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Territory lemon grower squeezes ahead of the pack

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Lemons Australia
Lemons

Northern Territory lemons will be arriving in southern markets early this year, just as prices soar due to a supply shortage. First round picking just finished at the Sevenfields orchard, south of Katherine, almost two months earlier than in previous years. Sevenfields manager, Andy Hancock, says the company had been working towards an October harvest, to take advantage of high early-season prices. “It is unusual for us, because at this time we are usually about to start picking mangoes,” he said. “Generally we pick late December, or January, but we have just picked about 15 tonnes in the last week. Read more

Australian Working Holiday Visa Application Fees to Increase from 1st of September 2013

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Australian Working Holiday Visa

The Australian Government has just announced that Australian visa application fees will increase on the 1st of September, 2013. Usually the new fees are increased by 5% to 10%. But this year the Australian Government has decided to increase all Australian visa application across the board by 15%. The increases are set to raise $542 million for the Australian Government over the next 4 years.   So if you are planning your trip to Australia, our tip to you is to apply for you Australia Working Holiday Visa before the 1st of september. This way you will save $55 and Read more

Strawberry Sue’s Thoughts

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Strawberry Picking Caboolture

G’day Guys, Strawberry Sue, ( Sue Mazi) was kind enough to write a few words for us and give you guys an insight into the strawberry picking season in Caboolture.. Our strawberry farms are located in South East Queensland, planting starts mid March and all being well and weather permitting our strawberries are ripe for picking until mid to late May. Millions of plants are planted in our state from Bundaberg to the border of NSW. However most of the farms are clustered around the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, near Caboolture and in and around the Glasshouse Mountains. Our season goes Read more

Confessions of A Blueberry Picker – Part 3

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Blueberry Picking

Melodies Story Continues…. If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 check them out now :) I have to confess that when I first heard that the farm I was going to be working on was paid per kilo, I had high hopes for myself. I am a seasoned harvester, having had harvest jobs in corn and cucumbers during my highschool days in Canada. I believed that this experience, combined with me having spent a majority of my childhood picking various fruits for my grandmother that I would be a legend! Not so.he first day at my first farm didn’t Read more

Fruit Picking Jobs, Our Message

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First of all guys, thanks for joining the community, we hope it’s enriched your Australian expeirence and made the process of find a harvest job that much easier. This vision started over beer when we Freddie and I ( Dimi) met a few years back in Byron Bay, Freddie was looking to get the 2nd Working Holiday Visa but was getting the run around, unable to find a clear website/source to find harvest work in a timely and transparent manner. Through the hardships of the experience we realised that their was a gap in the working holiday jobs market, there Read more

Confessions of a Blueberry Picker – Part 2

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Confessions of a Blueberry Pickers

Melodie’s story continues… If you missed Part 1, read about it here.  Do you know how many different types of jobs there are in the blueberry world? I had no idea, not until I started vying for the few fruit picking jobs available at the beginning of the season. Don’t let that be a deterrent to you in your fruit picking endeavors; the beginning of the season is only tough because the plants aren’t quite ready for the constant attention that we so desperately want to show them. The best jobs, the most lucrative (and also the worst in terms Read more

Stanthorpe Gillian’s next stop

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Gillian Fruit Picking Sunset

From Warwick, my boyfriend and I headed to Stanthorpe, a slighty larger town in the picturesque “Granite Belt.” Stanthorpe has an abundance of fruit picking work. It is mostly famous for its apples and vineyards but there are plenty of vegetables and stonefruit grown here too. It is also the coolest town in Queensland – its high altitude means it can get pretty cold in winter and the town has even seen snow in the past. We met up with some friends who were staying in a caravan park on the edge of town. They were paying $130 each per Read more

Gillians First Taste of Harvest Work

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Fruit Picking Adventure with Gillian

For our first taste of harvest work, my boyfriend and I got in touch with Ready Workforce, a harvest recruitment agency based in Stanthorpe to help us find a harvest job. They quickly set us up with work on a lettuce farm just outside of Warwick, a small town about 2 hours drive south west of Brisbane, famous for its annual Rodeo. We weren’t looking forward to the early starts (4.30am!) but as we would be working split shifts (4.30-10.30am and 3.30-6.30pm) we figured we would have plenty of time in the middle of the day to enjoy ourselves in Read more

Katie’s Rochester Tomato Picking Nightmare

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Tomato Farm

Katie recently worked in Rochester, this is her story….. Well it started off very upbeat, me and a group of friends were off to Rochester to go and pick tomatoes, not very glamorous but we had our job the 2nd year visa. We arrived on the bus and went to Rochester Hostel backpackers and called our contact. After waiting for 2 or 3 hours the guy came to say hello and that he would be back in another hour to get us. In that time we were able to cook at the hostel until he arrived. Another 2 hours passed and Read more

Young traveller loves Australian farm work

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backpackers love australia

Australian farm work is attracting young overseas travellers looking for employment and adventure as they enjoy extended working holidays ‘down under’. “I love it,” says Katrina Weiler, an enthusiastic young German traveller. She worked on Australian farms for four months doing mixed farming work on a beef cattle property and an alpaca farm. This agricultural work is changing the world view of the 22-year-old, city-based German events manager from near Frankfurt. Her positive experience helps supports the Australian Government’s latest tourism growth forecasts that estimate the value of tourism at $94 billion for Australia. Katrina Weiler says farm work is Read more