A Clockwork Orange Picker

So it has been a week since we piled some of our possessions into the van and headed off to the Riverland. Our destination? Renmark. Although a lot of people don’t know, in order for us to obtain a second year working holiday visa we have to work 88 days in a regional part of Australia doing some form of specified work. We decided to give orange picking a go. With our visa coming to an end mid February of next year we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get the 88 days of work in. Little did we know what we had let ourselves in for

The journey to Renmark was pretty scenic, it had been my first experience of stepping a proper foot out of Adelaide and gave us both a chance to see a part of Australia we had never seen. The drive took us almost 3 hours and we took in some awesome views of the River Murray. We arrived in Renmark that Sunday evening and drove straight to our campsite, a 5 minute drive away from the main town and a great spot on the Murray River (image below). During our entire stay here we had seen within metres of our van: a mother and baby koala up in a tree, a family of Kangaroos with a Joey bouncing around and a couple of possums hanging about. A truly Australian camping experience!

With light slowly fading on our first night, we decided to head over to our employers house to sign our contracts and find out what our job entailed. We were welcomed by a very lovely lady who gave us our contracts to read through and answered all the questions we had, however this is where we found out that a full days work doesn’t necessarily count towards our required 88 day visa requirements. See the image below which explains everything rather complicated below:

Essentially we’d worked out that we would have to pick an average of 5.3 bins each of oranges a day (Monday-Friday) to meet minimum wage requirements. We’d done some research previously as we knew that we would be paid per bin and found that these bins were more like large containers. Here’s one of the first bins we picked on day one:

With contracts signed and understanding a little more of what our work entailed, we headed to Woolies to get some dinner and headed back to the campsite where we tested out our new camping stove and cooked some pesto pasta for tea and had enough for lunch tomorrow.
The first sleep in the van was an unsettled one, despite probably one of our warmest nights I couldn’t stop thinking about picking oranges and what it was going to be like. Last night we had been instructed to head down to the MADEC building for our induction and training on how to pick citrus fruits. Photo’s taken and visa checked, we sat down and listened to a 30 minute video of what to do and what not to do on a farm in Australia. We then headed outside and gave our employer a call who then picked us up moments later and we followed them out to the farm. On arrival we were given our picking bags, safety glasses and gloves and were greeted by a Maori chap who again was very friendly and gave us a 10 minute tutorial on how to use all of our equipment, ladders and introduced us to our almost endless row of orange trees we were to pick.
We got cracking. Luckily enough we were surrounded by like minded backpackers who were all there for the same reason. Our row was right next to some guys banging out some tunes which certainly helped spur us on on our first day. I think we learnt a lot this day, the weather was overcast so we didn’t suffer in the heat, but we did experience some downpours that made our gloves drenched. What I didn’t know is that oranges don’t just grow on the outside of the tree but I found myself sometimes having to crawl on my hands and knees to get inside the tree. Also, oranges trees are covered in thorns! Thank goodness for the gloves but our hands and wrists still took a battering with every bin we were filling. Before we knew it, it was 4:45pm and we had managed to pick 4 full bins on our first day amounting to $100. We headed back to our campsite that night and struggled to cook dinner as the light faded. Pasta pesto again for tea and before we knew it we were shattered and asleep in bed by 8:30pm. We grabbed an early night knowing that we’d have to be up early to receive a text message of where we needed to be the following day and at what time.
The following morning we woke up with the sunrise, again another restless nights sleep but this time because it was absolutely freezing! We have insulated the floor of the van but we still need to do the walls, doors and potentially the ceiling. Gem had fixed up some makeshift curtains which helped retain some body heat but we definitely need to get some insulation sorted before our next trip. Saying that summer is coming around fast, but i’d definitely rather be too hot than too cold.
Our meet time was 8:30am and again we headed back to the same farm and the same row of trees we had been working on the previous day. The temperature was slightly warmer but thankfully no rain. Our gloves had managed to dry out in the morning sun and we even draped them over the heater in the van to get any remaining moisture out of them. We were a lot more positive today and before we sat down for lunch shortly after midday we had picked 3 bins. Averaging about 1 bin every 1 hour 10 minutes – good, but still nowhere the amount we needed to be picking to achieve minimum wage. We decided to head home at 4pm that day so we had enough time to shower and find some food in daylight. The heat got to us that afternoon and we ended the day on 5 bins, $125 earned.

That night we decided to head to McDonald’s for tea, Gem needed some wifi access to sort some forms out for GrainFlow (the grain harvest jobs we have secured to start in mid-October), we started to discuss why we were here and was it worth us putting our bodies through the pain for the little amount of money were getting paid. We wanted to obviously tick some of our 88 days off, but we worked out based on the information we had been given by our employers, we had the original intention to work for 9 days straight, but in the grand scheme of things – our earnings would only equate to 3 days each. In realising this we decided to work for one more day (which would have earned us enough money to pay off our campsite fee) and then spend the rest of the week exploring Renmark and some other areas of the Riverland.
Our third and final day of orange picking was similar to the day before, although slightly hotter and Gemma fell off her ladder, luckily not injuring anything. It started to seem from driving past other orange farms that we had been given probably the biggest and tallest trees to work on and also my row was so dense from dead twigs and thorns from a previous harvest i’m guessing. That at times I felt like I needed a sword to cut my way through to find sleeping beauty under one of these trees. Again, another 4pm finish and a five bin tally which we were glad to see the back of. We headed to McDonalds to grab a celebratory frozen coke and dropped our picking equipment back off at our employers house with no qualms or quarrels. Something that I imagine happens a lot.
Don’t get us wrong, but if we didn’t have our GrainFlow jobs to fall back on, we probably would have stuck it out for longer. Also, if we knew for certain that our days work actually counted for a days work there is no doubt in our minds we would still be there now. I’m intrigued to find out how true this information is, is it a ploy from our employer to get workers to stay on and work for them longer than the 88 days or is it actually a legitimate condition for us to earn a certain daily wage to allow us to tick off days towards our visa. Who knows? I don’t think anyone actually does! All in all, we had an experience into our first type of regional work and it was also a great chance to test the van out over a longer distance and also we feel like we have learnt a lot in terms of the work we need to do to get it ready for our big trip next year. And also what we can and can’t live without.
The remaining two days we spent in Renmark and the Riverland gave us a chance to explore the wonders of the Murray river and head out to some touristy attractions – Ruston Roses, the largest collection of roses in the southern hemisphere (unfortunately wrong time of year as the roses are yet to bloom). AlmondCo, an almond processing factory that more than 85% of Australia’s almond growers supply their factories with. An on our return journey a stop off at Waikerie where again we explored the town and saw some more of the Murray river.

We made it home that Friday to watch the mighty Adelaide crows reach the grand final which I’m very excited about next weekend. We also managed to get a mornings worth of weekend work (3 hours each) at a council run community dog walk event where we have pretty much earned close to the equivalent of what we did for 3 full days of orange picking.
It’s safe to say we both have a new found respect for oranges. The efforts and pains that pickers have to go through and also how many they have to pick to get some kind of a decent wage here in Australia. I worked out we would have roughly picked close to 23,000 oranges over our 3 days. So you never know, that next sip of orange juice you have may have come from the hands of one of us (although I highly doubt it).
Don’t forget to follow @HiaceVentura on Instagram for some more van updates soon!
Until next time.
Tom