So it’s official, Lisa and I are heading off from NZ for a while to try our luck over in that other small island nation across the Tasman.
The idea is that we’ll spend a couple years in AU and from there, either do further overseas adventure or end up returning back to NZ – presuming of course that we manage to escape AU at all. ;-)
Whilst part of the lure is naturally AU’s strong economy and plentiful IT jobs, the real drive is to have a bit of a change of lifestyle and for me personally, to get involved in some more challenging and exciting projects.
We haven’t decided on the exact city yet, it’s most likely going to be Melbourne, but keeping options open and considering other locations such as Sydney, depending what interesting challenges are around.
We’ve both given work our notice and finish on the 24th of August, with a departure date from Auckland of the 26th of August. That’s only 3 weeks now, so starting some pretty frantic efforts of selling off all our stuff, trying to line up work in AU and organizing a million+ other details and things to be done.
At this stage it’s looking like I’ll end up spending 1-2 weeks in Wellington before flying to AU for a week or two aiming to line up some job opportunities, however still trying to figure out the details. We’re mostly focused on sorting out some work for myself, it’s much easier to live on just my IT salary than just Lisa’s writers salary. ;-)
I have a number of job types I could go for, but will probably aim for a Linux/Open Source engineering or consulting role in a senior space, I’ve been getting a bit bored with my current role simply due to the low challenge level of work, so really need something that pushes me into new challenges – and I don’t even want to *see* a desktop computer ever again. ;-)
If you know of any employers seeking staff or some good contracts for this sort of work, send me an email and I’ll send through my CV. :-)
Meanwhile, I’m selling almost all of my stuff before I go – check out my Trademe auctions, there’s anything from computers, components, cushions, furniture, cables and more, most of the smaller items I’ll ship anywhere in NZ.
Once I get to Wellington I expect I’ll list a few more items as well, I want to clear out what I have left at my parents some more as well, there’s a lot that’s ended up there since I moved to Auckland last year, and I probably don’t need to store a toaster for the next several years or a small data center worth of Cat6 patch leads.
Ideally my dream apartment in AU is going to have a laptop and a router on the floor with nothing else in the room, but I suspect that Lisa will want a few more comforts than just this, so maybe I’ll have to compromise a little….
I’ll do another blog post once I’ve confirmed dates for our initial trip over to AU and hopefully I’ll be able to confirm “final move” dates not long after that. :-)
I wish you guys the best of luck – it’ll be sad to see you go.
Please drop by for a beer/coffee before, if you have some time.
Please stay in touch – your insights have been quite valuable
Thanks Jaco, I’ll organize a general drinks evening with all the Auckland crowd before I go regardless, but coffee at some stage would be good. :-)
Oohh, are you in Wellington 16th to the 19th at all then? Will be down for beervana.
Sorry, I’ll be driving down to Wellington on 26th August, so will miss Beervana.
Oh nice. Wherever you end up in AU let me know and I’ll pop down to see you.
Will do! :-)