Overdue Update

Sorry everyone, this is a long overdue update. Things are just so stressful here at the moment, progress is slow but we are starting to get somewhere at last.

The children have been officially offered places at Nelson Intermediate school and we have enrolled them for a term as international students. We submitted their student visa applications earlier this week and the immigration office has been in touch with us today with a query about their birth certificates, hopefully we should get that ironed out tomorrow and the application will go through smoothly.

The big issue now is whenever we are going to have to apply for an interim Guardian visa. Our business plan and business visa application is just about ready to submit but we can't send it in till I have my new passport, that won't be until the 19th. Once the business plan is in, it can take three to six months to be approved, but the new school term starts the first week of February, it is unlikely that we will have our visas by then and until we have work permits we can't enroll the kids as domestic students, that is why we have had to pay the fees and get them in as 'international'.

The children are not allowed to study in New Zealand without a parent or Guardian present, so it is possible that we will have to apply for a Guardian visa to cover us until our business visa is approved. That is IF it's approved! we are confident that our business plan is a very sound one, but you never know do you - and that is where the big stress is coming from because we just can't plan anything until we get that official 'yes' We daren't take a chance on shipping all our stuff over there until we get that visa because if we don't get it, we'll be shipping it all back again! on top of that, without the visa we will have to pay tax on everything we own going in.

These are all issues that we can get around, the thing that is causing us real problems right now is the fact that it is summer in NZ and peak holiday season, Nelson is one of the top tourist spots in New Zealand and finding any accommodation there at this time of year is proving to be truly impossible. We can't take on a long term unfurnished property because we can't ship our stuff over and all short term furnished accommodation is fully booked up or astronomically expensive.

When we have visited New Zealand in the past we have stayed in a hotel for few days to get over the flight, then hired a camper van and headed off. It is a fabulous way to see the country and we all love living on the road. So we have even looked at the possibility of living in a camper until we can find something more permanent, but again most of the vans are booked up and the only ones available are way over priced.
We are currently toying with the idea of buying our own camper van as soon as we arrive, that way we will have somewhere to live and transport all in one! it is a crazy idea but it may be our only option.

UPDATE - Just been down to the immigration office and the kids have had their student visas approved and stamped into their passports. We don't need to apply for a Guardian visa as they have only given the girls permits until May, but that will be long enough for us to find out whenever our business plan will be approved or not.

Carri x