If there is one thing that is almost universal about a working holiday in Australia, it is fruit picking. Fruit picking epitomises the working holiday maker in a way that even a backpack fails to capture. Most backpackers do fruit picking to get their '88 days': the number of working days required to be completed in the agricultural or construction industries in a rural area to qualify for a second Working Holiday visa. Of course, these industries are screaming for workers, because Australians generally do not want to do the work for the wages offered. Many backpackers, however, are willing to go to hell and back for the chance to stay in Australia for a second year.
I ended up doing 9 days of raspberry picking, because I needed something to do and I needed to top up my bank account a bit. 9 days was quite enough for me.
Day 1. After very little sleep, I woke up at 4 am in St Kilda (Melbourne) in order to meet a shuttle to the farm at 5.30 am. Yes, it took about an hour to travel through Melbourne to the pick up point. Melbourne is a pretty big city after all. The pick up went smoothly, and I dozed on the way to the farm.
The first day was about learning basic picking technique.
"Has anyone ever picked raspberries before?" the boss asked. I put up my hand.
"Not professionally," I said. The boss looked a little confused.
"Only wild ones," I clarified. As I said it I realised that most people don't even get a chance to go out to pick wild berries. Maybe it doesn't even occur to them that you can eat wild berries, let alone go out and pick them.
On a farm, the raspberry bushes grow in rows, in tunnels that protect the plants and berries from excessive sun. The boss showed us our rows.
"Not quite like picking wild berries?" he said. I pictured in my mind the wild tangle of raspberries at my aunt and uncle's summer house, and a morning of picking berries with my cousins for the breakfast porridge. One in the bucket, one in the mouth...
"Wild bushes don't usually grow so... neatly," I said.
We picked directly into punnets, 12 punnets per tray, 5 trays per trolley. The target for new pickers was 175 punnets on the first day. Later we should be able to pick 300 punnets per day. I quickly discovered that while chatting away over the hedges was pleasant, it slowed us down considerably.
I hit my 175 punnet target, and was exhausted. We finished at 4 pm, making it a 9 hour day on almost no sleep. My body was aching from being on my feet, reaching up and squatting down all day. I just wanted to get back to Melbourne to say goodbye to a friend who was due to fly out that evening. But as I brought back my last trays, the beers came out.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been cool. It's not every job where the bosses provide free beers every now and then at the end of a working day. On that day, however, I was annoyed by the delay. It was 5 pm before we left the farm. Exhaustion took over and I poured half my beer out, not wanting to drink it after all.
Two minutes away from Southern Cross station, I got a text from my friend: "I'm staying another night. Can you put up with me for one more night?"
Jetstar had cancelled his flight. That threw all the plans into jepardy. Tired as I was, I didn't want the hassle of reorganising; yet I enjoyed having a bit more time to say goodbye properly. All I could do was laugh. Then the hassle began. I had booked a bed in a female dorm for the night, so I had to have that cancelled and find somewhere for us to stay in fully-booked Melbourne. We managed, eventually. Then I had to find something to take for lunch the next day. By the time we had found dinner, it was 10 pm and I was beyond knackered.
Day 2. Lack of sleep and Sunday public transport timetables humiliated me. For some reason I still can't fathom I had assumed I would catch the same train as the day before, and realised my mistake just as we were leaving the accommodation at ridiculous-o'clock. There was no train from Southern Cross at that hour on a Sunday. Embarrassed, I called the boss and told him I would miss the pick up. He seemed understanding, though not too impressed.
I rode the free trams around town until hostel receptions opened and found myself a new hostel. I checked into the King's St Backpackers, though I couldn't get into my room yet, helped myself to the free breakfast and sat down with free wifi until the free pancakes were served at 11 am.
Contemplating my life and all the aches in my body I came to the conclusion that life was good after all and I really didn't feel like picking raspberries that day.
Day 3. The key to raspberry picking is to learn to pick with both hands and to keep moving. "Never turn back to your trays until you've got at least 6-7 berries in your hands," one of the bosses advised a new picker on the way to work.
I picked faster than on the first day, but I could feel my arms tiring. I had brought lunch (a cold cous cous salad and fruit), but I really wanted to hit 300 punnets, so I didn't stop to eat it. One of the supervisors said we would try to stop around 2 or 3 pm, so nut bars and other snacks could keep me going. Big mistake.
We didn't stop until after 5 pm. By that time everything hurt, especially my back, and I was ravenously hungry. I got my 300 punnets, though - 315, to be exact. If was the only day I managed that particular feat.
Australia has quite a high minimum wage, $17.70 per hour + 25% casual loading for those with no job security, such as backpackers. The hourly wage is not applicable to jobs with piece rates, such as fruit picking, but according to Australian law, an average competent picker should be able to earn minimum wage + casual loading + an extra 15 % - in other words over $25 per hour. At 65 cents per punnet, that's about 39 punnets per hour. The boss reckoned he could fill a punnet a minute, but I don't know of anyone who could maintain that pace consistently. Very few people I knew of could even pick the 39 punnets per hour, day in, day out. 9 days might not be enough to become an average competent picker, but basically I never earnt as much as I should have been able to, and neither did any of the pickers I made friends with. The 315 punnets really weren't worth the backpain.
Day 4. We never did learn the name of the farmer. We were employed by the berry picker recruitment business and were never told who owned the farm. We saw him occasionally, though, and he was known to us simply as 'the Farmer'.
"How long do you think these tunnels are?" the Farmer asked one day.
"45 metres?" guessed one picker.
"50?" said another.
"They're 107 metres long," the Farmer said.
"107 metres?" said the first picker, amazed. "It's a football field?"
"No," said the Farmer with a twinkle in his eye. "That's a field for growing raspberries."
Pickers making friends with the Farmer's dog, whose name we did know. |
Day 6. "I don't understand this," one of the supervisors said to me. "Some people leave so much good fruit on the bushes." He had been picking after a picker in another row, and had told him to repick the row. After that he had moved to my row to check up on my work. And to have a whinge. "Seriously, this is literally money growing on trees!" he said, picking a raspberry. "Why aren't people interested in it?"
"Perhaps because one raspberry is worth about 2.5-3 cents?" I felt like saying. They don't even produce the 2 cent coins in Australia any more. That raspberry right at the top of that 2.5-metre branch that I have to reach for on my tiptoes is not worth the 5 seconds it takes to reach it, nor the back pain the extra movement causes. That raspberry right in the middle of the bush is not worth the scratches all over my arms, nor worth having to press my face against a prickly raspberry bush. And if it is a subprime berry, destined for the jam bucket, it's not worth even glancing at, because the pittance we get paid for a kilo of jam gets averaged between all the pickers, and none of the clever pickers bother with jam.
I was not a clever picker. I had buckets and buckets of jam that day, and I picked most of it. When I took my trays to a supervisor for inspection and counting, she asked me how it was going. I was honest with her: "I have a really bad row." She gave me a stern look. "There are no bad rows, only bad pickers," she said. Well, I got told. One of the company's values was positivity, which apparently trumped both honesty and realism.
One hopes that it was a jam bucket that got knocked over and not some punnets. |
Day 7. I really didn't want to go to work. I had got used to the aches and pains, but I wasn't enjoying picking. It was mindnumbingly monotonous, boring. I was sick of raspberries. I would probably never buy a raspberry again. Not only had I eaten too many of them, I had also witnessed other pickers stop for a cigarette or to smoke a joint and go back to work without washing their hands. The raspberries didn't get sprayed with sunscreen (unlike apples, apparently), but I still spread some on my face and arms before work. There was no hot water and soap to wash hands with, only cold water and hand sanitiser.
This was not what I came to Australia for. There were more interesting things to see and do, such as hiking in the tropical wet season of the Top End. It was time to move on. Jetstar.com.au and the cheapest flights to Darwin. I didn't wash my hands after checking flights on my phone.
Day 8. It was a Saturday, and I was pumped up. The contrast with the previous day was remarkable. Now that I knew I was leaving soon and going back to my beloved Kakadu National Park, I had seemingly boundless energy. Even for raspberries. First I had to tell the boss, though.
Resigning from a job for the first time was an interesting experience. And easy. I pulled the boss aside and said, "Monday will be my last day. Can I get a lift back to Melbourne that day?" His expression was impossible to read. "Ok. What are you going to do?" was all he said. The beauty of casual work in Australia: you can be out of there in a moment. The boss appreciated the several days' notice, though.
Day 10. The last day, and I was both tired and excited. We had had a barbecue the night before, and a Swedish girl and I had finished our night off by eating ice cream out of the tub. I had bought the ice cream the day before. A French picker had dropped me off at the supermarket, and I was going to take the bus back to the house. Except that it had been a Sunday and as we know, Sunday public transport and I don't go together. I made another silly mistake checking the timetable and ended up hitchhiking home. Ice cream and waiting for an hour for the bus don't go together either.
I was on fire. I picked over 280 punnets. I wasn't disappointed about not hitting 300; I was excited about leaving. The company asked me to write them some feedback. Their value of positivity wasn't going to get them anywhere, so instead of being positive, I was honest. And fair, I think. I appreciated the services they provided - transport, accommodation - because it made my experience easier. At the same time the job just didn't pay enough for it to be worth the blood, sweat and tears. And the backache.
But it was over for me. No more raspberry picking, except for my morning porridge of a summer morning at the summer house.
A horse parked outside the pub. As you do. |