Seasonal work in Australia often means fruit picking. This case study shows the reality of fruit picking!

 

"Our first day was rather surreal. We had to get up at the crack of dawn to get to Dwellingup, in rural Western Australia. Then we were saddled with baskets that strap to your front that you fill up with various varieties of fruit.

Our first job was cherry-picking (no jokes please!) The morning was spent picking hundreds of cherries off trees and into our baskets, and then unloading them, very gently, into crates. The supervisor (whom we nicknamed "the fruit nazi") shouted at us if we didn't handle the fruit like baby birds. The afternoon was spent next to conveyor belt sorting our gently-picked cherries into sizes.

The first day was really good fun - the sun was out, there were other backpackers and you could chat freely or listen to music. By the end of the first week, we were bored silly and by the end of the first month, it was a struggle to go into work but overall it was a unique experience, we made some good friends, ate free fruit and padded our pockets with dollars."