BACK IN THE GAME
Fast forward to 2002 and Rob was standing in line waiting to be served at the local newsagents. He spotted a copy of Windsurf Magazine on the shelf and out of idle curiosity picked it up and flicked through. Inside was an article on learning Spocks and Grubbies, after reading the article Rob couldn’t get it out of his head – he had to learn those moves.
The first thing he did was find somewhere as close as possible to go sailing, this happened to be Draycote Water near Rugby, still the best part of an hour’s drive from his house, depending on the traffic on the M1. He only had some old wave gear so before he could get on the water he paid a visit to the nearby windsurf shop and purchased some modern kit.
As Rob’s passion for the sport started to grow again, he began to question his work/life balance. He gradually introduced windsurfing back into his life and after a few holidays to Greece and Margarita he eventually quit his job in 2004 and spent the winter in Western Australia.
A few more trips later in 2007 the urge had become too strong. His partner and he decided to sell their house and relocate somewhere windy so they spent a few years considering various locations around the world with the aim of trying to find one which ticked all the boxes. There aren’t many places with a computer games industry and good wind statistics, but in the end Wellington seemed to fit the bill and, as anyone who has visited the city will know, with 173 days of the year where the wind gusts over 32 knots, it certainly ticks the wind one!
BIG MOVE
After selling their house in 2009 Rob and his partner finally made the move to New Zealand and Rob went back to full time work. They found the move fairly straightforward, the hardest part actually being finding a rental property which would accept their pet dog!
New Zealand is a long way from the UK, so for most people this is the main drawback of emigrating. When asked if he misses anything from England Rob preferred to say what he doesn’t miss: the traffic, the weather, crime stats and the obsession with football! It would be nice if Tesco would open a store in Wellington too. I would tend to agree, but fear not, I can confirm Newworld does do great houmus…
