I am a strong believer in destiny and that things happen for a reason.

I have always known that my place in the world is not in South Africa. I don’t know why, I have just known. Because of this I have always known that I will immigrate, but have never known where to or when, so for me the whole immigration process has been a natural procession of where I know my life is headed.

For Mel she has always been open to the idea, but never really gaven it much thought even though she knew that we would be leaving South Africa at some point in time.

When Candice was born in 2001, I knew the time was right as at this point I didn’t really see a future for her here in South Africa in 18 years time. I then started to actively persue my lifelong goal of immigrating.

We started looking at the the most common destinations for South Africans : Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA. But despite having qualifications and experience, I didn’t have enough points to qualify for any of these countries. The idea was shelved for a couple of years, but never forgotten.

Then in July 2003 a friend of ours told us about another of his friends that had move to Canada. Untill then Canada wasn’t even considered as a possible destination. After he left I quickly went and checked the points requirements for immigrating to Canada. We Qualified !!!

I then immediately started my research in earnest. Mel however wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was. She didn’t like the idea of living in a country where you are ‘under snow’ for half the year. Though not happy about the idea, she agreed that we needed to leave.

Although I continued my research into Canada every night, and chatted with folks in Canada, I was also not too happy with moving there for two reasons : a) Mel didn’t really want to go (a recipe for failure) and b) I also didn’t like the idea of being ‘snowed under’ for half the year. Needless to say I know a hell of a lot about Canada now and would love to visit one day, but never got anywhere near submitting an application.

Nov 2005 – after a long discussion Mel and I decided that if we couldn’t move to a country with comparable weather then we would call the whole idea off. We then sat down together and relooked at the ideal countries we thought would suit us better. First option was New Zealand for both of us so we started there.