Picking Season (Keri Keri)

---

When I arrived back in Keri Keri, it was a nice treat to see the owners again who gave me and Leslie a hug and said welcome home. It did feel a little like home and we got moved into a lovely room, private and cheaper than the shite that we were staying in, in Te Puke.

As soon as I arrived I told reception that I was looking for work and got sorted out with two days work starting the next day. It was doing some gardening for an American fellar who was obviously minted.... however he was also as tight as a camels arse in a sandstorm. I did two days of surrounding his pristine fruit trees with fertiliser and compost and then his whole vegetable patch. He didn't mind telling me how much cash he had, but then only graced my palm with $90 when it came to coughing up time.

Although to fair I was given a bag of feijoa's (a fruit that tastes a little like a cross between banana and anticeptic.... I reckon) and some chocolates at the end.

Anyway it was only 2 days and I started work on the farm again after the weekend. It was such a treat after working on the big Pack-House controlled farms in Te Puke, to going back to the family run farm of Brad Davies and the mandarins... much better than kiwi fruit. It seemed quiet and peaceful and I could actually talk to the other workers.

It was Mandarin picking season and I was going to be supervising. It was strange to see all of the trees with orange fruit on them instead of the little green fellars that had been there a few months earlier when we had been doing the thinning work.

On the first day I did a few hours picking to get an idea of what was gonna be going on and then I was conscripted for a lesson on the tractor. It didn't consist of very much... just a couple of pointers... "here's the gear box"... "can you drive a car"... yes... "well its easy then"... and I was off. Only thing was I never drove a car with a set of fork lifts on the back and front.
The mandarin pickers (around 18 of them), would pick into 20kg crates and me and Chris, had to go around with bins, which could hold 11 crates and tip the crates into the bins. At first the picking was slow so we went around with a tractor with 3 bins on it... two on the back and one on the front and filled them up. The bins were loaded onto the front and back forks and then when full, driven around to the loading bay where I stacked them for the truck that came at the end of the day.
All was going well for the first few hours... I shat myself a little when the tractor fell into a hole on one side and I thought it was going to tip over... but apart from that everything was going fine. Then at the end of the first day I was going too fast up a hill and the back two (full) bins fell off, and 400kg of mandarins went all over the track... oh yes, what a treat that was to clear up!
Anyway after a while, the mandarins in the rest of the orchards started to ripen up and we moved on to the tractor with 6 bins on a trailor and I would be working 7am-6pm picking up crates of mandarins, driving the tractor, driving a fork lift and eating mandarins... eating loads of mandarins.
The most productive day of picking we had, we picked 73 bins or 14.5 tons.

The nicest tasting mandarins are the very smallest ones, they have the most sugar and are bloody lovely. When I was on the back of the trailor when I wasn't driving, I would be having a gobble of the fruits in the bins. If it wasn't perfect it would get launched.

Little did I know that the sunny north went through their wet season in May and we got a fair old spanking in the field. Some torrential downpours... and luckily... unlike the kiwi fruit, we could work in the rain.
Every single night I would come home knackered and filthy, but would be ready for it all over again the next day.

Apart from the incident on the first day of dropping two bins of fruit I was quite good with the machinery... well except a couple of incidents:-

1. Had to be rammed with the tractor after getting the fork lift stuck in the soft gravel... destroying some neighbours' trees in the process

2. Smashed a palm tree in half outside a farmers' house, whose orchard we picked, with the fork lift.

3. Nearly rolled the forklift trying to see how fast it could turn at speed

4. Nearly reversed the fork lift off a 4 metre drop... needed pulling out with the tractor

5. Got the tractor and full trailor stuck leaning over a gully after power sliding it around a muddy corner after it had been raining. It was leaning right over and nearly tipped over with a ton of fruit on the back.

But apart from that... perfect.

I was working Monday to Saturday in the orchards and Leslie had gone back into working in the pack houses... again for kiwi fruit... all day turning kiwi fruits and making sure they weren't damaged; to be exported to the UK.

So we only had Sunday off together, and the occasional day when the weather was so bad we couldn't work. A couple of sundays, we hitch hiked to Paihia seeing as we didn't have a car. It was funny and again we didn't have too much trouble in getting there, although it did take 3 cars to make it.

We also went down to the farmers market that is held every sunday in Keri Keri and they had loads of different try before you buy products and drinks... there was a lot of trying going on but not very much buying. Also, Brad's (the owner of the farm) wife was there selling some mandarins that we had picked. I learned a cunning tactic that they use at home as well which is to put them into a red netted bag, which make all of the mandarins look more orange and more appealing... cheeky.

We spent most evenings after work just cooking then learning some Spanish or English or just chilling.

One night I had a call from Glen from Australia who said that she and Uncle Roy were in the area, coming towards the end of a travel around New Zealand and so they came to see me and took me out for a meal at a local restaurant. It was nice to see them again and they gave me a bag of kiwi fruit, which I had an unlimited supply of anyway, but it was nice.

At the start of May, Leslie had to leave New Zealand and go back to Chile. It was very sad and i didn't want her to go but we didn't have a choice. I moved into a new room, but I was able to stay in a double room, on my own but for the same price.

After a week a kiwi bloke called John moved into the room. He turned out to be a sound guy and had lots of interesting stories about travlling, living rough in Australia and his Maori family.

So I carried on working for another month and a half after Leslie left and had a few sessions with a few of the guys in the park at the weekend when I wasn't working. Until the picking came to an end mid-June. We all got invited around to the owners house again, like after the thinning work, and had a big barbeque; really nice and free lagers for the evening.

We then had a much needed few days off, maybe 4, before the next job on the farm started. The mandarin pruning. This job didn't need any supervision from me so I was pruning... We were armed with a pair of loppers, seceteurs and a saw that would whip a hand off, piece of piss.
The mandarin trees all needed to be chopped down so that sunlight could get through to all the leaves and there was space for the new growth for the new year. It was bloody hard work as we worked our way down the rows, lopping chopping and sawing the living daylights out of the trees... they really go massacred.
However this job was paid by the tree so the faster you went, the more you got paid. So I went mental... I was earning a $200 a day and up to $300 by the last day... it was obscene, but the only reason that I could do this was because I had sorted out a job over the phone for a ski season. This meant I only had to do the work for 2 weeks and then I'd be off. I couldn't wait, although it seemed a shame to leave the good money that I was making.

Whatever... on the 23rd June I was off... leaving Keri Keri again and heading south for my job that I had acquired for the winter season on the North Island ski resort of Mount Ruapehu.
I left by bus and spent two nights of carnage with James in his flat in Auckland... an ex gay brothel on one of the dodgiest streets in the city... full of prossies, trannies, drug dealers and anything else you can think of.
It was a good couple of days and then it was another bus down to the ski resort... but thats the next blog...

Long time no write = long time no read.


Craig

---

Photos

Mandarins
The mandarin picking season in Keri Keri. Many many were gobbled

Farmer Jack
On the little red tractor

Bins of Mandarins
Nicely fork lifted into place by my fair hands... this day there was only 6 tons

Picking Clobber
The picking bag and gear snippers that the pickers wore for the season. Stylishly modelled

Autumn
Check out that beautiful tree in Autumn

Paihia
Out by the water in Paihia

Stone Store
Keri Keri's main claim to fame... The building behind on the left is called the Stone Store; New Zealands oldest building (1936). 40 years older than our house at home

Roy & Glen
They took me out for a meal when they came up for the night. I had a bloody lovely portion of ribs

Picking Team
At the BBQ at the end of the picking season

Outside Aranga
Me and Leslie outside the entrance to the Aranga Holiday Park

Hitch Hiking
Not having much luck after being dropped off in the middle of no where on the way to Paihia

Dirty Socks
My mate Scott from the camp highlighting the delightful selection of dirty socks collecting outside my room

Life is like a...
Box of chocolates, as a gift for 2 days hard labour at an American's house

My Tractor
Nearly rolled that little bad boy one day

Fruit Selection
We had an unlimited supply of Mandarins, Kiwi Fruit and Feijoas for the season

Rows and Rows
Quite a tight squeeze getting the tractor and trailor down the rows to collect the mandarins

Comments

[mum]

untitled
Really fantastic and entertaining blog as always xxx