Christchurch, NZ.....looking into poss of emigrating, anyone know area well?

[Lizzylou]

The title just about sums it all up....

We are seriously considering moving to NZ and are looking at Christchurch, so can anyone help? Has anyone done it?

DH is in IT Management, we have 2 ds's 9mths and 2 3/4yrs. I am/was in Legal rercuitment but have only been doing that part time since DS1.

What areas are good in Christchurch? What is the city like to live in? We want a cleaner, greener outdoorsy life for our boys, will NZ and Christchurch fit?
Tia x

Hi, I'm married to a Kiwi from Wellington but my lovely sister in law lived and worked in Christchurch until quite recently and lots of contacts there. I'll put your questions to her and get back to you if that's useful.
I've been to C'ch a couple of times and it struck me as a beautiful, sedate small city. It is in a fabulous position with lots of access to the countryside, it's about 5 mins away! The surrounding area is gorgeous too. NZ is great for a family wanting the things you want for your boys BUT it is quiet and a bloody long way away.
(but I live in London and am not naturally disposed to 'quiet' )

Thanks Welshmum, we live in Lancashire, semi rural with good but with good access to good size towns and Manchester......
I suppose we want a bit of both, countryside and also a city....
DH hates big cities and physically freezes up when he has to go to his London office! He hates it...I don't mind being close to a city but wouldn't want to live there (not now I'm old anyhow! )

I'm just outside Auckland and have yet to visit Christchurch so am not much help on that front but you are about the 3rd mnetter to post about moving here this week. I think everybody should move to Auckland then we can have meetups like everybody else.

Well when I was there many many years ago, I liked the feel of the place. We fished for eels (yuk-o), canoed down the river Avon into town most days. There used to be an eccentric character in the main square called the Wizard I think. Can't remember whether he told the future or what exactly he did.

For NZ, I find Christchurch has a fairly English feel to it with the river running through the center, the main church or maybe it's a cathedral, the university, etc.

We stayed for a couple of weeks and went up Arthur's Pass which is quite impressive and we went skiing there which was nice.

I don't know how much there is "to do" say for you and dh but the kids should be fine, if they're into sport - cricket, rugby or anything like that.

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I see the Wizard, or whatever his name is, is still going strong. Don't think you'd feel especially isolated there but being in a town with a fair bit of countryside round about is the NZ experience really. You won't be as isolated as in say Dunedin which I've always heard is a really friendly place to be. Never heard anyone speak badly of Christchurch but depends, doesn't it, on what you'll be doing all day, how much money you'll have and whether you'll be meeting people of like mind?

Come to think of it I have a friend from Christchurch but she lives in Australia these days. She hasn't lived in Christchurch for 20 odd years but has been there to visit her mum. She likes it but found it a bit quiet. She has no kids and likes a lively social life, cosmopolitan atmosphere so she's happier in Brisbane.

We are in Auckland and the IT market is very good at the moment. Are you going for residency or work visas?

I think we'd probably go for residency.

SSShakeTheChi thats the thing, I probably would never have entertained CHristchurch in my younger, childless wild days, but now it seems so, clean and lovely and safe.....

Nickiw, did you migrate to Auckland or are you a Kiwi born and bred? Would you recommend Auckland as a place to Live/work? I think we would go for residency, as a show of commitment IYSWIM, but would you recommend this?

I am off to bed now (DS2 wakes at 5am and I am shattered), thanks loads for all your replies, they are much appreciated

nickiw where are you in Auckland and how long have you been here?

hello!
we emigrated to Christchurch last September (although my parents are Kiwis and have just come back here for good, so it's not too strange to me as I have quite a bit of family here). Have DD just 2 and baby due in 6 weeks. We picked ChCH mainly because of family, but there are plenty of other reasons to come here too!
Although Auckland and Wellington are the big centres, ChCh also has quite a thriving IT industry so I should think your DH would find plenty of work to choose from, although the pay may not be as good as elsewhere - but then the cost of living is a lot cheaper too. We bought a cute 3 bedroom 1920ish house in a lovely area with no mortgage on the profit from our crappy 2 bedroom Twickenham flat. It's in the zone for 2 great primary schools, heaven only knows where DD would have gone if we'd stayed in our old manor in London.
It IS quieter than Auckland or Wellington, but there is still plenty going on - especially culturally (music, art etc.) considering the size of the population. It has all the malls/shops/cinemas etc. you could need or want and is a very attractive city. It is certainly very English, but the clean, easy outdoorsy NZ life is certainly here for you. We're 20 mins drive from the beach and 10 from the centre of the city, but we live in a sleepy loop of the river with beautiful gardens and parks everywhere and a fantastic view of the Port Hills. Life is much easier than London - now, I love London but I've lived there all my life (32 years) and I was ready for something different, and I'm already feeling the benefits of how much easier it is going to be bringing children up here. If your DH hates big cities he'll love it here - it's more like a large town in feel but with all the goings on of a proper city.

nearlyfourbob (previously threebob and other 'bob' related names) also lives in Christchurch and has been here for a lot longer than me so is probably a lot more use, but she's on holiday at the moment. stick around on this thread though and I'll direct her too it when she gets back. Meanwhile, any more questions? will do my best to help.

And do a search on all topics for New Zealand, there's loads of threads on moving over here (they're not all in the Living Overseas section as it's quite new). As for good places to live - there are blardy loads of 'em. We live in South Christchurch in the 'Beckenham Loop', it's beautiful and full of young families. But stacks of other neighbourhoods are great too, depending on what you're after.

Hi Sibble, I am in Rothesay Bay on the North Shores. We landed in July 05 and are leaving in March 07. If you fancy a coffee I can meet up!

Well if I was going to move to New Zealand with dc, Christchurch would be my choice or perhaps if work possibilities abounded (unlikely I think) somewhere like the Bay of Plenty in the North Island (bit of sun is always nice).

MrsJC (we have the same taste in men )...hanks, your post outlines perfectly why I would want to move to Christchurch!
Can I be really cheeky and ask how much property prices are? We have about £150k of equity.....would we still need a mortgage? The houses I have looked at all look lovely, but not much garden...is this typical? We currently live in a 4 bed detached new build, which is nice and in a nice area, but a bit characterless...my DH was worried about the houses in Christchurch being similarly dull, are they? I think we would want "leafy suburbia" so we wouldn't feel too isolated and would want to mix in, rather than be in a predominantly "UK Migrant" area....
Gawd, my head is spinning, tonight I update DH's CV and send it out!
Thanks once again for all your replies!

I went to university in Christchurch and have a lasting affection for the place.

Good points:
close to skiing and beaches.
Hamner Springs hot pools spa town about 3 hours drive away. You will get used to the long drives, everybody in NZ does them. We used to go there for picnics when we were students.
It's a university town so theres a supply of babysitters and a slightly more interesting cultural life.
Small enough to be easily navigatable.
Common to all New Zealand towns, a fiercely competitive sporting tradition. The Commonwealth Games were held there in the 70's so the pool and stadium are pretty good.
Good surfing, windsurfing and the beach near New Brighton is good enough to go land yaughting on.
It's very flat, unless you live on the Port Hills, so perfectly possible to take up cycling to and from work.

Bad Points:
It is a small town masquerading as a city. There is a bit of a small town mentality, which can be both a blessing and a curse at times.
It is isolated from the major centres. Dunedin is about a 6 hour drive away, and Wellington is 5 hours up the coast then a 3 hour ferry away.
The weather. It can get extremly hot for weeks on end in the summer if the Norwester blows. In the winter it can suffer from an inversion layer. The cold air spills over the Port Hills overnight, trapping warm air beneath it. This can lead to dense fogs and pollution issues. If you or your children are asthmatic, it may be worth reconsidering. However, there have been a lot of measures put in place to cut down on the pollution lately.

I hope you go for it. Christchurch is a lovely spot. For me the thing that makes it so wonderful is a short hop in the car can end up with you finding miles and miles of sandy beaches with dunes to run all over and not another person in sight except maybe a seal or sealion making a nest for itself and making 'keep away' noises at the dogs.

Slug, thanks!
It does sound great, we live in a rainy northern-english valley with it's own weather system.....rain, rain winds and rain so that does sound familiar! No-one is asthmatic, altho DH used to be, something to consider tho.

hi Lizzylou

Property prices - £150K is about £420Kish dollars for which you should easily be able to buy something mortgage free, 4 bedrooms no problem. There's a mix of houses from older wooden villas etc to modern (of which there are plenty of boring characterless buildings like anywhere else!). One thing to get used to is there are many more one storey houses here. Small gardens aren't the norm, actually most people have very decent sized 'sections' as they call them; sometimes they've been subdivided (we have a small garden), when they've not you'd have bags of land and having double or even bigger garages plus workshops etc. is v.normal. I'm not aware of any areas that are predominantly ex-pat so I wouldn't worry about that. Have a look on here for some idea of prices; to give you an idea areas we looked at included Merivale (too expensive for us though!), St Albans, Beckenham, Cashmere, Burwood, Shirley, Avonside, Avonhead, Ilam, Riccarton. Most of those are fairly near into the centre. Some suburbs have a lot more modern houses than others (like Avonhead, Riccarton) whereas others (like Beckenham where we are) are packed with older houses. To live by the sea costs more, unsuprisingly, especially near Sumner, but then New Brighton is on the sea and quite inexpensive because it's not very 'fashionable'. Or there are plenty of subarban centres out of town. I like living near the centre as it's not a busy/big place and also my parents live right bang smack in the centre.

On the pollution, I think it is getting much better as real efforts are being made - my mother talks of the smog when she was younger and it did sound awful. DH has asthma and so far hasn't had a single attack. Compared to London (where we also lived on a dual carriageway mind...) the air quality is great. Can't really recommend the weather from this summer as it's been crap, however I believe it is an El Nino year so the summer has been unusually pants. The weather is quite mad though - a real 4 seasons in one day place. We end up talking about the weather A LOT here.

Work wise, DH is still looking but then he hsn't been trying very hard! (and only got his residency a few weeks ago). His previous job (classical music marketing) doesn't really exist here so he needs to do something else. I am a musician (but also very pregnant) and although it's taking a while to get into it here, that's the same anywhere. (I was also an IT professional and could, frankly, walk into a job in that if I wanted, but I don't).

Are you going to do an exploratory trip first do you think? I am really waffling here. As I say, fourbob could probably be a lot more concise and definitive.

Thanks Mrs JC, you are a mine of info.
I very much doubt that we could do an exploratory trip, so prob would go for visa at first.
DH has been investigating and has come home saying we should look at Wellington too...he works as IT Manager for a law firm and the legal centre is Wellington (?).....
Head is spinning, off to do DH's CV, some more investigations and go from there.
Thanks so much for your time and help!

Wellington is cool
there are a few mnetters on here from there I think?

Hi nickiw, would love to meet up. How old are your DC? We are in Whitford (south of Auckland) but am sure we could find somewhere central. Shame you are going back soon. I had a kind of 2 year break from mumsnet after I had DS2 (no time for the internet!) so seem to have missed your arrival! You can email me on karen h carter at hotmail dot com if you like.

Hi Sibble, my boys are 6 and 8, loving this rain in the school hols!!! We only came over on a 2yr visa and for many various reasons are heading back. We have spent all of our cash, hubby can earn 2x salary in UK and my mum has a secondary cancer in her spine.... Where do you fancy going? I will email you in next couple of days.