Despite receiving three potential job offers after a headline-grabbing stunt at the weekend, an Australian stonemason and tiler left Queenstown yesterday, seeking work in Christchurch.
Nick Langley, of Brisbane, made a direct appeal for work by sitting on a Queenstown roundabout with a cardboard sign before being moved on by police after a bus driver complained the 25-year-old was distracting drivers.
Yesterday, Mr Langley said he had been rung by a Queenstown paragliding company about a possible opening as a trainee and had also had two other approaches.
But he was already on the way to Christchurch, where he would probably try the same job-seeking technique.
Mr Langley said he was made redundant from a tiling job in Brisbane last month.
The keen rock-climber decided to try New Zealand the following Friday, bought a one-way ticket on the Sunday and arrived in Christchurch on the Monday with $800 in his pocket.
His ambition to become a guide in three extreme sports, including paragliding, brought him to Queenstown.
He said he tried three employment agencies in the resort, but all they asked him for was his name and contact number, not his qualifications.
However, the experience had not turned him off Queenstown for good, he said.
"If I can work for a month and come back and try again, I will."
