Wednesday 4 July 2012

First Working Destination in New Zealand (Part II)

Before long, May and I got a chance to experience another job. Thanks to my new Brazilian roommate who was just moved in. He recomended me to work in a pumpkin pack house under his employer. His employer arranged everything well for me and my friend. Again, we were so happy and said goodbye to the vineyard job. We worked in an informal pumpkin pack house which offered good remuneration, nice panorama and kind people. We even had a private driver to pick us up to work, hihi...:P
In the morning, workers gathered in the field before the work started.

The surroundings of the packhouse...




In the pumpkin packhouse...






Since we have experienced outdoor work, we appreciated so much to work under a shelter; at least not burned by the hot sun and get wet by the rain. I encountered both conditions, they were 'good' experiences!
I saw people picking pumpkins in the field by chance. Looks fun but I know it isn't easy!



It's not a bad idea to socialize and make some friends while in a foreign country. You'll have more chances in finding work, accomodation, information...whatever. Having a working holiday life abroad sometimes can be pretty hard to predict what's going to occur as changes could simply happen due to some facts.

I didn't stay long in the hostel. My second accomodation was in a motel, still located in the town area. Since I made some friends who are always kind to recommend some jobs to me, I didn't rely on the job offered by the hostel except the first job. So, my friend and I moved to a room in a motel which was cheaper that only costed us $150 in total, compared to over hundred dollars for each person in the hostel. However, that was a special circumstance because this is the only room that the motel owner make such an offer and I have my friend to share the cost. Most importantly, I know the couple who was going to leave the room, so it's our luck! :P


The front facade of the rooms

Eluktronics N870HP6 Pro Premium VR Ready Gaming Laptop - Intel i7-7700HQ Quad Core Windows 10 Home 6GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 17.3” Full HD IPS Display 512GB Performance SSD + 16GB DDR4 RAM

Our room is at corner but it's not a bad deal.
Paying $75/person weekly for a commodation with double bed,
private shower room & toilet, cupboard, TV, fridge & some accessories. 

At weekend, occasionally we worked for another contractor. We worked in vineyard again but this time we tried different tasks and they were easier for us to handle. We asked for the work only when we wanted. Usually, we were paid by hour basis for the jobs.





Ginkgo plants
During my stay in Hastings, sometimes I worked in different places for part time due to the instability of most of the agricultural works. Well, this is another task i did. Picking ginkgo leaves, just for 1 day. It's not a hard work but a bit boring.





Ahh! This is blueberry picking. The job challenged my patience. Those bluberries are small and I had to fill them full in an ice-cream container merely to get a $2. The blueberries were undeniable lovely, but 1 day work was enough for me to experience.




It's common that when people think of working in New Zealand, they think of the job of picking apples. I didn't work but a friend of mine worked in an apple orchard. He drove us there to take some photos on the day before our leaving. In fact, it's the first time I saw so many red apples hanging on the trees, so amazing!






Please don't think that apple picking is easy, I saw my friend using the ladder to climb up and pick the apples from tree to tree. To earn a $30-40 wage, one big container should be filled full with the apples.