Taupotreeman

Wayyyyyyy too hot in Oz for me. I worked there for a year with Asplundh and it was a huge culture shock but it got the travel bug going. I moved out to NZ in 98, got residency in 2006 and citizenship last year. I prefer the climate and scenery in NZ to OZ but the people in both countries are choice. People seem to have a more positive outlook on life and the lifestyle is much more outdoors based. I thin atree said the other day that you can be snow boarding one minute and surfing an hour later. I just can't recommend the move highly enough.

Hero is a word thrown about by the media today way too much. For some reason sports stars, pop stars etc seem to become heroes though I don't know why. Proper heroes are those that fought for our freedom etc and in my case as well as a few others by the look of it, my old man. He brought me up on his own from when I was 10 and although we had a hardish life we were never short of love. I remember the old man taking us away on holiday to yorkshire, scotland, wales etc and being fit as a fiddle and strong as an ox. It makes me sad to see him getting older and frailer but he will always be THE MAN in my eyes.

If you're not after saving cash then I can highly recommend Wesspur. The guys I dealt with there were friendly and bent over backwards to help. Good with advice to, even if you're not buying.

I am if you can organize transport

Sounds more like a rotor cuff rather than tendonitous but I'm no doctor. My left rotor cuff is well knackered. It's OK while I'm working but as soon as I rest up it starts to ache. Nothing really sharp but just this dull nagging ache. The kwak has tried a few things but it seems the only way to really deal with it is surgery which means 3 months off work. I can't afford that so I do pilates mixed with a bit of physio to keep the body a bit more supple. Anti inflammatories if the pain gets too much and I try to make sure I don't hang off my left arm too much. The worst is if I'm hanging from my left hand and slip and wrench the shoulder or if I'm using the long reach hedge trimmer above my head all day long. Weights seemed to make things worse, especially chest, shoulder and back work so I gave that away.

I can only speak from importing into NZ but I have bought quite a bit of stuff from Wesspur. Some of the stuff I have been stung on because they weren't listed here with customs but the postage was cheap as chips. Buying from the UK minimum postage seems to be 50 quid which is quite a bit when you way it up. Since the pound crashed against the kiwi it's now cheaper to buy from the UK but I can't knock the service I got from the guys in the states.

I cut one handed a fair bit. Seems to be almost second nature and to be perfectly honest I'm sick and tired of the H&S beurocrats dictating what I can and can't do. Whatever happened to common sense and learning from your mistakes. Fine, there's a limit on some things that are down right stupid but where do you draw the line. Do I need a H&S official to help me cross the road now just in case I don't look both ways or is it left to my common sense to cross the road safely? I reckon sooner or later we won't even be able to think for ourselves; an automoton almost.

Oddbird, That's the point of being self employed. It's no longer about earning the dollar but enjoying myself at last. Yep, it means I have to work when I have to work but then I get time off when I want time off. And yes, mesterh, I don't stop once I'm going. I find if I stop I have an issue with motivation to get off my backside so I keep plodding along until I or my legs have had enough. I catch a drink on the run and don't usually eat until I finish. Sounds odd but it works for me.

O wouldn't sweat it if he's a guy you trust. Have a mates agreement before you start work and that should suffice unless you really want to do everything by the book. My groundy subs to me as and when I need him. We don't stop for breaks unless it's really hot but we finish early. If it turns out to be a long day without breaks he gets paid a little bit extra. It works for us because we are both over 40 and find it hard to get going again once we stop.

Got a mix of both here. I contract climb for a couple of the local guys here. Some of the older fellas give me their climbing work and in return I pass my stump grinding on to them. There's also another local guy who can be a bit of an ignorant so and so but the guys who work for him always wave out. I also keep in touch with the manager who took over from me at the last place I worked. He has access to a 60 foot EPV so it's always good to keep on the right side of him. I forward the bigger work that I can't do on to him along with some of the land clearing work but it's all about giving the customer the best job at the best price.

When I started up on my own I decided I was going to make it more of a lifestyle choice rather than about earning the dollars. I start at 07.30 and knock off ranges between 2 and 4pm. I don't stop for breaks but carry on working until the legs go to jelly. If the wife is working a saturday I'll probably do the same. Sunday I usually spend a little time catching up on accounts, invoices and quotes or I might pop out and have a look at a few jobs. In my previous job I worked 12 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week and was expected to be on call (for no extra pay I might add) 365 days of the year, including holidays. If I didn't answer the phone, regardless of what time of night, a formal warning usual followed. If you're self employed the day doesn't stop when you finish trimming trees as there's always saws to repair, kit to maintain, people to ring etc as most of the guys will tell you.

No fishing etc for 50 years? Fat chance of that. We'll be raping the seas and the land for the forseeable future. Cutting off the fins of sharks for soup and throwing the rest of the shark back to die? We really are a brainless species. I get so frustrated and annoyed with this kind of stuff and find it hard to keep my feelings in check. As a race we are so ignorant and arrogant...........

If you're gonna knock up some t-shirts I'll have a couple so please make sure you'll freight overseas so I'm not the odd one out again.

Th kiwi is currently trading quite high against the pound. About five years ago for 1 pound you would get $4 but now it's only $2. Your money won't go as far but you can still do it on the cheap. I still find that my money goes further here than it did in the UK. Petrol is worth about 1 pound a litre if that helps.

Not only will the seas be devoid of fish but the land will be increasingly devoid of flora and fauna as our excessive apetite for expansion grows. We are, in general, an ignorant species who really don't give a monkeys about anything else but ourselves. Yes, there's a growing minority that wishes to do the right thing by the planet but by the time we get our collective arses into gear it will probably be too late. As elicokiz says; what kind of world will be left for our children and/or their children?

I believe there's always work in Canada and the States due to the number of companies there but I also undertsand that getting work visas etc can be quite difficult. I wanted to work in Canada when I was younger but never got there. I might have contacts over that way should anybody be interetsed in work.

We can do that too. I'm half hour drive from the ski fields. Temps get down to about freezing at night in winter on the central plateau but the days are stunning. Warm enough to work all day in a sweat shirt but never that biting cold (I worked in North Wales for two and half years) that's associated with the UK winters. I also worked in OZ for a year and the heat is a killer. I didn't even want to spend time at the beach because it was so hot (two days at 50 degrees out on the tarmac). Summer meant finding somewhere with aircon. The further north you went the more humid it got. I was based out west of Sydney so Winter meant -2 at night then 27 degrees during the day; you just couldn't dress for that sort of nonsense. I do sometimes miss the heavy snow falls you guys get in the UK but I'm glad I made the move here and, now having dual nationality, I can come and go between OZ, UK, NZ and the islands as I please so I'm on a winner all round really.

The arse end of nowhere is fine and dandy with me. Too far for most people to invade or think of as an easy refugee country. Don't think you will be getting the castle anymore though as the housing boom put paid to cheap property in the major centres. If you're happy to live further out or in the small towns, like me, there's plenty of bargains to be had. You can still pick up a decent 3 bed in some of the smaller towns for about $150k so about 75k sterling. Plus we don't have to worry about bailing out Greece, Spain, Portugal etc no euro for us. Oh and my dad just got residency here at age 65. He smokes like a chimney and has diabetes so there's hope for some of youz fullas yet eh.

If you don't like Britain and Oz is too hot, too many creepy crawlies, floods etc move to NZ. Climate is not too disimilar to the UK, less than a 10th of the population (just over 4 million people) no issues with massive illigal immigration etc and the politicical problems pale into insignificance. The scenery is stunning, the beaches clean, the weather generally better than the UK, no snakes, only one poisonous spider species.........need I go on? Oh yeah, arborists are on the skills shortage list so you have a pretty good chance of getting in on a work visa or residency visa. Man, I love it here.

Both bikes look in very good nik for their age. Looks like a bit of a restoration job as they tended to rot through in places.

Seconded. Complete respect even if was somewhat dodgy I'm sure there's many of us on here that have done some dodgy stuff in the past, learnt from it and learnt to do things a different way next time. And we sure as hell didn't have the balls to film it let alone tell anyone what we had done.

What not to do with your motorbike.

After the power scheme finished in Turangi they planted the whole place in various species of Oak, Maple etc anything with Autumn colour. It's a choice site in autumn if you catch it right.

I do the odd freebie here and there. The most recent was for a school that had taken down a couple of trees themselves but couldn't shift the rubbish. The local police sergeant and head of the school board asked how much I'd charge to chip but I did it for free as the school was hard up. They stuck my name in the community magazine for free. I also do the odd one for the OAP who's obviously struggling to pay the heating bill never mind sort out that dangerous tree. It depends what mood I'm in, what the job is and how deserving the client is but I have done a few. What goes around comes around and it makes me feel good anyway so that can't be a bad thing. The ones that get on my nerves are those who have money to burn but think that you'll do all the extras for free. There's a name for people like that but I can't repeat it on a family friendly forum.