Oz harvest trail work

Hot Dog

I am over here in oz, in perth to be exact and its great! I am currently working here until early december, when I am thinking I will go backpacking. I would also like to get a second W+H visa, so i need to do 3 months seasonal work (the Harvest Trail). Has anyone done such seasonal work in oz, what were you r experiences? I would like to try my hand at some kind of marine work, i.e fishing or prawning, but also some good ol' fruit picking!

the dee

Hi, I didn't personally do any harvest work but the government website jobsearch.gov.au/harvesttrail/ (I think) has a list of all positions available. To get the second working holiday visa there are specific areas you need you work in (generally the most remote ones where they need workers most) I'm not sure if fishing or marine work counts as it mostly seems to be fruit picking in the countryside.

2 of my friends did fruit-picking for 3 months and really enjoyed it. They said it did get a bit dull at times but they made lots of friends and saved up lots of money for the rest of thier trip as they didn't have much to spend their wages on. Hope that helps!

Larianne

Do NOT, I repeat, do not work on banana farms! Worst job ever, EVER!

Mangoes also aren't great as you can get mango rash or get burnt by the sap.

Cherries is meant to be quite an easy one to do as well as Apples.

You can ring up Harvesttrail and say you want to go to a certain part of Australia and are there any jobs going. Depends on the season on where the jobs are.

There's plenty of work down south of Perth in the vineyards. Working up in NT can have better conditions, like free/cheap accomadation as it's hard to get people to go there to work. The east coast, around Bundaberg etc is probably the worst as there are so many backpackers around there the farmers treat everyone like **** (esp. if you cannot speak english. poor Koreans!).

Any of that Marine work should be counted towards a 2nd visa but make sure you find out from the government first. A lot of people end up doing work for nothing!

You can also do tree planting and pruning. And also, even working in a shop in a remote area can be classed as seasonal work. Found that one out after all the blood, sweat and tears.

It can be hard work but you meet some interesting people and get to meet real australians! Normally on the run from somewhere!

Missred84

Hi,

I'm heading to India in a few wks & plan 2 do oz for a year also.
Does anyone know how difficult it is to find seasonal work without paying an agency such as visafirst or internoptions to set you up? It seems to be pricey enough to go through these agencies.