One Way Ticket My Life

It's the 27th May and the biggest day of my life.

I'm at the airport with my family, but we're not just going on holiday.

We've packed our whole lives into bags and boxes and we're flying to

the other side of the world to start a brand-new life in New Zealand.

But about half the Brits who move to another country

change their minds and come back.

What if it doesn't work out for us?

Strap yourself in and find out, cos we've got a one-way ticket!

We've been preparing for the last four weeks,

so our story really starts back in April.

This is me.

My name is Daniel and I'm ten years old.

Everyone calls me Dan.

My little brother Jake is seven.

This is our house in Devon.

And this is our mum and dad.

Most families when they move house, they move to the other side of town

but we are going to move to the other side of the world.

New Zealand is pretty much as far away

from Great Britain as you can get.

It's nearly 12,000 miles away,

and is split into two islands - the North and the South.

The people who live there call themselves Kiwis,

after the local kiwi bird.

-That's where we are, in the West Country.

-Plymouth.

-And where are we going to travel?

-To New Zealand.

And which island are we going to go to?

-South.

-North Island.

We'll be living in the capital, Wellington.

And what's the nickname for Wellington?

-Welwyn Garden City.

-No, the Windy City!

-It will be when you get there!

-Yeah!

This all started because Dad has found an amazing new job

in New Zealand so as a family we've decided to move there.

We only have four more weeks in the UK then we're off!

I think New Zealand's over there.

You're probably right. You need to head out

across the Channel, bump into France, get a bit of a lift,

over Europe, keep going, keep going, keep going.

When we arrive in New Zealand, we'll be living in a little holiday home

so we'll have to look for a new house and a new school.

We know from our own experience a lot of people have made

the big move to New Zealand and then when they've got there,

decided it's the wrong choice and they've come back.

Once we've been out there for a while, we'll have a big decision

to make - should we stay, or should we return to the UK?

If it doesn't work out and we have to come back, I may not

have any friends left - they might have forgotten about me by then.

Flying to New Zealand takes 36 hours

and the tickets are really expensive so we have to say a big goodbye

to all the people we love here in the UK, including our grandparents.

BELL RINGS

Hello. All right?

My grandad is a very kind and very spoiling grandad.

Come on, you two. In we go.

When they told me that they were going to New Zealand,

it was a mixture of emotions.

One was sad because I wouldn't like them to go

but the other one was joy for them as a family.

Aww! Thanks, Grandad!

Over the last couple of months I've been trying to get my grandad

up-to-date with everything like Face Talk and stuff like that

so when we're in New Zealand we can see each other on the computer.

-Press enter.

-I thought we did that.

I keep up but it's hard, it really is hard work because I don't really

understand the terminology that they come out with but I'm learning.

-Hello.

-All right? Give us a big wave.

-Can you see me, Grandad?

-Yeah, I can see you.

Considering his age I thought he would never achieve it but he is.

-Grandad, what was your week like?

-My week?

I've been out in the garden for the first time for ages...

With this video link, I can talk to Daniel and Jake

whenever they want to and I can see them

and we can have a good time together as if we were in the next room.

Ah!

It's two weeks until the move.

Mum says we can't take everything to New Zealand,

so we need to decide what to leave behind.

A JLS Album that I hate.

Mum will probably want that.

I started sorting my stuff out by making three piles -

this is the charity pile, this is the bin pile and this is the keep pile.

I'm getting rid of this train. It's a bit babyish.

My friend dared me to buy this

and I'm leaving it behind because Justin Bieber's rubbish.

It's going to be really tough to say goodbye to this special someone.

Bailey is basically my cat.

I like him because, sort of boy stuff,

he farts a lot of the time.

He's the world's best cat farter!

Bailey gets terrible sunburn so we've decided not to take him

to New Zealand.

Bailey means the world to me.

I can't imagine him without me or the other way round, me without him.

Luckily, some family friends have said they'll give Bailey a new home.

OK?

I know you don't like it.

This is about the point that it all got too much for me.

It's sinking in. I'll probably never see Bailey again.

-Hiya.

-Bailey's come to see you.

Let's bring him in. Put him down there.

You can say hello.

-Hello, Bailey.

-Give him a stroke.

I sort of just went upstairs and stayed there for a minute.

-Hey!

-There we go.

Bailey's never going to get on a plane to visit me

in New Zealand, so it's time for our last cuddle.

It was quite hard but with 300 tissues it helps you.

Just five days until the move.

Today is my last day at school and I feel nervous saying goodbye

to all my friends and everything but I hope it just goes well.

This is a presentation about moving to New Zealand.

Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, sighted a new land,

which he described as mountains covered in a cloud in the south.

He had discovered New Zealand.

In the presentation, Jake was being a human puppet for everything.

Rugby was introduced to

New Zealand in 1870 by Charles Monro.

You can hear the mighty haka echo throughout the stadiums

as the All Blacks take out sporting rivals

in the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup competitions.

LAUGHTER

Yeah!

APPLAUSE

I think I'm going to miss my friends a lot.

It says, "Ben, you are awesome. I will miss you."

Much improved, Daniel!

-Have you seen what you look like?

-No, you've got squiggles.

I never thought I'd say this

but I think I might miss school quite a bit.

Packing day!

So this is it. The removal men are here.

Let the madness begin.

We're flying to New Zealand with just one suitcase each but

everything else in our house needs to be packed into lots of boxes.

-It looks like a portion of fish and chips.

-Does it?

That's to protect it.

That's a lot of fish and chips.

-Are you going to be OK?

-Yeah.

-Are you sure? OK.

LAUGHTER

-Bye! See you in New Zealand.

-Bye!

-Bye!

Everything in our house has to fit into this freight container,

which will take a whole two months to travel to

New Zealand on a huge ship.

Bye, house!

Bet we beat you to New Zealand!

The big day!

We've spent the last few nights with our grandparents to stock up

on as many hugs as possible but now it's time for our final goodbye.

See ya. Take care.

Good journey!

Bye!

Bye! See you in a couple of years!

It's really hard not knowing when I'll see my grandparents again.

But I'm still excited about starting our new life.

Time for our 36-hour journey.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Our New Zealand adventure is under way!

I can see New Zealand.

Wow! You have to see this!

We've arrived. Hello, Wellington!

It's our first morning in our new home.

We're jet-lagged but we want to get to know Wellington.

We've heard we can get the best view of our new city

from the top of Mount Victoria.

Look at that view. To think this is where we live!

New Zealand became part of the British Empire in 1840, before

gaining independence in 1947 but it still has our Queen on its money.

My first impressions of Wellington is awepic - awepic is a word

I made up. It's awesome and epic combined - my two favourite words.

First things first. We're hungry.

We have an empty fridge. We don't have anything to eat

at this moment in time.

They're heavy. Feel how heavy they are, Jake.

Argh!

Most of the food here seems quite similar to back in the UK

but there are some strange-looking types of fruit.

-Look at these.

-What is it?

It's...kiwano.

-Oh.

-When we get home, we're going to chop it up

and then hopefully taste it and hope we like it!

-Ready to test it?

-Yep.

It just tastes like kiwi juice.

It was a no for me.

Right now, we're all crammed into this little holiday home,

but we can't stay here for ever so Mum and Dad have arranged for us

to look at three houses so we can decide which one to rent.

Here we go. House number one.

To help out, I'm marking each house out of ten

and Jake's going to take photos.

The first house we looked at, I think it was

about the worst house in New Zealand.

It was pretty bad. The wood is rotted away.

The house looked like it had a goblin lived in it. It was so gross.

Rating out the whole house a two out of ten. Not very good.

OK. House number two. What have you got?

The next house that we saw had a load of scaffolding around it

so we thought, "Uh-oh. This ain't going to be a very good house."

But when we went in it was a really nice house.

I don't like it because it had a man's bottom showing on it.

Eurgh!

So the rating of the whole house is probably about a seven.

Last up, house number 3.

The final house of the day was an amazing house to say the least.

Wow!

Look at that view!

The view was so nice. It was like the highest house on the hill.

Rating the whole house ten out of ten.

I really want to go for the third house - that house is amazing.

Luckily, Mum and Dad loved it too,

so this is going to be our new home - awepic!

Right now we don't feel much like Kiwis

but maybe exploring what's around us will help.

When we came here I was really looking forward to seeing

the wildlife and everything.

At one time, there were no mammals in New Zealand - only birds.

-Here's a bird. Some sort of wagtail.

-That one. I think it's that one.

-No.

Me and Jake brought our little wildlife books so that we could

track down all the wildlife and tick it off when we find it.

They're eels. There's three eels.

We've been eel spotting, which was quite cool

and we've been feeding them with bacon. Come on, buddy.

There is another way to attract eels

-and that's to use small boys as bait.

-Argh!

-Long thin...

-Long thin eel.

The first ever people to live in New Zealand were called the Maori

and today we're visiting one of their traditional villages.

MAORI GREETING

When the Maori meet people they rub noses, which is called a hongi.

Kiora.

That means "hello" in Maori.

Jake and I are excited about tonight

because we get to sleep in a traditional Maori hut.

We've been invited to train as warriors.

So the tattoos or the mojos would tell somebody who you are,

they talk about your ancestors.

When I looked in the mirror at first it looked quite strange

but at the same time really cool.

You get these to start off with and normally

when you go into battle you get another tattoo.

As they go through more achievements, they get more

and eventually you've got a whole face covered up.

-There you are.

-Thank you.

Next up, we're going to learn the haka.

Bend at the knees. Straight back. Chest out and let out a big, "Hey!"

ALL: Hey!

-Hey!

-ALL: Hey!

Hogana. Yeah!

The haka is a dance to greet people

and for the men to scare the opposition in battle.

THEY PERFORM THE HAKA

The Maori people are really cool.

They take a lot of pride in the haka and what they did.

THEY PERFORM THE HAKA

I think I got really good at the haka.

THEY PERFORM THE HAKA

It's time for bed.

Today understanding Maori culture makes me feel

a lot more like a Kiwi.

All this is fun, but we do have to start our new school soon.

We're getting a tour of the local one this weekend with

a teacher to see if we like it.

-Do you have school uniform?

-No, we don't!

-Yes!

What are the other kids like?

We have an age range of 5 to... I think the oldest is probably 13.

The kids at this school I hope are really fun, kind and help me

sort of join in, settle in which I hope is going to be good.

I really want this new start to work.

But there are so many things that can go wrong.

Will I make new friends?

Will New Zealand ever really feel like home?

Will we all want to stay?

Six months later!

So a lot can happen in six months.

-We moved into our new house.

-Good morning.

-Dad started his new job.

We started at the local school we looked round.

# Happy birthday, dear Dan and Jake... #

We both had our birthdays.

-Jake's joined the cubs...

-Cubs, do your best.

-ALL:

-We will do our best!

..and I've signed up to the sea scouts.

It may not look like it but right now it's November.

The UK's winter is New Zealand's summer.

But first things first - it's time for school!

Got to get your ears cos your ears stick out.

When we get up we have to put on sun tan lotion so we don't get burnt.

It feels weird.

It gets a lot hotter than back in Devon.

See you.

I get to school and I do my goal of what I want to achieve in the day.

Next we do a karakia...

THEY RECITE A KARAKIA

..which is a Maori blessing of the day

saying I hope we have a good day, I hope we survive.

THEY RECITE A KARAKIA

School here is really different to in the UK.

The kids do the crossing patrol.

And the class pet is this amazing fish thing called an axolotl.

She's pretty!

At break time I hang out with my friends Luke and Brooke.

When Dan started coming here, he sounded different to all of us

because he's just come from England.

It was kind of strange but I got used to it and we're friends now.

The friends over here are awesome

and they like playing games that I like to play.

I've joined the school's haka group.

You'd never get this back in the UK.

THEY PERFORM THE HAKA

When you're singing, you can't just sing,

you need to reach right down into your gut and bring it out.

THEY PERFORM THE HAKA

I'm really proud about like starting a new school

because like I think I'm kind of making it work.

I think it's going to hopefully always stay that way.

One, two, three...

CAMERA FLASHES

So that's all good, but the biggest difference we've

found between living in New Zealand and living in the UK is...

earthquakes!

So far we've been here in New Zealand for half a year

and there's been two big earthquakes.

It's so serious that we have to practise earthquake drills at school.

What do we do when we hear or feel an earthquake?

Let's do it all together.

ALL: Drop, cover, hold.

Earthquake!

It's quite a big thing

and living in an earthquake-prone place isn't the safest place to be.

What do you think about the earthquakes, Dan?

-Incredible power, isn't it?

-Yeah.

There's one part of my body, which thinks earthquakes are kind of scary

but the other side is like, earthquakes are cool and awesome.

Say there's an earthquake now, Dad. I'd go like this.

Drop, cover, hold.

You're meant to hold on to something rather than just your head, though.

It does as a mum make me very, very worried for what's going

on around and for that reason I've given Dan a mobile phone and he gets

very upset when I telling him, "Where's your phone?"

I just need to know that

if an earthquake happens, I can get hold of them.

The earthquakes would never make me move back to the UK

but it would get me thinking about should I have moved here,

but I'm sure it'll be all fine.

Apart from dealing with earthquakes,

coming to New Zealand has meant making sacrifices.

The hardest thing about moving to New Zealand is

leaving your friends and family behind.

-Hello, boys. How are you?

-Hi.

-How is school going?

-Really good.

-Very well.

-What is happening around you guys?

You are in the best part of the weather

because it hasn't stopped raining since September.

The bad thing about video calling is you can talk to them, you can

say hi but you can't actually touch them and they're not actually there.

The pair of you, I miss a hell of a lot. I miss you loads and loads.

It makes me feel quite sad because I used to just

walk in through the door of their house and hug them but over here

when we video call them, all we can do is just start speaking.

-Goodbye.

-Bye.

There's someone else I'm missing too.

Hello, Bailey. Bailey!

HE LAUGHS

-Ah. He's so cute. I miss you, Bailey.

-Me too.

-Has Bailey done any big farts yet?

-Actually, he has.

He did that sat on my lap.

-It was a bit of stinker. Did he used to do that?

-Yes.

You didn't tell me that one!

With family you know they're always going to be there and keep in touch.

I'm not saying Bailey's no-one that can't keep in touch with us

but it's less likely to see Bailey again than family

so it's quite hard but I think I'll get through it.

Give him lost of cuddles from me. Bye-bye, Bailey. Bye, Bailey.

-Bye, Bailey.

-Bye.

So it's decision time - should we stay or should we go?

Even though I miss everyone from home, I think New Zealand's

worth it for all the outdoor sports and stuff.

Mum and Dad have decided they want to stay in New Zealand

and that makes me and Jake very happy.

Moving here, I think was definitely a good decision

because we have all of this and this is really good.

I definitely feel that our family's future is in New Zealand.

It'll be the measure of how long that future is,

we'll let you know in 10, 15, 20 or 56 years' time.

Since the move I'd say I am Kiwi and British.

I'm British on the inside and Kiwi on the outside.

I think I'm going to turn more into a Kiwi as I grow older

but I'm always going to have that little bit of British inside me.

I'm so glad we only got a one-way ticket.

I feel about the future that it's going to work well

and it's going to be amazing.