Tractors, Kumaras and a lot of Mud!

Hey! Here's a short update on what we've been up to during the last 3 weeks in NZ. We stayed at the Kumara Box camp in Dargaville (north island) a couple weeks ago and I'd mentioned before that we were offered work. We changed our plans a bit so that we could come back up to Dargaville and earn some money. The Kumara box is one of the largest kumara farms in the area and there are many kumaras to be picked! So that's what we've been doing! There are 30 backpackers from Germany, America, France, England and Belgium helping with the harvest. We can stay near to the site which is handy and it's $10 a night to stay. We are still sleeping in our van but at least we have access to a warm shower and kitchen - just what you need after a day on the farm! If we wanted to work at a cafe, bar etc we would need to stay in a camp anyway, and that would cost more! So it's all good. We start work at 8am and finish at 5pm. The first day was a bit of a shock to the system - having to set an alarm! We soon got into a routine though. I'm enjoying how active the work is. You are standing all day and it requires good arm strength. Once the rows have been cut, we follow with our tractor and trailor. The conveyer belt brings up the mud and kumaras and the first person tries to shake off the mud/toss the big chunks of mud over. If it's been wet, the mud is hard to clean off and if it's dry, the mud is more like sand and the wind can blow the dust everywhere. So we either get covered in dust or it's really hard to clear off the thick mud. Anyway, you just get on with it! There are 3 or 4 people after you who pick up and clean the kumaras. It's as easy as that. We get 2 15 minutes 'smokos' and a 30 minute lunch. We have music on which keeps morale up (even if it is the same radio tunes everyday) and I try to keep my legs moving by dancing about while I'm working (whatever helps you get through the day eh). It's been nice meeting lots of new people and working in a team again. In the evenings, after taking turns in the shower and kitchen, we often share photos, teach each other card games or watch films. We've also had 2 group parties so far - one for a birthday and one for a lovely French couple leaving to hit OZ. We work Monday - Saturday and on Sundays we have been out walking and swimming at the nearby lakes. We've only had one day of rain so far so we're getting the rows harvested pretty quickly. I think we'll be needed for another 2 or 3 weeks so we're starting to look at our maps again to plan where to go next. We are looking forward to getting on the road again and finally heading past Auckland. Thanks for reading! I'll share more recipes and blogs once we're on the road again! The signal isn't great here so it takes too long to upload photos sorry! I managed to upload one photo of my mud/sun lotion face... X gf v x