A hop, and a skip...

So, the weeks roll on towards my departure.

Since my last entry I have bought my flight ticket and insurance: I am flying with Singapore Airlines - a direct flight via Singapore (surprisingly...) to Auckland in the 14th March. I have bought a single ticket to give me the freedom to travel onwards once my visa runs out. I think one of the flights might be on an Airbus A380 double-decker!

I am planning to stay in Auckland for a couple of nights before taking the bus to Wellington. I have been looking into different hostels and the organisations in NZ and what they offer in terms of discounts and benefits. I have been using backpackerboard as a source of information - it has lots of details on hostels; travel and cars; work - and fun!

There are plenty of hostels in NZ, and in true Kiwi style many of them have great names like Fat Camel, Absoloot Value, The Flaming Kiwi, and my favourite: Jailhouse Accommodation - which really is a prison - with the following quote:

"...and of course the jail features provide total security."

As well as the ubiquitous international hostel chains, there are also a couple of NZ chains - Budget Backpacker Hostels: and Base backpackers (with hostels in Australia too). I have not decided which organisation to join - BBH seems to have the largest number of hostels, so might be the obvious choice. I will check things out when I arrive.

After a couple of days in Auckland I will take the overnight bus to Wellington, the the ferry to Picton, then onwards to Annie and Hamish's.

Then the adventure will really start...

It still remains quite daunting, but having family to stay with at the start is fantastic, and means I am not bound by having to pay for accommodation every single night, which would put more pressure on finding work immediately - else, knowing me, I would spend most of my savings in the first few weeks!

So, now I have just over a couple of weeks to get my things sorted - pack up and/or give away things, and work out what I really need to take.

I am also trying to see as many people as I can before leaving: I visited my littlest sisters last weekend; Simon (friend from uni) came over the other day, and I am catching up with Pennine friends as well. Some people want to hold some kind of leaving do for me - don't know how that will feel, but is lovely and will be great!

I have very mixed emotions about leaving people behind - some especially so, but I need to go off on my adventure and live and work at something different for a while, and I am certain I will be back and see them - freshened and fired up to go on the next adventure!

I have continued selling things on ebay, and made a couple of very good sales this week - one of my bikes for £600, and my melodeon for £250. Another bike has loads of interest and bids, with 6 days selling time still to go! So, I think I will have a good chunk of money to take - and inevitably spend!

Onwards with the plans now...

Another step...

Yesterday I got my passport back, with the work visa...

...and you can see I am a wee bit pleased about it! I had not really let myself believe that it was guaranteed until I got it. So now I can go ahead with booking tickets, travel insurance, and all the other bits I need to do like reducing my belongings to fit the airline baggage limits!

Visa:

I got my visa through BUNAC who organise a visa exchange programme with IEP in NZ, and this is valid for persons up to and including 35 years old - so I just got in! Ordinarily NZ work visas are only valid for persons up to 31 years old. I had to pay more for this, but it was the only way to get a visa, and the programme includes orientation and assistance sorting out all the work stuff like bank accounts, social security etc. when I arrive and throughout my stay.
The visa is valid for 12 months from my date of entry to NZ, and as long as I enter before 4th February 2014 I can stay and work for 12 months. I can do any work I like, so as well as doing some short-term jobs like fruit-picking, construction or farm labouring, I will look into teaching work - especially at Steiner Schools and will probably get in touch with some of them before I go and outline my experience and skills - who knows, I might land some woodwork or other craft projects!
I also want to spend some time WWOOFing and travelling around - in NZ you need a work visa to do voluntary work if it includes room and board, so I wouldn't have been able to WWOOF without the visa.

Flights...

I have decided to buy a one-way ticket to leave my options open when my visa runs out. I won't decide now, but have thought about options like travelling back to UK via the US, and visiting Camphill communities there and other friends - I really want to visit San Francisco someday, and New York and the eastern states. Alternatively I might travel on to Australia and WWOOF there - as you can do so on a tourist visa, or over to Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea, India etc. This will depend on how much money I can save whilst working in NZ, and how much gets spent on travel and fun stuff!
I have been looking at airline baggage allowances, and found that Emirates have just about the best, with 30kg checked baggage. I mistakenly thought they also offer 15kg cabin baggage, but it is 15lb! Most other airlines offer 20kg. But the ticket cost with Emirates is around £900, and other airlines offer much cheaper flights - Chinese airlines being the cheapest starting around £500, but with less of the comforts - minimal food quality and little or no in-flight entertainment - and flight times ranging from 48 to 60 hours! Singapore airlines come in around £650, and flight times of 25 or so hours. So I need to decide the importance of comfort and flight times, baggage allowances - whatever I have to leave behind to remain within 20kg I could probably buy with the £250 saved on the flight! My main dilemma is whether to take my guitar - I would need to buy a flightcase for it (£50), and then include it in the 20kg allowance, pay extra baggage costs which are stupidly expensive, or fly with Emirates and get 30kg. So it is probably going to be cheaper to buy a guitar when I get out there, but it is a lovely guitar and I would not get anything near as good.

I sold a few things on ebay, and have made about £300 to now. I still have two bikes to sell - Cannondale Bad Boy 3, and a Dawes Nomad - a couple of steel racer frames, and a few other bits and bobs, so I hope to get £1000-1500 from everything. So with money borrowed from my mum in lieu of selling the campervan (which my brother-in-law has made an offer on!), I will have some cash to travel with.

Onwards now - flights and insurance to book, and then to weigh my stuff and probably spend a week or so packing and repacking many times!

I hope to be able to fly out around the beginning of March - watch this space...