Put on your work clothes, roll up your sleeves and get out there. | New Zealand seasonal jobs

Are you looking for an easy, relaxed job?

Dont like working up a sweat or getting dirty?

Afraid of a bit of sun or the wild elements of the New Zealand outdoors?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then seasonal work is NOT for you! There is dirt, there is sweat, there are bugs and hot sun and rainy days BUT dont get me wrong…I love it!

The work on a vineyard (or I would assume at an orchard or other farm as well) leaves you not only with money in your pocket but with the feeling of accomplishment and the joy of a hard days work. The pleasure of great company and the pleasure of working in the great outdoors.

My first experience in seasonal work was at a vineyard just South of Auckland in a tiny town called Whitford. I lived in a small house with a group of other travellers where we shared our stories, our food and a lot of wine! We did that at night that is…during the day we worked.

The work the first day involved picking the grapes and loading them onto a truck that would later that day be delivered all the way down to Napier. Since I had worked on a farm growing up and had some experience driving four wheelers, I got the enviable job of riding around on the quad and bringing the grapes from the vineyard to the truck. It sounds like fun and at times it was great to ride around with the cool breeze cooling me off from the heat of a mid-March day in Auckland but it was also the hardest job of the day. I had to pick up hundreds and hundreds of baskets of grapes that weighed…enough to be a workout…and load them onto the quad trailer then eventually into the big rig truck. Needless to say, I got some good muscles in the two weeks I was there.

Aside from picking we had to walk through the rows early in the morning and scare out the birds that had settled to eat the fruit overnight. Sounds easy but with the dew on the nets and our heads scraping the soaked fabric, we would be soaked within minutes of “bird scaring”. Banging sticks together and screaming at the top of my lungs at 8am made for an interesting start to the day but it just added to the surreal experience of the seasonal job of grape picking.

The hardest job we did…and the hardest job Ive ever done…was riding on the back of a tractor and pulling in the nets to these massive burlap sacks that were big enough to fit half a dozen full grown men inside with space to spare. The wet nets stretched across five rows of grapes made for quite the workout while pulling it in and I swear I couldnt feel my arms for the rest of the day. Again though, it was an incredible workout and by the end of the day I had a feeling of exhausted accomplishment that is just incomparable to anything else.

The early mornings in the crisp, fresh morning air, the sun baked afternoons followed by a night of relaxation and wine made it an unforgettable experience in the fields of New Zealand.

If you want to work in the Gods good land, experience and learn about the culture and industry of organic food or just need some money, this is a great opportunity!

So put on your work clothes, roll up your sleeves and get out and involved in seasonal work in the spectacular country that is New Zealand!

Submitted by: Kevin Gillikin