Wandering Scotsman

I’m proud to announce the arrival of my new New Zealand Backpacing Guidebook : New Zealand Backpacking Unwrapped.

The guide is over 125 pages of quality information which I’m sure will help you during your next visit to New Zealand.  Although the ebook is aimed at backpacking in New Zealand, there is a lot of information there for both long term visitors, and new residents in New Zealand.  It will be perfect for you if you have a working holiday visa for New Zealand and are wondering what lies head.

I’ve spent weeks making sure that the information in this guide book is correct and relevant for backpackers, which is why this blog has suffered a bit over the last few weeks.

Due to me neglecting this blog a bit whilse writing the ebook I am happy to give the readers of this site a discount of 15%.  If you head on over to the checkout and enter the code of ‘nzunwrappedblog’, and apply the discount to your shopping cart, you’ll get a reduction.  Don’t forget to update your cart before checking out!

***  Click Here to head on over to the site and place your order at a special launch offer price – New Zealand Backpacking Unwrapped Guide Book ****

Here’s the highlights :

• When to travel and all the budget airlines.
• How to set up the boring stuff on your first day – bank accounts, tax number and mobile phone.
  You can kick back and relax once you get these essentials out of the way.
• Visa options – even if you’re over 31 for the standard working holiday visa!
  Using this you could get 3 YEARS of being allowed to work in NZ without applying for residency!
• How to hire a campervan, from $10 OR EVEN FREE!
• How to buy your car or van and maximise your chances of getting most of your money back.
  (my first car here cost me less than $30 NZD a week when I sold it! – cheaper than hiring)
• How to get bus fares from $1.
• LOADS OF DISCOUNTS – from everyday food shopping to buying stuff for your van.
• Eating out well, but on a backpackers budget.
  How to get access to amazing 2 for 1 deals at top restaurants – everyone needs a treat right?
• Where to get up to 80% off activites and other treats (from skydiving to spas!)
• Paying NZ prices for books?  No way – we’ll tell you where to get items shipped at UK prices – with no shipping!
• Use social media to get up to 20% of car and van hire.
• Everything you need to know about seasonal jobs – from fruit picking to ski resorts.
• Hostelling – are discount cards really worth it?
• The pros and cons of the main cities – where do you want to base yourself?
• Free things to do in the major cities.
• Best ways to meet local people.
• Like it here and want to stay?  You’ll find out top tips to smooth your way through a Skilled Migrant residency visa application.

There’s a lot more in there, but you can get access to all of this for less than the price of a night in a hostel and a drink!

Reminder – you’ll get a 15% discount on checkout using the code ‘nzunwrappedblog’.  I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of this guide and you’ve got nothing to loose as there is a money back guarantee if you are not satisfied!  All you have to do it email the address given on the order – no questions asked.

I hope you find this book useful as it contains a lot of information that you won’t find in any other guidebooks!

You’ll also get an exclusive 5% discount code for travel insurance in the book!  That alone could pay for the book.

***  Click Here to head on over to the site and place your order at a special launch offer price – New Zealand Backpacking Unwrapped Guide Book ****

As for the friends and family reading this, don’t take the mic – I’m doing to encourage others to take a look! There are other readers over and above just family and friends, so no pisstaking!  

And here we go again after a great day in the sun…2 days…2 BBQs.

Had a great day in Wellington in the sun. Bought a portable BBQ for road trip, then went to a scenic viewpoint, then some swimming and sunbathing on our local beach 1km from our door.  We topped off the day with a BBQ and sat in shorts in the garden til 9pm.

It’s official!  We’ve passed the first phase of our residency application process and have been officially invited to make a full application for residency. 

Unfortunately we’re waiting on some paperwork from the UK to get over here, and we’ve got some medical things and more to do.  We’re hoping that we can submit it in the next couple of weeks whilst Ciara is still working so we don’t loose any points.  The timing won’t be the best as it will be tight if we get everything organised in time, and may have to submit our passports just before we leave to go on the road, but I’m sure all those things will work out ok….oh yeh, and now’s the time to stump up the big cash as well!!  Eeeeek.

My first real time update. We are sitting in bar Edward in Wellington. Its known for its great selection of beers…including gluten free Scott’s beer from Auckland.
Cheers to everyone!

After nursing someone’s hangover on Saturday, Sunday was an action packed day for both of us, but I think I may have went a bit overboard.  We headed down to the fishing shop as our evening class finished last week.  We walked out with a 12 foot surfcasting fishing rod between us!

After that we split as I was going to a Parkour training class (you know those mad guys that run around the streets in the cool tv ads, jumping off, over and under things?  Yeh…a wee bit like that) and Ciara went swimming.  My beginners class lasted an hour and I was absolutely worked during that hour : push ups, wall pull ups, moving along the ground on all fours, jumping on and off benches, walking along thin posts, and easy jumps over walls!  My body was a house of pain for the next couple of days!

But that wasn’t enough….  it was a fantastic day last Sunday and I hadn’t used my wetsuit since my mum shipped it over, or our boogie boards.  We headed down to Lyall Bay just down the road and I popped in for a bit of a swim an an attempt at boogie boarding.  I was a bit beaten up by the waves as I couldn’t get out past them, but that’s what I get going out in a Southerly wind….  the next stop is the Antartic pretty much!  Luckily it wasn’t quite as cold as I thought it would be so I had a very small swim afterwards.  Any longer and I may have needed little booties, but I’ll be back in soon.

But that wasn’t enough either….  after sitting and having our dinner we went along the road in the other direction for a few minutes and tried our first fishing session just as the light was fading.  We never fished where we wanted as we wanted to be on our own spot to avoid any folk laughing at the newbies.  The downside of this is that we lost all of our rig (the hooks, sinker, etc – NOT the rod!) on our first cast in the rocky outcrops just past where we stood!  Live and learn I guess but very frustrating.  We’ll be out again soon though but I think Ciara needs to work on getting her cast to go further than 4m from her feet!  (Wasn’t quite that bad but you have to use a bit of poetic licence). 

We were kind of glad that we weren’t lucky enough to catch a monster as then we’d have to have gutted it ourself!  One step at a time.  Although this is a city centre location you can catch some big fish here and some big snapper along the coast.

With the rod, the van is pretty much full up for our travels we reckon.  We had a beepy alarm thingy fitted in it this week much to our digust costwise, but it’ll give us a bit of piece of mind.  At least it will when we get another small part fitted – I wasn’t too impressed when I stuck my head in the van and it never went off!  We are getting another bit fitted to trigger in that dead spot!

We are on the countdown to heading to the South Island for hopefully a few months on 14th December.  We can’t wait!

Remember remember the 5th November? Well we will as we went along to watch the fireworks in Wellington harbour.  It’s the biggest fireworks show of the year apparently so we met up after work for a few drinsk with friends, then headed outside along the waterfront to view them.

I had great ideas about setting up my tripod and trying my best to get some decent fireworks shots….but after a few pints of Monteith’s finest that went out the door….it was limited to a coffee to warm us up, then resting on Ciara’s shoulder with my camera.  Luckily the winds that were forecast held off until just after the fireworks.

Afterwards we stayed on after our friends and had a wee pub crawl which is quite an unusual event for us…and just as bloody well as we spent a small fortune.  Mac’s brewery, Havana, Southern Cross….  Pretty much the same cost for a night out at home really, but we start to compare each spent to a treat on our road trip a fishing rod, jetboat trip or something else like that on our impending road trip!!

Someone had a bit more of a hangover than anticipated on Saturday so it was a bit of a slow start.  I won’t give many clues to who it was, but it wasn’t me

Just what you want to read on the immigration website of New Zealand!

It looks like we are onto the next stage, with some quick checks to make sure we’re not fibbing about anything then hopefully we’ll get invited to apply for our NZ residency!

Thanks to everyone back home for their help in hunting down paperwork required for this and the next stage!!  We’ll take you out for a spin in the van and a wee fishing session if you make it over here to Wellington – our 2nd best ‘coolest little capital in the world’

If you wonder what that comment was about then Wellington was named as probably the ‘coolest little capital in the world’ by Lonely Planet.  Actually everyone is taking the quote a bit out of context over here as there are banners up throughout the city reminding everyone of it, but what really happed was they named up as the 4th best city to visit in 2011….behind New York, Tangiers and Tel Aviv!?! 

Get your flights booked!  We may be here some time…..