Arrived in Christchurch jobless again and with three live lobsters. They seem to have fallen asleep on the bus here lol. Since the immigration office doesn't open until Monday, we checked out the farmers market in Riccarton on Saturday and the Canterbury Museum on Sunday. We had applied to work in the ski resorts while in Motueka and were contacted for further information but the chances were looking slim as they prefer candidates who could commit the entire season till mid October. At that point in time our visas were only till August and we haven't secured another three months extension yet. So our primary purpose for coming to CHCH was to extend our stay and if we could find a job here we'll stay and see how. The paperwork was simple but the experience was terrible!

It took us about an hour to get to Addington from where we stayed. The nearest bus stop was quite far away at least 20 mins walk.


Make copies of every payslip beforehand for your own record just in case. Get ready your credit card details; cash and eftpos are not accepted.


No point printing forms too early prior to applying; INZ updates their forms every now and then be sure to use the correct form and the most recent one.

We applied for a working holiday extension visa on 10 June 2013 in Christchurch. It was Monday around 11am and there was a rather long queue. The middle aged woman with glasses at the counter was bloody lazy and was not listening to what we were saying. I requested her to make copies of our payslips but she did not copy all of them properly. I have never seen someone who is so lazy to remove the staple and despite showing my concern and explaining how important it is for every payslip to be submitted, she disregarded everything I said and can't wait to put away all my documents into the brown envelope. I should have insisted she make a proper photocopy argh!!! I was completely disgusted with her poor attitude. This job is not about brushing people off and chucking away envelopes. As the face of INZ, I expected better service and be treated with more respect. The average processing time for such application is about 24 days. I bet it was gonna drag to my surprise INZ sent out our passports on 20 June and we received them on 23 June so it took about 10-13 days. By the time we got the extension all the ski positions had been filled. What do we do now in CHCH?