and the house is now buzzing with the NZ chat it had a few months back, we are also really looking forward to seeing the country in August, which is not too far away at all. !!

Having the the qualifications vetted is required on the EOI form but only at the end, so once we get the final confirmation that that process is complete hopefully in about a week or so, the EOI will be sent off, then the application should speed up considerably. Of course there is an additional cost to apply as well for both os us, money that is non returnable if we are unsuccesfull with the application.

Of course the cost and the huge amount of additional paperwork that comes with it will be interesting when it arrives in the post, but for me the timings good as we may end up using the holiday in August to look for work as well as a general recce, and of course if we work or a potentila offer were in as that would give us the points required for a gaurenteed entry, essentially by the end of the year big changes could be taking place in our lives.

Recently I have found a website of someone who has travelled extensively around the Islands North and South and he has taken the best pictures I have ever seen of NZ and I'd like to share this old boys experiences with you some of these are stunning.

The Photographers name is Tom Dempsey...

Johns stunning pictures

Scroll through all 3 pages, they just get better and better....and these pictures have without doubt relighted my desire to live in such a place even if the housing is a bit dodgy heh heh....

Cheers Gary & Stephanie..

Thanks Mal with Link help....