Gaining 88 days work between now and end of August - possible?

[bar100]

Just found this forum the other night, thought Id join and ask for some advice.

 

Me and my girlfriend arrived in Sydney last August and have been here since. We are renting a unit until May 1st, so were planning on staying till then, then hopefully doing our 3 month farm work/regional work then, and staying for another year.

 

However, Im just off the phone to the Harvest Trail helpline, and the woman advised that it would be very difficult to gain the days needed for a second year visa in the time between 1st May and August 28th. She stated the bad weather as the main obstacle. However, after this info she wasnt that informative, or helpful.

 

Is there any places just now that regional work is still thriving? Ideally it would be paid work, as we would hope to save up a bit to travel in Oz once farming is done. but if necessary, volunteer work would also be cool. We were advised to go further north of Sydney, to try and keep getting the sun, as aposed to going to Victoria, which weve been advised might be colder.

 

Basically any info about any of this would be appreciated. Cheers.

[Ken]

It's harvest season in Victoria at the moment (runs until the end of Autumn i.e. May) but work drops off the later it gets and people who've already been recruited (and so are known to be good) are the ones who are kept in place so there are few opportunities for newbies. There is little farm work for anyone during the winter months (June, July and August).

 

PS forgot to mention the further north you go doesn't necessarily help - the fact that Victoria is further south means the harvest season is actually longer so as to give the crops more time in the ground or (in the case of grapes) on the vine.

[PositivePixie]

From our experience, the Harvest Hot Line is worse than useless, they only ever tell you there isn't any work, and are very negative we've found (although I completely understand why). Best bet is to find a Harvest Office - they are called different things in different areas, but basically get a copy of the Harvest Guide book (you can download a copy online, or visitors centres sometimes have them, even if they are out of date, that doesn't matter) and look through to an area you think you might want to go to, phone the office there (they don't all have an office, but generally any picking area will have one in the region, thats the place to go - eg in Victoria near Shepparton, its in Shepparton, but there are loads of other smaller towns all around that area that pick, they just don't have their own office). We have found the individual offices are far far better placed - basically thats because the hotline only gets work in for farms that are toally and utterly desperate - and most of them aren't anymore due to the WHV thing (everyone wants to get teh 2nd year given the state of Europe!). The offices however get the local farmers using them as standard, as they know they have a stream of workers that have already had all the checks etc done on them, so its less hassle for them.

 

We struggled to get work in Emerald, QLD for eg, there isn't any labour office - but in Shepparton, had work within 1 day.

 

Bare in mind that the weather hasn't been great and that things are all a little off apparently with regarsd to timing, but basically get a copy of the harvest guide book and go from there. WWOOFing is another way as well, have a look on their website

 

Good luck

[cloclostravels]

I did my farm work beginning june til beginning sept (2 years ago) In far north qld. I was at a working hostel in atherton. I was mainly doing potatos and avacados. Potatos came into season around august time I think. But probably check out working hostels also try tully/innisfail (north qld) as bananas are all year round.

[bar100]

Thanks for the advice. il try and get onto some of these and see if theres anything going.

 

With a working hostel, you could be working anywhere for any length of time yeah? Like a week here and there, so you would need 88 actual days as aposed to 3 months?

[cloclostravels]

Yes that correct it needs to count for the actual days. Thats why bananas are a good one (as much as people moan it is hard work) You are likely to be working 5 days a week as it never goes out of season. Unlike some farms I worked on such as potatoes if it was raining work was cancelled etc.