BIG NEWS! WE'RE MOVING TO NZ!

Hi, it's been a while since I've blogged and so much has happened. We've had a few short trips away to Ballarat and Coolum, but the biggest and best place we have been is on a site visit to Dunedin, New Zealand! And it was successful so in less than a month, we'll be New Zealand residents. So far only Pete has a job, but we're thankful just for one job in such an uncertain economic climate. There will be plenty to do once we arrive too, so it may well be handy if one of us is available for the removalists, bank accounts, picking up the car and finding a house. Pete has accepted an offer as a Mine Geologist at Macraes, a gold mine owned by Oceanagold. It's about an hour north of Dunedin.


Dunedin is a beautiful place, not too big but with all the amenities you might ever need. It even has direct flights in winter to Brisbane! By road it's about five hours to Christchurch and three and a half hours to Queenstown. Pete will be doing an 8/6 roster, and with the long hours, we've decided to live just north of Dunedin so he can be close to work. The beaches in Dunedin are just beautiful (although quite wild, cold and windy) and there is so much to do around the town. There's trout fishing (Pete reckons he's going to learn how to smoke them), awesome bushwalking (or should I say 'tramping'?) on the Otago peninsula, skiing in winter at Queenstown and some mouth-watering farmers' markets each weekend.

I've put some photos below so you can see what it looks like and what we got up in our spare time over there. We're thinking of moving to either Waikouaiti or Karitane, two little beach towns about half an hour north of the city centre. The photos above are of the area around these towns. Below are some photos from Sandfly Bay on the Otago Peninsula. We went there to see yellow-eyed penguins late one afternoon but saw something larger and scarier instead!


On to other things, we have been to quite a few weddings so far this year. Since the last post we've been to Booreen Point for my brother's wedding, Ballarat for Ben and Rhiannon's wedding, and to Coolum last weekend for Boon and Georgie's wedding. All were lovely and we relished the chance to break away from the centrelink-enforced drudgery of continuous job-hunting. It seems however that it must be wedding season, perhaps there's been something in the water? Although I'm thrilled for all our friends that have found happiness in each other, I'll breathe a huge sigh of relief when it's all over later this year. Although as an afterthought I do quite like the excuse to go shopping for new dresses!

Peter and Jasmine's wedding was so lovely, in fact one of the nicest weddings I've been to. Jasmine and Peter both looked so lovely, and the food was good, the music was fun, and the speeches quite funny. It was the first time I'd ever acted as MC at a wedding so I was quite nervous. I had last minute doubts about my dress on the day of the wedding and made mum come with me on a mad dash to Sunshine Plaza to find a new one. I don't have many pics of the day yet, since I can't find the cord to connect my Nikon to the computer. You can see most of the ones I have on facebook already.

Ballarat was lovely, and seeing as neither of us had been there before, we quite enjoyed exploring the region with Dools and Jen. The food was excellent and we even squeezed in a trip to an organic winery at Daylesford. The cheese they had was excellent too, and we would have brought some back home if it didn't stink to high heaven. The stinkier the cheese, the better the taste, I say! We also enjoyed catching up with my friend Meredith for lunch at Southbank in Melbourne on the way through. Ben and Rhiannon's wedding was really lovely, and the ceremony was short but sweet. The reception was also fun and I really loved the speeches. Some of them were really nice, and some of them were so funny! And Rhiannon's shoes were cute! Pink cowgirl boots......


We also had an awesome time at Coolum for Boon and Georgie's wedding. I felt terrible the day after the ceremony but I suppose that means I had a good time the night before. The Saturday of their wedding was the first chance we'd had to celebrate Pete's job since finding out about it so we made sure we partied hard. I was ridiculoulsy happy when the DJ played 'Slice of Heaven'; in all seriousness I'm still so happy that NZ has given us a chance. Pete made sure he partied extra hard again at the recovery party and made things difficult for himself that night. I went out for dinner with everyone while he slept off the champagne! Again, I have more pics on my Nikon, so these few will have to do until I get that sorted.

Well that's enough rambling for now, enjoy the pics and don't hesitate to email if you want to find out more about our move to NZ. It seems everyone has a million questions and I can't think of everything you might need to know right now. JMx