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...