Loads of online learning today.

Louise has been great! Tea, coffee and sandwiches appear without any prompting at all!! Bless ….

However, very very very late night as I hit my learning curve!

Woohoo!

2 phone calls today!

The first one was from Fujitsu, I’ve got an interview next Tuesday at 10am. The second one was from Nicki at AbsoluteIT to say that I’ve got an interview at Victoria University on Mon at 10am!

We’re both over the moon! Time is running out on the return flight decision – it was originally booked for 22 Apr (the furthest away I could get it!) and wholly depends on the job situation to either extend our stay or go back or cancel it all together.

The Victoria University interview is meant to be a behavioural interview – yeah right, that’s what the NZDF said!

The Fujitsu interview however, is two Microsoft Certified Engineer exams – OUCH! Although I’ve got past the first telephone interview, Fujitsu don’t want to know anything else about me until I’ve taken the exams ….

Luckily, I’d signed up for some online training. So today consisted of me going through the online training – each course is about 15-20 solid hours!!

We had a chat and we’ve decided that I go all out on the training now – give it our best shot!

Phew, what a day!

We decided that I’d be better off going into Wellington on my own to the interviews, so I was up and away by 8.30am to find a parking space in Wellington and find the first of the agencies – Manpower. Erina was nice and although AbsoluteIT had got to me first, so to speak, she still forwarded her recommendation to Victoria University for me – Bless!

It took a while to find the AbsoluteIT offices, they’re hidden on the 3rd floor of some chambers and not very well advertised. I’d walked up and down the road (only about 200m) 3 times before I actually found it!

All registered, Nicki at AbsoluteIT said she would be passing my details onwards.

Crossed fingers!

Couple of new jobs this morning, including one that seems to have been advertised three times – just a slightly different interpretation each time …. strange …..

Just after I’d finished applying for the new jobs, I got turned down for another 4! The HR people must all start at the same time LOL! On the bright side, my application for the NZDF in Auckland was accepted ….

We went up to the shops for an hour, just to give Louise a bit of a riding practice more than anything else, and stopped off for a coffee in Paraparam Beach.

Just after we got back, my mobile phone went into overdrive! A call from Fujitsu that said they were interested in me for a Systems Administrator job I’d applied for last week. As we were chatting on the deck after the call, thinking “Oooh”, over a glass of wine, the moby went off again! This time it was AbsoluteIT to say they were interested in getting to know more about me for the job I’m sure I applied for 3 times this morning – Result! 5 minutes later, another ring on the moby, this time from Manpower for the same job!

I arranged to wait for a phone call from Fujitsu later on in the week, and to go in to Wellington tomorrow to speak to both Nicki at AbsoluteIT and Erina of Manpower – talk about No. 9 buses!!

I spent a bit of the afternoon finishing off the wine – which we both needed by then! Then filling in a brief reply to the job applications for AbsoluteIT and Manpower.

We both feel quite positive about today. We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out ….

Another three job turndowns in the inbox this morning …. ho hum ….

A 1 metre tsunami wave from the earthquake in South America arrived on the coast of New Zealand today. I e-mailed the peeps, Rose & Eddie, we met up on the top of the Akatarawa Rd up in Napier, as their house was in an area worst affected. Turns out we might have more in common than we thought –

News report:

“Swells Hitting Haumoana Worst in 12 Years Police have advised residents of 21 houses on Haumoana’s waterfront and houses at Ocean Beach to self-evacuate. Hastings District Council has been monitoring high swells along the coast over the weekend but has now activated its Emergency Management Operations as the swells build. Swells hitting the beachfront houses are between three and 5.5m and locals have reported one wave was higher than a house. Senior Sergeant Ross Smith says members of the public need to stay well away from beaches right along the Hawke’s Bay coastline.”

Reply to my e-mail:

“Hi to you both, lovely to hear from you, and thanks for your concern.  Yes, we are fine, very high seas, but the houses in question are further down from us as they are much closer to the sea than us.  Eddie has rung me twice from work to see if all is okay. Rik, we might be long lost relatives, my maiden name is Holmes. I have been doing the family tree on the Holmes family and have traced it back to a Michael Holmes who was on the same ship, and fought alongside Lord Nelson.”

I must have a chat with Sari and see if she ever got around to chasing down Dad’s side of the family. Same name, similar UK county backgrounds, Naval history and all that. You never know!!

I remembered our two previous trips to New Zealand today, and the hassle with bringing in duty free stuff from London Heathrow. That’s worse now with all the security kerfuffle at airports.

So, I checked out NZ Duty Free at the airports here. Surprise surprise, not only do they do stuff even cheaper than normal but it’s SO easy to pick up! It’s even cheaper if you’re a member. I quickly signed up Louise’s parents after a quick check with them. All they need to do is order what they want – up to 3 litre spirit bottles each – and then they pick it up at a kiosk once they land in Auckland! Easy as!

Louise seems to be convinced that they’ll only need a litre each while they’re here and volunteered for the other 4 litres! She was so nice about it when Skyping with her Mum and Pauline that night that they cried with laughter for at least 15 minutes LOL!!

I bit the bullet today and also put a job application to the NZ Defence Force – although for a job in Auckland! We don’t want to move, but I’ve tried for loads of jobs here and don’t seem to be getting very far.

All the first two weeks of bookings are all done for Louise’s parents – they’ll love it!

Louise also found a little blue fairy tank protector for her bike online, I’ll grab a picture of it when it arrives.

Cool!

I’ve just about sorted a rough itinerary for Louise’s parents, allowing for:

• 3 days travelling down from Auckland via the Coromandel, Rotorua and Napier
• 5 days at home day-tripping(or just relaxing!)
• 7 days touring around South Island including a trip to Queenstown for the Shotover Jet boat ride
• 5 days at home day-tripping (or just relaxing!)
• 3 days travelling back up to Auckland via Wanganui, the Forgotten World Highway, New Plymouth and north to the airport

We’ve started booking hotels and venues as required. We’ll hold off giving any details so that the blog will unfold nicely!

We’re both looking forward to chatting with them on Skype tomorrow to give them a little bit of an idea – not too much though, we don’t want to frighten them off!

We’re starting to think of it as a holiday for us too – although being here is lovely, and sort of a holiday in itself, we’ve tried not to do too much in the way of tripping away and concentrated mostly on getting a job. It may not seem that way sometimes, when reading the blog LOL. However, this might be the only chance we get of doing this if we do end up with jobs and have visitors.

Unleash the “holiday of a lifetime” feeling all over again!!

Ok, the jobs glut was shortlived.

So, we’ve sat down and Louise would like to be able to give her Mum and Dad a really good taste of New Zealand across the board.

I’ve started putting together an itinerary for their stay so we can plan what best to do. We’ll pick them up from Auckland airport and take a couple of days travelling down to home. So that’s where I’ve started.

LOADS of jobs today!

Spent the day doing job applications….

Hmm, only a couple of jobs today, so was all finished by about 9.30am……….

We had a quick chat and decided to go for a bike ride, mine and Louise’s, over the Rimutaka to Palliser Bay.

The Putangirua Pinnacles near Palliser were the location for the Lord of the Rings “Paths of the Dead”. We’d often talked about going there, but Ian Brodie’s LOTR guide book mentioned a 2-3 hour return walk from the road, and we’d not really had the time before.

Louise’s trip over the Rimutaka wasn’t too bad, although the winds were a little bad.

We got down to Putangirua car park (a gravel track to a camping spot) after stopping off to pick up some lunch at a roadside store. We stripped off the helmets and bike jackets and stored them in the top box on my bike, grabbed the lunchbag and off we went.

WOW!!

The entrance to the pinnacles was meant to be a gentle tromp of about 40 mins – to quote the local beer advert again ” Yeah, right”! That’ll be that Kiwi understatement bit again….

It did only take about 50 mins, it was fairly gentle, in a rocky stream bed sort of way….

Mentioning no names, but one of us didn’t quite make it all the way to the top….and I was carrying the camera….

If you look really closely at the last picture, you can almost make out someone having a rest while I took a photo from the top of the valley – OOPS, that means it wasn’t me….

Afternoon tea on the Paths of the Dead! Cool!

The trip back wasn’t quite so good. The wind was REALLY high on the Rimutaka.

As I rode in front around a particularly blustery LH corner, a high gust lifted the front of my bike off the road. Luckily, I’ve been riding for a while, so I leaned forward and hard over to the left and got around no problem.

I pulled straight over and stopped the bike to warn Louise (I’d already been flashing my brake lights for a while). Unfortunately, the gust blew Louise’s bike to the other side of the road. I was already slowing traffic down, so she wasn’t in danger and managed to pull over to the side of the road by the fence as the traffic went past. As soon as it was clear, she pulled back over and we continued to the top for a well-earned rest stop and relax!

At least the rest of the trip was uneventful….