Packing for Australia

We are packing up the house, with the removalists coming in a few days to do most of the work. We are taking two of our three cars to auction, after washing them yesterday. We have secured our earthquake affected house as much as possible. We have gathered together all of the dog’s documentation so that she can be flown to Australia after we get there. I have finished the bi-monthly taxes. In other words, we have been working frantically to get out of New Zealand on 10 March.

We have always loved New Zealand, but I leave with the notion that we will never return. My wife wants to keep our house as a holiday home and come back from time to time, but I don’t share that vision. It will take something like 15 years to get Christchurch into decent shape again (so says Mayor Bob Parker) and with the work situation being generally so terrible in NZ, there will be little to draw me back to the Shaky Isles.

In three days, it will be “Goodbye, Aotearoa!”