Lauren Woolf often gets asked, “How did you find Kawau?” She usually responds:
“Kawau found us.”
Words by Nadine Nathan Rubin. Via Stuff.co.nz.
Lauren, who hails from Johannesburg moved to Auckland in May 2020 with her husband Gary, who is a New Zealander, and their teenage sons.
But this wasn’t the thought through, well planned relocation they had had in mind once their elder son finished high school in Johannesburg and headed to university in Wellington.
Fast-tracked by the pandemic they packed a few suitcases and left their house with everything in it in the care of a friend. Their sons had already been attending school online for two months, and the couple were running their businesses online too.It felt like it was important to be with family in New Zealand for a while and to set up their future life here.When the pandemic ‘blew over’, as so many expected early on, they reckoned they’d go back to Johannesburg, pack up and sell their house, ship their belongings, say goodbye to friends and family and return permanently.
After two weeks in MIQ, their Aotearoa journey began. The family stayed with relatives for six weeks and then found a long-term furnished rental in an Auckland townhouse that was previously rented short-term through Airbnb.com.
After going on a road trip in a campervan around the South Island for a month, working and studying as they moved around, they realised that going back to Johannesburg to sell up and exit wasn’t an option as the pandemic persisted. So the couple set about selling their house from afar.
Then the search for a house in Tāmaki Makaurau began.
After looking around Auckland and becoming more and more disenchanted by what you could get at the sky-high prices, they got creative and widened their search.
Gary, who had grown up a keen sailor, had originally left New Zealand in 2000 on his OE. He didn’t realise then that it would take 20 years for him to return with his South African wife and two African-Kiwi sons in tow, but now that they were back, he was eager to return to a life close to and on the water and get his sons into sailing.
With the pandemic throwing so much uncertainty into their lives already, he started looking at options in the Hauraki Gulf.
Kawau Island appealed to his sailor’s plans. Gary, an independent consultant and, by this point, part of the growing online-only workforce, was equally delighted by the idea of a more rural opportunity with a lot less traffic, but still with great mobile and internet access.
Lauren, a creative industries consultant through her company Mrs Woolf, working locally and globally, was less convinced...
To find out what happened next, go to https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/nz/300487261/finding-a-home-on-kawau-island