#secondyearvisa

[worldwanderingward]

Not sick of this view yet, think I’ll stay another year😊 . . . Excited to announce I’ve been granted a sponsorship visa! You aren’t getting rid of me yet NZ! #secondyearvisa #sponsored✔️ #queenstownlife #girlswhotravel #newzealandlife (at Queenstown, New Zealand) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bst2aDkBixkiISaKfywpT57JwWMRrVkP-_HrMM0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=f8j0iuz1kdos

[ameliso]

Apples, apples, apples. What these idyllic apple orchard photos don’t reveal is the hours of sweat and stress gone into each one of those bins! Careful not to bruise, careful to keep the stems.... Warragul, VIC. Feb - March 2017

[joboblogs]

Sunsets at the farm 🍏🍎🍏🍎 #farmlife #applepacking #14hourdays #galaapplesaretheworst #sunset #pozieres #🌄 #secondyearvisa #🇦🇺

[chloeandgregoztravels]

Mildura farm work

Onion Farm

Our first job living in Mildura was pretty easy, after working so hard to earn any money picking mandarins, hourly paid work was a dream! All we had to do was poke a hole in the ground, take the onion seedlings and plant them… It was pretty cold getting up in the mornings (yes, it does get cold in Australia) but when working in the summer, I miss those days!

After planting, we started covering the onions that had already grown with mesh to protect them from insects; this was again pretty easy although I wasn’t keen on all of the spiders inside the mesh that had been sat inside a container for months…

Greg had a close encounter with a brown snake one day, which was really scary, it had been hiding under the mesh and as Greg went to unravel it he noticed a shadow that moved, jumping back he saw the snake wiggle out. The farmer came over soon after, recognized it as a brown snake grabbed a shovel and he decapitated the poor thing. He explained how it is the second most venomous snake in the world and that it’s better for us if its dead than the chance of it biting one of us, it was still writhing and twitching for ages! Very gruesome… 

Our final day (shame it was only a 4 day job!) involved us packing 100 bags of onions, pretty easy stuff once again although some of the onions were rotting, a smell I will never forget! Gross.

 KC Vines

Our next job I managed to get after Greg had started for 2 days, he spoke to the supervisor and I had a job with them from then on (no thanks to the hostel...). KC Vines is a nursery, they prepare plants and seedlings for other companies so our first job here was grape vine training. This involves removing the tendrils and offshoots from a young grapevine before wrapping it around a metal stake that you put in the ground to keep it growing straight. The only things you had to be careful with was breaking the vines, this sounds easier than it is…

Nicoletta our Romanian supervisor showed us what to do and broke her very first vine. (Hilarious) “Don’t be doing it like that.” Very much do as I say not what I do, haha! She was very strict but funny in her own way - I think we were lucky to be some of her favourites! The spiders on the job were some of the biggest I’ve ever seen, one even made Nicoletta scream, although she has been here awhile she said it’s one of the biggest she’d ever seen. 

(Social Hunstman, not venomous)

What do you do when you see a random hole in the ground?

Pour water down it and see what comes out of course!

Wolf Spider (lycosa)

Flies and mosquitos were also awful, after a couple of days we bought fly nets, which did a great job, but they make us even more hot and bothered. We saw heaps of other exciting insects though like stick insects, grasshoppers, dragonflies, praying mantis’ etc.

The job was good, when we were paid hourly but unfortunately it was just our luck that it didn’t last and we went on commission pay (paid per vine/tree) after a couple of weeks at 43 cents a vine. I found it really difficult to make money, Greg was a lot better than me but still wasn’t making as much as we were before.

Another ‘highlight’ of working the vines was sitting down on the burning ground with nothing but pants and trousers between our skins, we learnt quickly that we should pad ourselves after Greg came home with literally a burnt arse! 

The upside was that we were allowed to talk, take breaks when we wanted and go home ‘kind of’ when we wanted. I hurt my back in the first week and it made the job agony, especially towards the end as the vines just became harder to work with I really couldn’t make much money at all. One day it really was just too much so Greg spoke to Nicoletta and managed to get me transferred to grafting.

I was nervous about starting the new task but it was much easier as I could sit down all day but it was very precise, basically, grafting is where you take the stalk and roots from a plant that grows well in a particular soil and then graft the bud of the desired plant (vine) onto it, both the stalk and bud are cut like a puzzle piece and my job was to match them together so they fit snugly.

Sounds easy but choosing the ones that match was an art form- some people could find it without looking at all! Luckily this job was back on hourly pay but the downside was it only lasted a couple of weeks and it was super hot, 43 degrees on one day! Those working outside were able to go home once it rose to 38 but we had to stay, it was awful.

Grafting finished and I was back on the vines for 2 days before we started the new job - almond pruning. Well actually they were peach trees that would be the base that the almond buds would be grafted on to. This time we used snips to cut off the laterals as the plants were less delicate than the vines, then you strip off all the leaves. So, back out into the scorching heat with dust storms, about a thousand bugs flying everywhere and worst of all we were back on contract. It seemed pretty bad at first but in a week we picked it up and managed to earn around minimum wage.

After the almonds, we thought we would be going onto weeding or back to vine training again but Justin our boss told us he wasn’t sure who would be coming back to work as they didn’t need as many people…

 So for 4 days we were unsure whether we would even have work! Luckily we decided to stick it out and hope for the best, we were very lucky! Greg and I were chosen to help out Josh and Jack (2 other backpackers who had been working on hourly for a while) moving plants under irrigation pipes, so thankfully that gave us work for another week! It was unbelieveably hot though, reaching 44 degrees where we were working, I felt so proud to have managed to stick it out haha! We saw loads of wolf spiders as well as red backs, but best of all we saw some kind of lizard, which I really wanted to pick up but Greg thought that it could be dangerous so we left him alone.

[mooplz-blog]

It's a farmers life 🚜. #farmer #farming #farmwork #sweetpotato #queensland #bundaberg #tractor #secondyearvisa #explore #travel #backpacking #Australia

[kangaroosandchaos]

Guess where I am for day 75! www.kangaroosandchaos.com #100daysofaustralia #kangaroosandchaos #juliabrooke #backpacking #travel #travelling #backpacker #australia #book #travelblog #britishbackpacker #australianlandscapes #landscapes #travelogue #guidebook #traveltips #author #writer #blogger #kindle #guide #kdp #roadtrip #farmwork #secondyearvisa #workingholidayvisa

[emiielise-xo]

After getting to Melbourne from the pub, I was happy to be back in a city hostel :) I had a great night out in the Asian beer cafe after being invited by a guy and his friends in the hostel and spent the day after going for a meal and movie :) I thought that would have been it but that day I booked my flight to Tasmania where I again got a job through the harvest line picking strawberries... So I told the guy I'd met that I'd be leaving the following day. Anyways... Saturday arrives and he decided to get the skybus with me to the airport and help me with my bags :) Off to Huonville Tasmania I went! Flew with tiger air, cost me $49 for the flight and was buzzing! I spent a day exploring Hobart and then caught the bus and arrived at the working hostel, little devil backpackers! I arrived in good timing at a Aussie style BBQ! I tried wallaby and kangaroo steak! Next day I got up at 6am to pick strawberries! A mini bus of 14 of us went off to cygnet to pick! I signed my forms and picked for around 6 hours it was back breaking!! At $4 a tray it felt awful. I just reminded myself it wouldn't be forever. Next day the mini bus couldn't take us as it had broken! I was gutted. I came to Tassie to do farm work.. Not be lazy and waste money. So after everyone cheering to go back to bed.. I decided I'd make a mission to get another job or some work for that day. I had nothing to lose. So me and Olivia who decided she wanted to join me, walked several kms up towards grove on the huon highway...my plan was to walk to any farm on/off the highway and volunteer for work for a visa day sign off. With orchards in sight I soon came to an orchard office, about 7am at this point with signs everywhere saying NO WORK available ... and Regardless if this I knocked on the door after seeing a man sat in the office. He came to the door and I blurted out my situation and told us to sit in the smoki... So we did and 10 min later he came in and chucked us apple picking bags! And said 'you can get paid like the rest' I was buzzing!!!!!!! I worked for him for 4 weeks! Picking apples on good days and packing in the shed. I earned 34$ a bin and usually did 3-4 a day. ( he also had his own cider side if the business which was fascinating! And their apples were organic and sold to woolworths! I earned far more than strawberries and it felt like a work out ❤️😃 on the days there was no picking or packing, I'd hit up the strawberry picking with the idea it was short term being my motivation. After there was no work for me I managed 2 days on another orchard and 1 day on another. I left for Melbourne once more 😃❤️

[ameliso]

The beloved Granny Smith - whom we picked rain or shine. Warragul, VIC. April 2017

[ameliso]

Laurent saw me from the end of the Apple block and thought that I was wearing white gloves. The beginning of our apple picking career in Warragul, VIC. Feb 2017

[ameliso]

Storm heading our way - one of many on the farm. Moree, NSW. Dec 2016

[ameliso]

We picked ALL of those bloody oranges! We only lasted 1.5 weeks picking.... Moree, NSW. Nov 2016

[ameliso]

Final apple days on the orchard (and apple gifts for our workmates). Warragul, VIC. May 2017

[kangaroosandchaos]

My life in signs! A lot has changed since I lived in the alps 6 years ago! www.kangaroosandchaos.com #100daysofaustralia #kangaroosandchaos #juliabrooke #backpacking #travel #travelling #backpacker #australia #book #travelblog #britishbackpacker #australianlandscapes #landscapes #travelogue #guidebook #traveltips #author #writer #blogger #kindle #guide #kdp #roadtrip #farmwork #secondyearvisa #workingholidayvisa #alps #roadsigns #ski #chamonix

[kangaroosandchaos]

Day 74! On board in the Whitsunday Islands www.kangaroosandchaos.com #100daysofaustralia #kangaroosandchaos #juliabrooke #backpacking #travel #travelling #backpacker #australia #book #travelblog #britishbackpacker #australianlandscapes #landscapes #travelogue #guidebook #traveltips #author #writer #blogger #kindle #guide #kdp #roadtrip #farmwork #secondyearvisa #workingholidayvisa #whitsundayislands #qld #sailing #catamaran

[kangaroosandchaos]

Day 73! Hitch hiking at the Grand Prix www.kangaroosandchaos.com #100daysofaustralia #kangaroosandchaos #juliabrooke #backpacking #travel #travelling #backpacker #australia #book #travelblog #britishbackpacker #australianlandscapes #landscapes #travelogue #guidebook #traveltips #author #writer #blogger #kindle #guide #kdp #roadtrip #farmwork #secondyearvisa #workingholidayvisa #melbourne #grandprix #hitchhiking #racecar

[kangaroosandchaos]

Day 73! Hitch hiking at the Grand Prix www.kangaroosandchaos.com #100daysofaustralia #kangaroosandchaos #juliabrooke #backpacking #travel #travelling #backpacker #australia #book #travelblog #britishbackpacker #australianlandscapes #landscapes #travelogue #guidebook #traveltips #author #writer #blogger #kindle #guide #kdp #roadtrip #farmwork #secondyearvisa #workingholidayvisa #melbourne #grandprix #hitchhiking #racecar