WE MOVED TO… NEW ZEALAND

Friday 1st December 2006

Richard Webber

Gill Evans and her husband Andy, both 38, swapped their home in Hampshire for the Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island in July 2004. They have two children, Beck, eight, and Calum, five

Why New Zealand?
Lots of reasons. Andy, who's a teacher, wanted to move jobs and if we wanted our children to attend our first choice school, it meant moving house. Also, we'd seen a lot of TV programmes about people starting a new life abroad and decided if we were going to do something radical, it had to be now. New Zealand is English-speaking and wouldn't be too much of a culture shock. We didn't want extreme weather either—we wanted seasons. Also there were lots of jobs for technology teachers here.

How do your homes compare?
We owned a four-bedroom semi-detached with a tiny garden in Gosport. We spent a lot of time and money decorating but felt cramped. Our current house has three bedrooms and a large open-plan living room and kitchen. Downstairs there's another living room, a guest bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and office. The garden is large with a double-garage and plenty of space for the kids. We sold our UK house for £164,000 and bought this for £85,000 but we've spent £10,000 converting the basement. It's now a self-contained flat and we hope to offer it as B&B for others making the move here. The area is nice, we have a view of Mount Taranaki and if you bounce on the trampoline in the garden you can see the sea! Five minutes' walk away is a huge park, which is great for the kids.

What were the biggest adjustments you had to make?
Most things here are more expensive. Anything we had left over, we spent on getting here and deposits on the house and car. The visas, our medicals, flights and shipping came to over £15,000. The only cheap thing here is property, but even house prices have risen in the past year—up 30 per cent in places. The cost of flights (from £800 to over £1,000) is so expensive that visits back to the UK won't happen often.