
My year in New Zealand
In 2016 I went to New Zealand for a year on a Working Holiday visa. This visa gives young people between the ages of 18 and 30 (for some countries 35) the opportunity to live and work in New Zealand for one year. This was the first time for me that I went so far away from home and all alone, it was very exciting!
February – March
On February 9th I entered the country in Auckland. I had arranged a job in advance and it would start February 17th. This gave me the time to apply for a SIM card, open a bank account and apply for an IRD number (you need that to be able to work in New Zealand). After I arranged those things I had a few days left and since I was so excited to see the beautiful nature I decided to go north. I took the bus to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. Here I spent a few days and discovered the beautiful surroundings.
Then I had to go back to Auckland for my job. I worked for an event company that organises a sporting event in various places across the country. Therefore I traveled around New Zealand from 17th of February to early April and helped set up these events. This was a great experience and I immediately got to know the country very well. I did this together with a group of about 15 people.
We started our adventure on the North Island, hosting events in Whangarei, Devonport (near Auckland), Rotorua, Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier, Hawera (near New Plymouth), Hutt City (near Wellington ) and Palmerston North. On the days when we were not working, we went out with several cars that were at our disposal. I have seen and experienced an awful lot in a short time. During this time I skydived, walked the Tongariro Crossing and did lugeing.
Then we continued to the South Island, where we organised events in Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin and Alexandra. Of course we also went exploring a lot on our days off on the South Island. The highlights for me were the seals in Kaikoura, the beautiful Lake Pukaki and the four days we spent in Queenstown.
After the South Island we went back to the North Island to host two more events in Auckland and Cambridge. Our trip ended in the Bay of Plenty.
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April – May
Having traveled all over the country for the first two months, I knew exactly where I wanted to spend more time. Taupo was one of those places. I took a job in a hostel (Haka Lodge) and spent two months here. This was a very nice time where I not only got to know Taupo but also surrounding places such as Rotorua, Tongariro National Park and Napier. My favourite things to do in Taupo were to visit the natural hot springs, walk around the area and go to the pub quiz at Mulligan’s every Tuesday night.
June
After those two months in Taupo, I thought it was time to go back to the South Island. I quit my job and headed to Queenstown, where I wanted to get a job for the winter. My first stop was Wellington, this is a very nice city where I hadn’t spent much time yet. I stayed here for a little less than a week and saw an awful lot of the city, the environment and the culture. Read more about Wellington here.
After Wellington I took the ferry to the South Island. On the ferry I met a family who offered to drive me to Nelson (this is where I wanted to go). The two hour drive to Nelson was really fun, we talked all the time. The family consisted of a mother and father and a 10 year old girl from Canada, they traveled for 4 weeks in a camper through New Zealand. They dropped me off at a hostel in Nelson and we exchanged phone numbers.
The next day I wanted to visit Abel Tasman National Park and the family went there too, they invited me again. In the meantime, this family had met other people and they went camping in the national park. They asked if I wanted to come along and sleep in the camper, because they had a place left. I thought this was a bit weird at first but I decided to do it, who says no to camping in Abel Tasman National Park? I had a great time and ended up traveling with them in the RV for a full week. In the end, they dropped me off in Wanaka.
I started looking for jobs in Wanaka. This is very difficult in Wanaka and Queenstown during the winter months as it is extremely popular with people on a Working Holiday visa! After doing a number of hikes in Wanaka I traveled to Queenstown to keep going with my search for a job. At this point I had already run out of money and I mainly did hikes and frisbee golf, as these are cheap, fun activities. In the end I did not manage to find a job in this area, but I was offered a job in Christchurch. This was not my plan but I took the job anyway and moved to Christchurch.
July – September
The job I accepted in Christchurch was again in a hostel (Old Country House). Many jobs in hostels are just “working for accommodation”, you work a few hours per week so you can sleep there. This was the case for both of my jobs in hostels. Since I still had time left, I accepted a second job in a restaurant. Since I am always looking for jobs in the event industry (I graduated in this), I also accepted another job in the industry, on an on-call basis. So in July, August and September I was mainly busy earning money.
In the meantime I did buy a car – my first car ever! This was a 1994 Subaru Legacy. I went to explore the region on my days off (which I didn’t have many of). The best thing about living in Christchurch was the location, you can really go in any direction for a day or weekend trip. I went, for example, to Oamaru, Hanmer Springs and Akaroa during this time.
Christchurch has quite a bad reputation among travellers. Most of the buildings collapsed during the earthquake in 2012. Due to insurance and other issues, it took a long time before they started rebuilding the city. When I was there in 2016 they were still working on this. Because of this, there doesn’t seem to be much to do in the city and there are nicer places to go. But I genuinely thought it was a great place to live. During the rebuilding of the city, a lot of nice cafes, shops, restaurants and bars were added. You also have the Port Hills and several beaches nearby. As I said above, you can also visit a lot of beautiful places during a day or weekend trip. Because of this bad image I made a little video at the time to show the beauty of Christchurch:
October – January
Because I loved Christchurch so much, I stayed here for the rest of my working holiday. However, I did quit my hostel job and started working in the restaurant full time. This gave me a lot more free time and I had weekends again (which in my case were during the week). Before I started working full-time, I took ten days off to take a trip across the South Island. If you are interested in this, I wrote a blog about this.
The last few months I actually had a “normal” life again, but in New Zealand. I still often went away on weekends, for example to Arthur’s Pass, Kaikoura, Akaroa, Marlborough and Dunedin. I also enjoyed my time in Christchurch and often took trips to the Port Hills, Sumner Beach to surf and often went to Hagley Park to read a book in the sun, as these were the summer months.
Unfortunately it was over at the end of January and I had to leave New Zealand. I really enjoyed my year in New Zealand, even more than I could have hoped. Even though I worked a lot and it wasn’t always nice to be so far away from family and friends, it was totally worth it! Most of all I enjoyed the amazing nature, the friendly people and the active lifestyle. With this website I hope to inspire people to take the big step and go to New Zealand, whether that is for a few weeks or, like me, for a year. I want to help people to have as great an experience as I did. So if you have any questions or want help planning your trip, don’t hesitate to send me a message!