I liked it when I was there in '86, but it has my sister and my mother there in the same city, so I'd stay out of Auckland....

They prefer it if you can a) support yourself until you get a job, or b) have a job already lined up. There was a shortage of nurses (they were all doing agency work over here) when my sister moved, so her husband walked straight into a top nursing job, and she kept having babies. Then the lucky cow won a bundle on the lottery.

Don't drive in Auckland - that's where my sister lives and she's written off more cars than I've had bars of chocolate. Attention span of a dead gnat, and road rage that makes the worst PMT frenzy look like a mild annoyance.

My mum's nice, but she doesn't drive. Only her wheelchair. The climate is good for helping with arthritis and rheumatism. The telly was crap, the radio even worse and the night life was watching possums get turned to pizzas by the boy racers.

Bingo (Housey) was the most popular entertainment there.

And there doesn't appear to be any folk scene at all.

LTS