HeliPro and HeliFlight
Hughey,
I'm not a pilot (yet, still raising the cash), but I was in NZ looking at a couple of schools in November '03.
I thought you were allowed to fly in NZ with your Australian licence with only a couple of endorsements or changes due to the 'Trans-Tasman' agreement or something similar (my memory escapes me, can't remember exactly what it's called)?
However, if that's not the case, or you want to gain the NZ CPL (H) anyway, here's some info I hope will help.
I was at HeliFlight in Auckland, Ardmore Airport, and HeliPro in Palmerston North. Both have bases elsewhere, but HeliPro have their training establishment in Palmerston North, whilst HeliFlight train both at Ardmore and Masterton.
All HeliFlights training (theory as well) is done on-site, whilst at HeliPro theory training is done at Nelson Aviation College in the South Island, and they prefer all exams to be passed before flight training begins - don't know how they would go about converting to NZ CPL (H).
HeliPro are the biggest commercial operator that also do training, so pupils get the chance to work alongside the pilots in all kinds of operations - they tend to do a lot of firefighting apparently.
HeliFlight seem to be geared towards pleasure flights and training more then other commercial operations, but that may change.
At both places I got a really warm welcome and was made to feel at home. The instructors that I had were experienced, not only in flight training. They both use Schweizer 300s
I know Helipod is a slightly smaller operator, but I didn't get the chance to go out to the base due to time constraints. I think there is an advantage there that it'll probably work out cheaper (accomodation etc.)
Anyway, I'd recommend you check out the other two as well, at least have a look at the websites, easy to find.
Sorry for the length of the post, but I hope this helps a bit.
Regards.