Rhymes with Cookie

We travelled all the way to Wellington without another stop and found the nearest camp site to the city. It was a pretty busy site, lots of travellers gathering round their picnic tables and vans, sharing their stories. We were cooking and chatting to a Swedish couple about where we'd been so far and our hunt for work when we were interrupted by a Chinese girl. She told us she'd just finished a job in agriculture close to where we'd already been, back up North in the Bay of Plenty. She told us there was a lot of work and lots of accommodation for travellers where she'd been and gave us a telephone number for the lady she worked for, assuring us there would definitely be work available to start straight away. 

The next morning, before heading in to Wellington and starting the dreaded process of job hunting, we called this lady, Arianna, to see if she had work. We decided that if she did and we could start immediately, we would drive all the way back and do the work to top up our funds. We could always come back to Wellington later if we wanted with a bit more time to hunt for the right kind of work, or we could travel on and on picking up these kind of jobs for the year. 

Arianna answered the call straight away. She sounded friendly and sweet and really enthusiastic. She definitely had work we could start straight away and  we were to call her as soon as we arrived in Te Puke (pronounced puck-ee apparently, not pewke).

And that ladies and gents, is how we found ourselves, later that same evening, in the centre of a town called Te Puke (THE KIWI FRUIT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!) brewing up, cooking and sleeping in a car park, by a public loo, beneath glaring street lamps, alongside a drunk, passed out on the back seat of his car, bottle in hand. This was a new low, even for us. 

The next morning we awoke, surrounded by early morning workers and kids waiting to catch their school bus. Not a great time to leap from the van, wearing pyjamas and run to the loo in desperation... but I did. Because I clearly have no shame. 

Later that morning we called Arianna and arranged to meet her in the McDonalds car park (I can't believe this town had a McDonalds - it consisted of one street!)  and carry on to start our first day at work in at least a couple of months. 

It was only on our way to McDonalds that we realised we didn't have the faintest idea what we were letting ourselves in for. We didn't have a clue what the work was, what our hours would be, how, how much or how often we would be paid. We'd travelled 500kms in one day and slept in a car park without an iota of information. Still, Arianna sounded like a nice lady. I imagined a brisk, strong, farmer type with a short, practical hair cut and rosy red cheeks all bundled up in outdoor clothing and raring to go. Instead we were greeted with a shrunken, stocky, slobby looking mixed race woman, with an incredibly long, tatty, greying, braid poking out of baseball cap and hanging by her hips. Her smile revealed many crooked, long, thin, teeth pointing in all directions, each one standing alone with a wide gap until the next. She was perhaps in her 50s and had with her two sulky daughters who remained in the car looking miserable. 

Hellos and quick handshakes were exchanged but we were back in the van before we knew it, following her to the place we would start our work, whatever that might be.

We were led to an orchard of low entangled trees, given a bag to strap to our front and within less that two minutes it was explained that we were meant to pick slightly blooming or almost blooming flowers from the male trees only, leaving behind any green or overly open buds behind and then we were swiftly left to our own devices and off we went, still not knowing how much we would be paid for our labour and really, what the hell we were doing. 

Now it doesn't sound like it, but flower picking is back breaking work, flowers are light enough until you have a whole load of them hanging from your front. My neck ached from constantly looking and reaching above my head and my lower back ached from walking on uneven ground. Still, we were making money - oh wait - how much were we earning? We asked a young, sprightly kiwi girl of about 18 and she explained that we were to be paid by the kilo. For every kg of flowers we produced by the end of the day we'd be paid $6.00 provided the quality was good. If they found green or closed flowers a percentage would be reduced. This didn't sound like a great deal to us but we figured if kiwis were doing it for their livelihood, it can't be too bad, right? And so we went back the next day. 

We worked our asses off from seven in the morning, until five in the evening without a break. By the end of the day I could barely move, we literally shuffled around, too exhausted to speak. We were hungry, hot and thirsty but hopeful we'd picked enough to make it worth our while.  We loaded our wares into Arianna's car and asked her to let us know how we'd done. At this point we were more than a little suspicious, we wondered why we'd never been told the rate of pay by Arianna herself, why there was no proper training, why the flowers weren't checked and weighed in front of us and why the hell someone would put themselves through such mind numbing and painful work for the number of years Arianna said she had. 

We were too knackered to question it then and instead left to check into the local backpackers, where there was just enough room to park Peggie on the lawn outside. Arianna's girls were living here as were a few of the other travellers we'd been working with that day. It was clean, cheap and cheerful supposedly. We paid for a week. 

Later that evening, Arianna pulled up to the hostel to return her girls and to let us know our start time for the next day. We were about to remind her we wanted to know how much we'd picked when the hostel door burst open and the owners ran out screaming and shouting, insisting that Arianna get off their land immediately. A bitter slanging match ensued. 

Hostel owners: "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Arianna: "Fuck you - speak to my lawyer!"

Hostel owners: "Lawyer?! Yeah right!"

Arianna eventually squealed away in her beat up car, arrogantly honking her hown as she went. 

The owners approached us and told us the tale of Arianna, the tale we wished we'd known earlier...

Apparently, Arianna is an experienced traveller rip off merchant. Paying the workers less than she is given by the farmer per kilo, lying about the weight they've picked and the quality and always skimming some off herself. They'd banned her from the site before as a result, and they warned us not to work for her.

At this point, we still didn't know how much we'd picked and so we text to check, deciding that if we'd picked enough to make at least minimum wage we'd crack on for the week only, if not, we'd sack it off and look for something temporary elsewhere in the area. 

We didn't get a reply. 

Despite the clear message that she was not wanted on the property, Arianna arrived at 6.30am the following morning to round up her troops for the day. Chad was up and ready to confront her. I was too chicken and so stayed hidden behind the blacked out windows of the van. There were no raised voices, no aggressive gestures and no fires started but Chad still came back shaking his head. "We're not going to work today" he said. 

Turns out that over our ten hour gruelling day we'd allegedly picked only 10kgs each, meaning we'd made $60.00 each, meaning we'd made £30.00 each, meaning we'd worked for £3.00 an hour!

As I mentioned earlier, Te Puke is a one street town, with only kiwi orchards surrounding said street for miles and miles. There was no work to be had - unless of course you don't mind utter exploitation. 

We had to stay for the week, we'd paid for 7 nights at the hostel and we wanted that pittance of a wage from Arianna and so we hung on, and on, and on... 

The days were long with free time and blisteringly hot. I started to write (this lot) and read lots of books and Chad started to run and train a lot in the evenings when the sun started to set.

Slowly going mad...

And so although we grew to despise Te Puke and the folks that ripped us off, some good came of it - well if you call this blog and the start of a mental illness good...

Fellow travellers - let this be a lesson to you. Don't bother with Te Puke. Seriously. 

Screw you kiwis