Working Experiences in Australia (Part I)

I had my first job on the second week of my stay in the working hostel. I worked in a small plant where gourmet foods are manufactured. My job was really easy and the wage was not bad. However, the working hours was not guaranteed except the peak season before Christmas. As a result, I hunted for other jobs in between.

My first outdoor work in Australia was……Guess what? Mandarin picking! I worked in a team with 3 Korean guys, picking mandarin from early morning until evening but just earn 30-50 bucks in a day. Hard work!! Yes…I know this was not my first time involved in fruit picking (I experienced it in New Zealand before), it’s still tough for me though. Most of the fruit picking jobs here are paid by contract and not by hourly basis, so you have to work really hard and fast. For this job, we were provided with ladders and we were commanded to pick every single fruit on the trees. End of the day, we’ll get approximately $40 for every full container of mandarin. But don’t forget that it still needed to divide among 4 people. One good thing about working there was we had eaten enough mandarin J

The following job was by contract again. I worked in a nursery field. Every day except weekend, work started at 7 o’ clock while the weather was still cold. I was bending my back, sometimes squatting or sitting on the ground to prune the plants along the rows. Every backpacker was paid according to the quantity of plants they worked on. I still remember that our wage merely worth 10 cent per plant. Thus, we had to prune almost a thousand plants in a row in order to earn $100. Fortunately, I was able to make more than that. Still, the champion was my German friend :)

One thing I really hate about working in the field was the presence of flies. I had no idea where’s the flies came from, they were extremely annoying! The flies stayed on the face or any exposed skin and they came back again and again even I repelled them. Thus, a face net or repellent is well worth prepare if you’re planning on working in the field. Just in case.