I'm doing the move myself at the end of August

2 Cars from North to South plus a houseload

we've done it before in the opposite direction, driving down, hiring a truck, driving truck back, loading up and driving truck (+Mrs in the other car) back down again

Ferry trips + Truck Hire + Gas comes to just over $2k

I think I know the thread you're talking about but can't find it now either.
From memory the cheapest option is to basically sell everything and start again once you've moved.

We've recently moved from almost one end of the country to the other.
We hired two 20 foot containers as we had a lot of crap!

That cost about $8,000 for those and shipping from a rural property in Whangarei to a rural property in Oamaru.

My wife and I drove one car down fully loaded and left it at the new place and flew back to Whangarei, then drove the bigger car down also fully loaded, with the dog in the back as well plus a horse float and two horses!
The kids flew down about a week later with the grandparents, to give us time to get beds etc setup.

Cost a lot of money in the end but we knew it would before we decided on the move.

I did it back in 2007 using Crown, from memory it was about $3000.

YouTube - Moving house, the New Zealand way !

 

How to move home without all the upload and unpacking!

Just load your entire house on a trailer and drive to your new location, house and all!

 

One of my first memories of touring the South Island was seeing a house crossing a narrow bridge near Timaru (very slowly).

CYaBro:

 

I think I know the thread you're talking about but can't find it now either.
From memory the cheapest option is to basically sell everything and start again once you've moved.

 

We've recently moved from almost one end of the country to the other.
We hired two 20 foot containers as we had a lot of crap!

 

That cost about $8,000 for those and shipping from a rural property in Whangarei to a rural property in Oamaru.

 

My wife and I drove one car down fully loaded and left it at the new place and flew back to Whangarei, then drove the bigger car down also fully loaded, with the dog in the back as well plus a horse float and two horses!
The kids flew down about a week later with the grandparents, to give us time to get beds etc setup.

 

Cost a lot of money in the end but we knew it would before we decided on the move.

 

Jeepers that's a big move! I don't envy you one bit for that. It was hard enough moving a house 20k's last year, let alone inter island with horses in tow!

We're planning to go Auckland -> Wanaka later this year. Container Relocations have quoted us $4k for a 20 footer. That's if we box everything up, then they load and unload the container. The idea is we'll drive down with the kids and make a holiday of it at the same time. They estimate it would take 12-13 days anyway.

Thanks thats great, also moving down to Oamaru too.  The container option looks the best so far..

jonb:

 

Thanks thats great, also moving down to Oamaru too.  The container option looks the best so far..

 

Welcome! We will have to organise a Geekzone IRL for this area! :)

Thread update:

Moving two homes at the same time went with Sea Containers NZ for a 40ft container.  Final price was $4750 from Auckland urban to Oamaru, shipped via Dunedin.  Had the container for a few days at both ends to load and unload easily. Self packing and self loading - was 6 tonnes of belongings when they weighed container before pickup.

A few stresses when they were attempting to drop the container off - was down a cul-de-sac and the truck had to navigate round a corner in reverse, would pay to get access issues confirmed before the scheduled moving day, they came a day later than scheduled because of that.