Overseas shipping: Expensive as bro!
Spent over an hour down at our local Pack & Send getting three boxes of stuff and my Nord keyboard shipped to New Zealand.
Ended up costing me $717 for 71kg plus insurance on my keyboard.
Maybe there was a cheaper way or something, maybe I could have re-bought everything over there, but I’m flying out tomorrow and don’t have time for mucking around either here or in NZ when I arrive. It’s a lot of money but I’ll forget about it within a fortnight, whereas having to start from scratch will be with me for a long time every time I reach for a book that isn’t there or a kitchen utensil I don’t have. Peace of mind, convenience and a level of familiarity settling in … worth it.
The guys at Pack & Send were very helpful. Sending stuff by air freight is a painful process with pages of New Zealand MAF declaration forms, unaccompanied goods forms, measuring and weighing everything, opening the boxes and inspecting and itemising everything. Only thing I had to remove was a pack of AA batteries – which is fine, I can buy more over there but seeing I had a pack of 20 here I thought might as well take them if I can. Ah well.
So that’s out of the way now and the countdown timer is down to 24 hours 30 minutes till I fly out!
Start the 48 hour countdown
I’m literally living out of a bag now, everything in boxes or draped over the edge of one ready to be shipped or zipped. Getting around the city for some one-on-one farewells with my send-off drinks tomorrow at the pub.
Just some last minute paperwork, tidying up loose ends and revising my big checklist to make sure everything is in order.
We now have accommodation! We were accepted for a rental property in Merivale yesterday; I go in on Monday during my first day of work to sign the tenancy agreement and get the keys. Perfect timing, everything just slipping into place.
It hasn’t been hectic because I’ve been organised (being a meticulous list-maker) but it’s been a lot of work, lots of little things that need to be orchestrated. Photocopying my passport for this, printing off and signing that, researching some other thing, calling people, remembering to follow up things. The latter is a big one – so many businesses these days don’t care about customer service so if I tick off “Contact XYZ” on my list I then have to add “Follow up with XYZ” because in too many cases I don’t hear back from them.
However I’ve also discovered how unreliable website contact/feedback forms. Several businesses this week told me they hadn’t received my contact form submission when I called them to follow it up. Not good people!
Well, back to finishing packing and preparing for tomorrow’s full itinerary of shipping these boxes, exchanging some money to NZD, some shopping and my farewell drinks and then dropping my car off with Jenny’s parents to garage plus disconnect the battery, put fuel stabiliser in the tank. Even that’s a minor thing – fuel stabiliser – but took me four automotive shops to find it! See? Not hectic or busy busy but just all these small things that add up to create a coordination nightmare.
Looking forward to the scenery
I’ve been pouring over Google Earth, topographic maps, trails and public land areas, and photos for the last couple of weeks in anticipation of the move to the South Island. I thought I’d share a couple of the great photos and locations I’ve come across:
I look forward to snapping and sharing my own photos of these beautiful places!
Not long to go now
In exactly one week at 9:25pm AEST next Saturday I’ll be touching down in Christchurch, my new home town. Still no accomodation lined up beyond the first two nights in a hotel – everyone’s closed over Christmas and New Years so it’s been tough trying to contact real estate agents. We do have high hopes of being approved for an apartment in Merivale.
We had no luck contacting friends and colleagues over there to help with the inspection (fair enough too, everyone’s enjoying the holidays) so I found a local personal assistant from OrganiseIt who has been magnificent. They did the inspection for us, provided a comprehensive report and photos and have assisted with liaising with the real estate agency.
Farewell drinks for friends are next Friday, 7 January, at P.J O’Reilly’s in Civic. Let me know if you want to come.
Speaking of holidays: I ordered a bunch of first aid supplies from Parasol EMT in Fyshwick to take – especially as we plan on doing a fair bit of tramping in NZ and I’d kinda run out of things to think of organising before I leave – and thought it would be easier to get from a place I knew rather than trying to source locally, but after placing my order and paying for it I get an autoresponder email from them advising their office doesn’t reopen till 10 January. Slackers!
This summer heat is making it hard to work too. Can’t use the computer during the day and feel lethargic. Don’t have much to do now – just finish packing these boxes, ship them off and make last minute arrangements. It just comes down to timing. Can’t finish packing until just before I go … so I have this whole week to prepare but can’t really do much until the end of the week.
Don’t have to drag my desktop PC and monitor over there now. Bought a Compaq Presario CQ62 laptop from JB Hi Fi during the end of year sales for a bargain $446 and after a minor hiccup tipping the place upside down looking for my Adobe Photoshop 6.0 CD it’s all set up now so I can do my photo processing.
Now, where’s my other Manfrotto tripod head …
Getting ready to hike
My partner Jenny’s parents gave me some gift money for Christmas so I went and got something that’s been on my shopping list for a long time: A proper GPS unit. I got the Garmin eTrex H – a basic non-mapping unit but that’s what I wanted, something simple that knows what it does and does it well.
So I’ve been spending this morning looking through the Koordinates geospatial map of DOC Public Conservation data and using the Google Maps Labs LatLng Marker tool to mark waypoints and get coordinates which I’m then programming into my eTrex using the GARtrip (I’ve since changed to EasyGPS and am currently evaluating and considering purchasing ExpertGPS) software via a USB cable I got from eBay for about the third of RRP. I’m also exporting the routes out of GARtrip to KML format which I’m then importing into Google Earth and saving screen captures of the route overlays for future reference and so Jenny can visualise the routes.
Here are a few of the routes I’ve plotted so far – all on public access land:
- AKRHE Akaroa Mount Herbert.kml
- AKROB Akaroa Orton Breadley Park overlook.kml
- AKRPK Akaroa summit.kml
- KORTO Korowai-Torlesse Tussocklands Park.kml (overlooking Lake Lyndon)
- PUDDH Pudding Hill.kml (minor track)
- SEALT Sealy Tarns.kml
- STVPK Staveley Peak.kml (not real name – it’s the hill above Staveley)
If you have Google Earth installed right click on a link above, copy location then paste the URL into the Google Earth > Open dialog box. It’ll then plot the route and zoom to the location. Hold down shift and your left mouse button to rotate around the route.
I’ve also joined the New Zealand Tramper forum which looks like a really good and active hiker community.
A setback
With a population density double that of Canberra it’s been hard to find a nice 1-2 bedroom furnished rental property in inner Christchurch, but we did find a lovely little cottage on River Road in Richmond that we really wanted. It was a private rental so I’d spoken to the landlord several times and had expressed our interest. After he’d had yet another expression of interest fall through it was ours – we were sending our local contact Sam out there and he’d promised to hold it for us (even though we’d offered to put a deposit down) for the day.
Then we get a very apologetic call from him a few hours later letting us know his partner hadn’t known of our arrangement and had let the place to someone else. I was a bit upset but there was nothing we could do about it, the contract had been signed. Luckily we hadn’t put a holding deposit down or that could have gotten a little messy, legally.
Ah well, we’ll keep on looking. I’ve now booked my flights and a little bit later – now the 8th of January instead of the 3rd – to accommodate this setback and give us more time to find another suitable place that doesn’t look like a jail cell.
It’s getting intense up in here
Less than two weeks till I fly over to NZ and I’m feeling a little under prepared. Still struggling to get signs of life out of half a dozen removalists and shipping companies, trying to find good cheap airfares with minimal stop-over in Sydney, trying to find rental accommodation and wrap up things back home. Last day at work is tomorrow and my desk is all packed up and paperwork all completed so that’s done.
My box of books weighs 25kg and that’s pretty much all I’m taking besides a few kitchen things, a blanket, my Nord keyboard, computer and bits and pieces. I’ll take my few clothes in my luggage on the flight.
The next week will likely be mad locking in flights, chasing shipping companies and filling in rental application forms. Ugh. But just think, in two weeks it’ll all be over and I’ll be in Christchurch hopefully with somewhere to live and hopefully with my few boxes of stuff not far behind me.
I’ve now signed my employment contract and can announce my new employer is LeftClick where I’ll be working as a UX designer.
Christchurch Commercial Photography
I’ve registered the domain name and set up a basic website for the photography name I’ll be trading under for on-the-side commercial photography work in Christchurch:
I have a job!
Just got the paperwork this afternoon and resigned from my job at Centrelink an hour later! I’ll be starting my new job on Lichfield Street in Christchurch on 5 January or shortly after, as soon as I can get flights, accommodation, organise removalists (although that’ll be happening about a month later when my partner Jenny will be ready to come over and join me) and the billion other things that need doing.
Books to take to NZ
My first pass at culling the list of books I’d like to take to New Zealand with me:
This compilation excludes cookbooks, fiction etc.
Times like this I wish I had made the move to digital book formats but I just can’t get into it!
It’s likely this list will only grow with consecutive passes, not decrease.
