Andy Ellis was in the supermarket the other day, manoeuvring his shopping trolley through a tight gap as a worker stacked the shelves.
“I squeezed past and an older lady also squeezed past. I was like, ‘Oh, sorry, I should have let you go first’. She said, ‘It’s about as tight as Moving Houses’,” says Ellis, the host of the latest season of TVNZ’s top-rating Sunday primetime show.
“I was like, ‘Heyyy ... that’s a great call! Great chat!”
The point being that Ellis, 40, is increasingly being recognised as a bona fide TV personality these days, sometimes ahead of his glowing rugby career that featured 28 appearances for the All Blacks – including as a World Cup winner in 2011 – and more than 150 games for the Crusaders.
The former halfback is back in Wairarapa today, putting the final touches on one of the 12 episodes of Moving Houses, an oddly compelling show focusing on homes – many old and some new – being relocated to new pastures, and nearly always involving precarious Kiwi landscapes and other close encounters.
The trucks might be moving at a tortoise-like pace but the drama is often up there with Fast & Furious - other motorists failing to slow down, a campervan hitting one of the houses, a truck’s wheels inches from a sheer cliff drop.
As well as telling families’ personal stories about their new home, the series is a showcase of New Zealand’s unique roads and truck drivers’ immense skills, as they inch past natural and man-made obstacles with millimetres to spare.
I was keen to catch up with Ellis as part of the Great New Zealand Road Trip, to firstly learn about his own experiences of New Zealand’s highways and drivers, and to hear about the truckies themselves.
“That was probably one of the things about the show that really stood out to me – just how world-class they are,” he says. “They are incredibly skilful.”
The house-moving drivers were often the third in a generational line of moving experts, learning from their fathers and grandfathers.
“They [the older generation] learned the hard way before there were fancy trailers. With that comes a lot of savvy, that number eight wire mentality. Nothing’s ever a problem, they can always figure things out. There’s always a way to get a house into a spot. It’s impressive – I’ve loved to watch it play out.”
Ellis was also blown away by the latest technology, including hydraulic trailers that allow homes to be lifted or lowered, depending on the obstacle. “We’ve got the best trucks and the best trailers in the world and they’re actually made in New Zealand - these trailers that turn on their own axles are made in Hamilton and people fly from all over the world to buy them.”
Planning for a relocation is meticulous. The drivers, he says, seem to know every pothole, and power line.
Generally speaking, the houses were being moved in the dead of the night – a typical shift might be 10 or 12 hours, some starting at 7pm, some at 10pm and others as late as 1am.
Ellis wasn’t so impressed with some of the other drivers that the convoy encountered on the road.
“Not really,” he says when I ask him if they were courteous. “There’s not great drivers out and about.”
In one episode, a campervan clips a house, causing damage and Ellis says there were various cases of cars ignoring warnings of the oncoming building.
“The pilots [warning vehicles in front] are up here and they’ll often tell cars to pull over or slow down and some people just don’t listen, they just fly through. It’s pretty scary sometimes. We had a campervan crash into the side of the house. We had a lot of near misses.
“Remember too, you don’t know what people are up to at 3 o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday driving a remote road. They’re often flying – you’ve just got to be careful. They’ll be trying to get to an airport in time or work or whatever.
“They are just gunning it and they don’t often realise that we are just around the corner. They might see the pilot vehicle, but they might not realise that there’s actually a whole house ... [that] you are going to get run off the road as you come around the bend.”
So did Ellis feel more pressure at the base of the All Blacks scrum, or in front of the TV camera?
“They are both incredibly challenging, but with both of them, if you work hard to prepare well, it makes it a lot easier, that’s for sure.”
While he had experience in front of the camera with the likes of offbeat rugby shows, “I was really outside my comfort zone with this presenting gig.
“I’ve done a bit of fun stuff with the All Blacks, and some other rugby content. That was all kind of off-the-cuff and authentic and organic. There were mistakes, but that was all part of it.
“Whereas this needs to be really polished and well presented. It’s still got to be real. You’ve got a job to tell a great story for the people who are coming on this adventure, so you need to speak clearly, get really clear points out.”
Surrounded by a director, a producer, a camera person and a makeup person, and simultaneously remembering a script while making it sound natural AND doing it all as you’re walking and gesturing with your hands ... well, it was a lot.
Ellis, who comes across as a natural, says: “I have a lot of respect for presenters and actors after doing this, for sure.”
The ratings for the show have been strong for the first three episodes. That’s partly down to the primetime Sunday evening slot, but mostly down to the unique stories and the way the show is presented – Ellis plays a critical role.
“They’ve all got their own uniqueness about them, and you end up getting to know the couples or the families really well. Part of it is just actually wanting to get this house there in one piece and then seeing the look on their faces when it arrives.”
As well as his rugby background and a blossoming TV career, Ellis is an award-winning landscape gardener and managing director of tech company .kiwi, a company providing New Zealand websites with the .kiwi domain. Already the likes of the Warriors, Simplicity and Rowing NZ have signed up.
Another three episodes of Moving Houses screen before Christmas and another six appear in a second tranche in 2025.
Ellis is seeing parts of New Zealand he’d not normally get to – so far we’ve seen a house being transported on the highest public road in New Zealand (Nevis Rd), as well as homes being moved to Farewell Spit and Mangawhai.
He is this week putting the final touches on an episode featuring a home that has been relocated to Gladstone in Wairarapa, a region which features in several of this season’s 12 episodes. It will air in three weeks.
Other locations to feature in the 12-episode series include the Devil’s Staircase near Arrowtown and the Mahia peninsula.
“That’s probably one of the things about relocatable houses. Often they’re going to places where it is hard to get builders, tradies or subcontractors to get in there,” says Ellis.
“The better option is to get it built somewhere or you find one that’s ready to be moved and truck it into these crazy little places.
“That’s places I would never have gone. I really have a different kind of appreciation for New Zealand. Small-town New Zealand is great – they’re still so friendly.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor.
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