My backpacker jobs during my Working Holiday Visa in New Zealand

Kiwifruit pruning

To be completely honest, this experience was absolutely catastrophic. I think the problem was not the job itself but the extremely toxic environment we were in.

I found this job after my first road trip. After living on the road for 3 months, I really needed to make money again. I figured that with the pandemic, a job in horticulture was probably the safest bet.

So I went to this place in the middle of nowhere to move into the shed attached to the job. When I arrived, I was surprised at the living conditions. But since no one seemed to be complaining, I figured it was like that in all orchard housing. As the days passed, I realized that the conditions were not healthy. It was raining in the room, there was no heating, the toilet didn’t work, it was very dirty. We worked 15 hours out of the promised 40 hours, and the boss refused to pay us 3 of those hours, accusing us of lying on our timesheet. So I decided to leave after 5 days at this place. I even lost my deposit there.

Later, I learned that another person had left the place. This person decided to file a complaint with the Council and to warn other backpackers on facebook groups. So we were contacted by the local newspapers to tell our story and the Council decided to sue the manager.

The reason I am sharing this story with you is not to discourage you or to scare you. It is to tell you to follow your intuition, not to accept these behaviors and because, even if others accept it, you are under no obligation to accept it. So if a situation doesn’t suit you, leave.

Bottom line: barely tested, not approved.