H5 is a good start. I hate to say it though, as it seems so obvious, but practice is the key to understanding sound design. What software do you have? It's imperative that you have a DAW (digital audio workstation). Reaper is your best bet as it's very powerful and cost-effective.
Living in NZ isn't so much of a problem as you can connect with people all over the world these days. As long as you have a place online to display your portfolio.
If I were you, I'd trawl you tube as there is some great sound designers there who share their knowledge. And try and do a lot of re-designs from popular games for practice.
I don't have any DAW currently i've kind of come out of a real bad rut and have just now got the energy to try and punch at this brick wall again until I get in lol, but I have experience with pro tools if I can kind of transfer my skills from pro tools over to there that would be good because pro tools is so fucking expensive. Would you recommend setting up a twitter to dump recordings I work on to so I could also get my name out there, either way thank you for your time.
No problem! And sorry to hear about your rut and I hope you're getting over it. The good news is you can totally bring your Pro Tools skills to any DAW, especially something like Reaper. Incidentally, a lot of the pro sound designers who work for games are now using reaper. It's pricing model is unbelievably fair. You can get a full 'discounted license' for $60! And only when you make over X amount do they ask you to pay the full amount ($225). Which is still very reasonable! I won't tell you how much I paid for Nuendo. lol
The H5 is a great wee recorder. Start recording EVERYTHING you can. Record your whole house inside and out. All those sounds will be gold dust in a few years. And even the most mundane sounds can be used to create awesome game sounds. And you'll be able to process the bezesus out of them with Reaper (or any DAW). Just keep experimenting and recording everything.
Here's a few youtube channels I highly recommend.
https://www.youtube.com/@daviddumaisaudio
https://www.youtube.com/@AkashThakkarAudio
Reaper specific tutes: Check out Reapermania on youtube.
Regarding posting your stuff. To be honest, I'm not a good social media guy. But I would say definitely get a youtube channel and start right away. You can even just post stuff you record. Eventually you should get a website so your easy to contact and find. I would definitely have a look at where Akash Thakkar does as he's very good on social media.
For Foley have a look at these guys and their channels. Watch how they work, you'll learn loads! And nice people too:
