The 'supposed'* finale of my New Zealand getaways was the countries capital - Wellington. Located at the bottom of the North Island, Wellington is well known for being a very windy city (making the flight in extra enjoyable for me, as you can imagine). The stress of this had such an impact on me, I left my handbag containing my passport and all my money, on the plane. Well done me. Suddenly I was that crazy person we all snigger at, running through the airport desperately telling any staff member "I LEFT MY HANDBAG ON THE PLANE!!". It's okay, I got it back.

In 2018, I decided to up sticks and move to Auckland, New Zealand. I was granted a working holiday visa for 1 year and headed over on my own into the unknown. 
I thought I would share I few things I learnt along the way just in case anyone reading just happens to be moving to Auckland..(You never know)

Where to live

If you are not planning on getting a car for your trip, a good location is pretty important as the public transport system in Auckland isn't fantastic. Recommended suburbs include: 

Ponsonby
Grey Lynn 
Mount Eden 
Kingsland 
Mount Albert 
Parnell 

You can find rooms on TradeMe, or on Auckland Flatmate Facebook groups. 

The average room can cost between $150-$300 a week – dependant on location and budget. 

Jobs

Finding a job is fairly easy. There are numerous ways to do this. My background is admin, so I contacted a local recruitment company and became a temp – this gives me the freedom of working pretty much when I want. 

Temping can also be done in other job fields, and adverts are easy to find online. Admin work pays about $20+ per hour so can be great to save some money. 

If you prefer hospitality, there are tons of cafes and bars that are always recruiting. If you want to work in a coffee shop, you are likely to need barista experience, however, some places may be willing to teach you. Hospitality can pay a slightly lower wage at $16+ per hour – however, you may find some places that are willing to pay more.

There are also companies such a Sidekicker and The Recruitment Network that employ you on a casual basis, and you can just work the shifts you want. They often have work at events and concerts. This could be anything from security to bar staff. The plus side of this is that you may get to enjoy some of the events for free.

Helping Hands is a great website that allows you to create a profile documenting your experience and skills, which employers can view and contact you regarding jobs they are recruiting. 

You may also find casual work available 

Opening a bank account 

ANZ is the only bank that will open a bank account for someone on a working holiday visa. You will require a proof of address – this is something I struggled with as they would not accept a letter from my landlord. I ended up using a bank statement from home with my UK address, and then once my account was set up I changed it to my NZ address – bizarre procedure. 

You also require photo ID (must be your passport) and a copy of your visa 

You will be given the option of whether you want an EFTPOS card or a Visa card. I chose EFTPOS as it was free, but I will be going back to get a Visa card as you are unable to use EFTPOS for online purchases. Visa also comes with Paywave (which us Brits just refer to as contactless). 

IRD number

You require an IRD number to work in NZ, and it’s a pain to get one. The bank provided me with the form I required and you need to complete it and take it to a post office with a copy of your visa (the whole thing is required – don’t let the post office try an give you some back), and a signed/stamped bank statement that shows that you have an account and have made a withdrawal and a deposit. You also have to supply a copy of your passport. 

If all your information is correct, it should take 10 working days to process. 

I would recommend getting your bank account and IRD number sorted as soon as you get to NZ as it can take quite a while, and you need these before you can get a job.

Making friends 

Moving to a new place can be lonely if you do it alone. I was lucky to have a friend already living in Auckland; however she works a lot so I spent a lot of time on my own. 

There are lots of ‘friendship groups’ that are city-specific on Facebook. They arrange lots of different events that anyone can attend. I joined these, but I never felt confident enough to attend an event, however, a friend from home told me about Bumble BFF. For those who don’t know, Bumble is an app similar to Tinder, however, it has a feature for finding friends rather than love. I was a little apprehensive about it at first but ended up plucking up the courage to meet a group of girls for drink one evening and I was so glad that I did. There were quite a few people using the app that were just like me – even from England and had just moved to Auckland on a one year visa not really knowing anyone. I’m so glad that I joined Bumble, as I don’t think I would have enjoyed my time in Auckland as much on my own. 

Since I have been here, I have also discovered Hey! Vina which is made by Tinder and is there version of a 'making friends app' - although there are more profile feature available on this one, there doesn't seem to be as much activity. 

Other useful tips 

It was weird being on my own for the first time in a month. Me and Hollie had been together 24/7 and now I was sitting in Brisbane Airport waiting for my flight to Auckland. As much as I loved it there, after a month of travelling in Australia and living out of a suitcase, I was pretty excited to settle in New Zealand and have a base for a while. 

I was crazy nervous when I headed from Brisbane to Auckland. The only confirmation I had received for my visa was an email in March last year, which seemed inadequate. When I tried to check in to my flight 24 hours beforehand, it told me that wasn’t going to happen and I had to speak to someone at the airport. Once I got there, they were all breezy about it and checked me in straight away, whilst I had turned up 2 hours early because I thought I was going to have trouble. 

I flew with Air New Zealand, which was a pretty good airline. At the airport, I made awkward eye contact with Pete Doherty after noticing his bizarre outfit choice of a smart shirt and tracksuit bottoms. Pretty sure I was the only person in the departure lounge that knew who he was though.

On the plane, I discovered that I was smart enough to book a meal which passed a bit of time - although it was only a 2-hour flight.  I was a little off put by the kiwi girl sat next to me with her shoes off and on her tray table - inches away from my chicken pasta. But after eating my meal and watching a movie (Murder on the Orient Express - good film) my ordeal was over. 

When I arrived in Auckland, no one even asked to look at my visa. There were no questions regarding my departure from the country or financial situation (I don’t yet have a return flight booked), and all they seemed to care about was whether I had any food in my luggage (I didn’t - surprisingly). Even when I declared on my customs form that I had come into contact with a kangaroo AND a koala within the last 30 days – because I just wanted to tell more people because it was so cool – they didn’t even bat an eyelid. I was the only person in the internationals queue as I had come from Australia, so I whizzed through and was in arrivals nice and quickly.

I was staying with my friend Megan - another friend I met during my time doing Camp America. When I arrived she took me to see some pretty nighttime views of Auckland City - it was 1am. This was my first viewing of the skyline which included the Sky Tower. As pretty as it was, it was super dark, and I was still in shock at the fact I had made it to New Zealand to take it in properly. 

_{My first impression of Auckland was that it was small. I had been told it was a small city, but it wasn’t at all what I expected. It has a very small population for a city, and the streets are a lot calmer. To put it into perspective a little, the population is 1.377 million in Auckland, and in London, it is 8.788 million. That’s a big difference. It’s even crazier to think that the population of the whole of New Zealand is 4.7 million, and the population of the UK is 65.6 million. The capital of New Zealand – Wellington – has a population of just 496,000.}

_{Auckland is built on volcanoes – yes, you read that correctly – and they are active. There have been about 90 eruptions within the last 9000 years, and there could easily be another one within our lifetime. On one of my sightseeing trips, I made a visit to the Auckland Museum which has a fascinating exhibition about the volcanoes. This includes a simulator which recreates what it would be like to be in a house in Auckland during a volcano eruption – it was pretty cool but also a little bit scary. Knowing my luck, there will probably be an eruption over the next year, because that’s just my life.  The plus side of the volcanos is that you can climb them and see some incredible views. Mount Eden is pretty central and is a great spot to have a picnic looking out over the city. One Tree Hill is Cornwall park is also beautiful with amazing views.} 

_{Another thing that I have noticed is that everything seems pretty expensive, at first I thought it was just because I was still thinking in £’s but actually, even when you convert it, it is still expensive.  For example, the average price for a small bottle of diet coke is $4. This would be about £2 – which I would absolutely never spend, that’s almost double the average UK price. (I’m lying, realistically I would spend all of my wages on D.Coke if required). However, the country redeems itself with its $5 Dominos pizzas. Apparently, they don’t really like them here – weird.}

I've now been in the country for 2 months, and I have done so much. It was weird settling into my new lifestyle - in fact, it still is. I've had to make new friends and find a job and at times it has been hard. There has been plenty of moments where I have just wanted to come home, and a lot of times where I have felt very lonely. The experience is very different from Australia where I had someone with me every step of the way. Luckily everyone here is so friendly. The family I stayed with for the first month helped me settle in and showed me around. I was initially living out west of Auckland, in the suburb Te Atatu South, however as I don't have a car, I decided to move closer to the city so it was easier for me to get to work and explore the city.

I got work pretty much straight away and chose to go part-time to start off. I'm now looking for a full-time job and its a little harder. I think I may be temping for a while - which is fine as it gives me more freedom - but I feel anxious about not having a job set in stone. It makes me not want to spend my money and I'm stingy enough as it is.

At the moment I don't really have a life plan. Some days I think I want to go home soon because I miss my friends and family, and other days I realise I am living a great life experience and want to stay as long as possible. Maybe I'll find a good permanent job or a husband (lol) and stay here forever, or maybe I'll get fed up with people pronouncing my name wrong and book a flight home soon. Megan and I have a trip to Queenstown booked in June, which I am really looking forward to. I think I would like to do a tour of the South Island too. A lot of people tell me that Auckland is not a true New Zealand experience, so I am eager to explore some new places. 

It was time to say farewell to our camper-van which was partly sad, but we were now heading for luxury so I also couldn't care less. Of course as soon as we arrived in Brisbane the storms started. Which was fine, I can deal with the rain. I'm from England after all - in fact it was quite refreshing.

We hopped on a bus to the city and even got a free journey - I think the driver felt sorry for us because we looked like drowned rats, but whatever works eh?

So we get to the CBD, and start our 'short 17 minute walk' as Hollie described it. It wasn't. I had a 23kg suitcase with wonky wheels, and the hill was big. There was a point that my face was so wet and I wasn't sure if it was rain, sweat or tears (oh look, I'm being really dramatic again!).  Halfway up the hill and after kicking the case screeching with anger, a lady pulled up her car, jumps out and asks me if I'm having trouble getting up the hill. This time there was definitely tears rolling down my cheeks and when I told her 'yes, yes actually I was having trouble getting up that hill' with a very feel-sorry-for-me-and-offer-me-a-lift-because-I-love-getting-in-the-car-with-strangers face, you'll never guess what she did next...

She said 'oh dear', got back in her car, and drove off.

Excellent.

We did get there eventually. Obviously. And of course when we got to the hotel they informed us of the 'really handy' free bus that goes from the CBD to the top of the hill. I wanted to throw myself back down the hill.

It pretty much didn't stop raining the whole time we were in Brisbane. Which wasn't highly convenient as we had paid for a hotel with a roof top pool for a week of relaxation and recovery. The highlight of this though, was that I purchased my rain poncho. Unfortunately I didn't actually get to wear it whilst in Brisbane - but I can confirm it did come in handy in my future.

So instead we went out to explore, and I'm so glad we did, because even with the rain, Brisbane turned out to be my favourite of the Australian cities we visited. It was a little smaller than Sydney and Melbourne, but I preferred that. There were big shopping centres in the centre, and great river, and lots of artwork and pretty sights. We did initially struggle a little bit to find places to eat in the CBD that weren't fast food - but that was definitely because we didn't know the right places to look. I'm sure if we had been with a local there would have been loads of places. Whilst in Brisbane we did have our first Australian Nandos though, and FYI they do paella!

We stayed at the Hotel Chancellor, which was amazing. We had a balcony overlooking the city from the top of the hill, and at night the view was incredible. As mentioned previously, there was a free bus that took us straight into the city. It otherwise was about a 10-15 min walk. There was also a gym and pool on the roof - also with amazing views, and the staff were very friendly and helpful. They gave us a map and told us the areas that we should visit, and offered to sort out any tickets we may require.

On our first day, we headed straight to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (easily accessible by bus - journey time is about 45 mins), but it was still raining and when we arrived (at about 10am) we were told that they had sold out of koala photo opportunities for that day, so we decided to abort mission and come back on another occasion. We jumped back on the bus and headed back to the CBD. We got off at Brisbane museum and took a walk along South Bank. This is where you will find the Brisbane sign - an obvious major photo spot. At first, I was disappointed to see that the sign is actually fenced off, but then I realised this is way better as it stops people climbing on it and ruining photos (#amsterdamproblems).

As there was a break in the rain, we decided to take a ride on the Brisbane Wheel, as there was no queue. Of course, by the time we got on, the rain started again, but at least we were nice and dry in our little pod. The wheel was actually pretty fun - it has some great views of Brisbane, and you get a commentary recording playing for half the journey giving you information about the area and what you are looking at. There is an opportunity to buy a photo book souvenir, but it is $40 so we decided against that one.

After a spot of lunch, we headed to the botanic gardens to explore. Another beautiful place and well worth a walk. The rain had stopped, but it was incredibly humid! We did a big loop through the gardens, and ended up back at the other end of South Bank - this is when we discovered that there was a lot more to South Bank than we had realised. If we had kept walking past the wheel, we would have found the large selection of restaurants/bars and huge public swimming pools. We headed back the next day and had lunch at really nice Mexican along the front. Major eyes bigger than belly moment though. It was delicious though. Brisbane also has free Wi-Fi throughout - weirdly mine only worked when in Southbank.

We spent our Sunday afternoon fighting the rain and attempting to have a swim. It pretty much consisted of us getting in the pool, bracing the rain for about 5 minutes and then running back indoors. We would sit on the bed for 10 mins, spot a bit of blue sky and repeat all steps again. It would have been totally more bearable if the swimming pool wasn't on the roof of the 12th floor - a little breezy!! Unfortunately, there was no hope of an Australian tan for Hollie to go home with.

The next day we were on a mission to get our koala photos. We got up super early and were on the first bus running to Lone Pine. We were actually so early that we had to sit outside for an hour because they weren't open. It was worth every minute. As soon as we entered the park, we went straight to buy our tickets. The woman in the shop told us not to queue yet because they don't start taking photos until 10am - she advised us to go to the kangaroos whilst we waited as it would be really quiet. And she was so right! We had the whole kangaroo area to ourselves for about half an hour. 30 whole minutes of kangaroo selfies - we were in heaven and had so much fun. After we cleaned all the kangaroo slobber off our hands we headed to the koalas and got in the queue. It was all very quick. You only get to hold the koala for about 20 seconds so the photos were limited - the ticket does include a photo taken by a photographer. But we had finally achieved our number 1 goal for Australia - even if we were cutting it fine leaving it the day before Hollie went home.

That afternoon, we went back to the CBD and took a ride on the free river ferry - yes, completely free, and it was such a long trip, I was really impressed. There were options available for tourist river cruises, however with this option available it seems mad to pay (unless you want a tour guide I suppose). The sun had even decided to make a reappearance, and we spent about 2 hours cruising along the river. I even started to get a bit too hot! (Don't worry, it rained again when we went back for a swim). There are lots of stops on the journey, so if you have plenty of time, you can explore more areas of Brisbane. We decided to just go all the way around and sightsee from the boat. There were a few seats upstairs that were outside - it was very relaxing, but sun cream is a must!

On our final day, we took one last stroll through the city centre, and had a browse around the shops. There was plenty to do in Brisbane, and still lots of things that we didn't have time for. Out of the cities we went to, I would pick Brisbane to live in - even with all the rain!

As the time came to go to the coach station, it was time for me and my suitcase to tackle the hill again. I decided it was not necessary to get a taxi, because obviously it would be way easier going down hill. That was all good and well until 2 out of 4 of my suitcase wheels fell off.

So that was a longer walk than expected.

At the station, Hollie and I had our final McDonalds ice cream - we basically had one a day whilst travelling, and then said goodbye at the coach station. I was on my way to the Gold Coast and Hollie was heading back to England. We had spent a whole month together 24/7, so of course our goodbye was a very Megan style 'see ya - safe flight'.

I'm such a delight.

But it's okay because I wrote a cute Facebook post to say bye that didn't involve me sobbing.