Single-minded success - Settlement Support

…and Lucas is a Kiwi, that’s for sure – he doesn’t wear any shoes!
‘Just at the end of last year we went to one about the voting
system,’ says Julia. ‘That was really useful, and then one
about the education system – of course we were interested
in that because of having Lucas. It’s good for meeting other
migrants, too.’
Just a year after opening, Northland experienced a once-in-ahundred-years
storm that caused a huge landslip near the café.
With the road blocked business ground to a halt. ‘We’d just had
our first successful summer season and then this happened,’
says Julia. ‘On the positive side of things it was a great way
to experience rural New Zealand. Visitors often comment that
we are isolated, but my response always is there’s a lot more
people in between those green hills than you think there are!
We got so much local support and I don’t think we would have
got that in Germany.’
‘We still opened at the weekends,’ says Uwe. ‘Even people who
don’t usually go to a café made a point of at least coming for a
coffee on a Sunday, just to say they were supporting us.’
‘The farmers made a dinner night here, so we had some turnover
and just all the locals came and helped us. When we had
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another flood in here, the neighbours turned up with shovels,
swept the floors and even washed the cushions.’
The experience proved to the couple that although New Zealand
may look similar, there are many differences from their homeland
Germany. ‘People do think differently,’ says Julia. ‘They
work differently; they’ve different priorities in their minds.
You go with it, you know.’
Asked what advice they would give to new settlers, Julia says,
‘When you come here, you do need to be open to change. You
can’t just move here and think we’ve done the paperwork and
now we bring Germany with us. And you need to give it one
or two years.’
Julia and Uwe sit around a café table in the lush surroundings
of the ‘winter garden’ area. Across the covered deck, a spectacular
view opens out over steep, bush-clad hillsides running
down to beautiful Helena Bay and out across the Pacific Ocean.
‘It’s been a long road, but an interesting journey,’ says Julia. ‘I
still think of us as Germans, but this is our home. And Lucas is
a Kiwi, that’s for sure – he doesn’t wear any shoes!’ ■
LINKZ | ISSUE 48 | 2011
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