During the ten months of my working holiday, I worked a grand total of 8.5 New Zealand backpacker jobs. All the classics; I picked some fruit, harvested some veggies, scrubbed loos in lieu of paying rent, and poured frothy pints for weary fishermen and my fellow broke backpackers.
After spending 7+ years working in offices in London, I longed to work outdoors. Or do anything that didn’t involve staring at a computer screen and pretending to be awake in meetings all day. I wanted to surround myself with greenery, mountains, and anything other than four walls. This is why I looked for New Zealand backpacker jobs in agriculture and hospitality. Which by the way, if you’re headed to New Zealand yourself and are seeking work, are in abundance.
Table of Contents
New Zealand backpacker jobs and me
So, about those 8.5 New Zealand backpacker jobs. This is exactly how I funded my travels thanks to my New Zealand working holiday visa:
1. Bartender
One of the most enjoyable jobs I’ve ever had. Especially on a busy Saturday night when I got to briefly work on the door and deny entry to people I didn’t like.
2. Cleaner
Scrubbing the loos and, quite literally, putting out kitchen fires in the communal area of the campground I lived in. Why would you start frying up a steak dinner then take a shower?
3. Apple Picker
It was all peachy until I got fired.
4. Farm Labourer
This one sounded more Herculean on my contract than it did in reality.
5. Barcode Ninja
Basically, counting pens. Not an ideal job for someone who can’t actually count. As a testament to this, I counted my New Zealand backpacker jobs wrong on this blog and am editing the list as we type.
6. Summer School Childcare Assistant
Easily the worst job I’ve ever had, but my car was heading to its grave and I was desperate.
7. Mystery Shopper
Going undercover to make sure innocent salespeople are up-selling things to equally innocent shoppers who only want to browse in peace.
8. Freelance Writer
Spending many long cold nights and short cold days living alone in my camper car with my journal steered me in this direction.
8.5. Life Model
This didn’t actually happen in the end, so it’s my .5 because it’s a funny story.
Oh, and one day I decided to deliver leaflets in exchange for hard cash until I was deterred…
Highlights of my experiences
Alright, here is a breezy overview of each of my New Zealand backpacker jobs!
Bartending in the Bay of Islands
The very first job I took in New Zealand was up in the Far North, the Bay of Islands. It sounds like something out of Game of Thrones but in reality, it’s more like a Kiwi Home & Away. I parked up in the tiny resort town of Paihia – the sunniest nook on the whole North Island – and it just felt like home.
“Gorgeous here in summer, it’s hard in winter, mind…” local residents would twitter and warn me about the gloomy grey skies and frequent downpours that came at the end of the season.
Anyway, I took a job in a craft beer bar and it was ace! The bar hosts live music and events like poker and drag queen bingo every evening. A generous staff discount went down a treat and afforded me a weekly burger meal. The guys I worked with felt like extended family and the customers were a genuinely lovely bunch (99% of the time).
Truth be told, I struggled with the Kiwi accent when I first arrived, which led to several miss-poured drinks. Plus, my new nickname, of ‘Miss Pour’. Apologies again to the woman who ordered a bottle of San Pellegrino and instead received a glass of white wine with a slice of lemon in it. Canadian accents also proved challenging. I’m not sure who was more embarrassed when I mistook a woman’s order for ‘wedges’ as ‘white jizz’.
Happy camping
Or, how to not pay rent on your New Zealand working holiday
Whilst living in Paihia, I earned myself a free parking spot at the local campground. All I had to do was clean the communal loos and wash the shared kitchen each morning. That even included Christmas Day morning, ho ho ho.
A low point of this job was the (inevitable) unblocking of a clogged loo. Fortunately, whichever happy camper was responsible left an (unapologetic) note of warning. On the other hand, claiming food left behind in the fridge by travellers hasty to hit the road was a major perk. A weird thing that happened during this employment was Christmas Day night when a rogue backpacker tried to scramble into my van around 2 am. Note to self: always lock camper car doors in future.
If you’re headed to Middle Earth on your own working holiday visa, one of the easiest New Zealand backpacker jobs to snag is cleaning. Most of the hostels take in cold, hungry nomads and provide food and lodging in exchange for cleaning or reception duties. Alternatively, there are heaps of paid cleaning jobs in the hotels and motels as well. These ones pay hard cash, rather than the work-exchange like what I did.
Working in farming
No New Zealand working holiday can be signed off until you’ve flexed the muscles with a bit of agricultural labour. As an autumnal Farm Labourer, I worked on the potato harvest.
There, I spent my days on the back of a combine harvester which would harvest (as harvesters do) the potatoes from the ground. Potatoes made their way up, through the harvester through a series of frightening-looking mechanics, and up to my perch. Once there, alongside my Kiwi comrades, we’d grab the crap off the veg as they trundled past on said frightening-looking mechanics. Stuff like stones and sticks, mud, and (sometimes) rats. Basically, anything that you wouldn’t want to find in your bag of spuds from Pak ‘n’ Save. And they came thick, heavy and fast. My arms will never be so buff again.
I worked on the harvest for a little over a month. When the sun was out and the skies were clear, we’d work from 7 am until 7 pm (sunrise until sunset). This might last a couple of days. But then the infamous New Zealand rain (and/or wind) struck and work would be cancelled for a day or two.
One blustery day, my agent placed me in a ‘grading’ shed instead. This is basically the 2:0 of the potato harvest. Once harvested, the potatoes are delivered at the shed for assessment where we send them off to either become french fries or cow feed. So, we worked in a shed rather than a harvester and the potatoes came out of boxes rather than the ground. Again, frightening-looking mechanics are involved. During the afternoon, the manager appeared with a shotgun and shot a couple of pigeons who were dozing in the beams of the shed and crapping on the spuds. 100% rustic farming experience.
An apple a day
Let’s slide back a few weeks to my fleeting career as an apple picker. I mean, if you didn’t pick some fruit on your New Zealand working holiday, does it even count?
The hours were decent: a civilised 8 am start and a bang-on-the dot, 5 pm finish. We received a 30 minutes unpaid (boo) lunch break (taken in the orchard), and two paid (woo) ‘smokos’. Brits, that’s the chain-smoking Kiwis’ equivalent to our tea breaks.
Before we could be let loose on the apples, myself and the rest of my cohort of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed apple pickers spent several hours in induction. There, we learned all about the art of apple picking. We acquainted ourselves with health and safety to make Evel Knieval proud and rules such as:
- Don’t fall off the ladder
- Don’t get run over by a tractor
- No throwing apples in the crate
- No throwing apples on the ground
- Or at the other apple pickers
- Don’t bruise/scratch/sneeze on/eat/lick the apples
- Don’t touch the apples
- Don’t go to the bathroom more than is absolutely necessary (once a day is sufficient)
Once a fully-inducted apple picker, I strapped a bib-esque bucket to my upper body and armed myself with a nifty little ‘snipper’. We were forewarned that if we lost these little stalk-chopping tools we’d be liable to hand over hundreds of New Zealand dollars. Plus, our firstborn children. The final touch was the ladder, which I shared with my apple-picking partner in crime, Angie.
Unfortunately, apple picking wasn’t to be. I was fired one week into my five-week contract at the orchard. On the bright side, I had enough apples in my camper to see me through the cold winter.
Barcode Ninja
After I got fired from the apple orchard, I went straight to the Backpacker Board (the holy grail of New Zealand backpacker jobs). By fluke coincidence, there was a listing for the exact town I was in. This was a surprise because that particular town, Timaru, is tiny and contains a higher population of penguins than people.
A friendly Kiwi instructed me to report at the town’s stationary shop for 6 pm where I would count stock into the early hours. In place of my apple snippers, I was now equipped with a little barcode scanner and tasked with zapping, counting, and checking the figures were the same. It should be pretty straightforward, but, as someone who can’t count or hold my concentration for more than 20 seconds… it’s not. Especially when faced with the task of physically counting 300+ protractors.
But, it was a pretty handy form of income. And, I kept working with the company when I moved to Christchurch to house sit over winter. Morning shifts were ad hoc and I’d usually work from 6 am until around 10 am, leaving the rest of the day all clear. For…
Mystery Shopper
That’s right, I went undercover and worked as a mystery shopper in Christchurch. I was generally assigned phone companies and petrol stations, plus the occasional home office store. The petrol stations were a very sweet deal. In addition to receiving my (tax-exempt pay), I got NZ$20 worth of petrol and up to NZ$5 to spend on coffee and chocolate.
I did feel like a phoney asking phone contract sales advisors to explain all their tariffs to me with no intention of buying. I also felt foolish when I had to take a covert photo of the ‘storefront’ when in most cases the store was a booth in a mall. Although, the most foolish I felt was when I accidentally mystery-shopped the wrong phone shop.
Mystery shopping is a handy little aside to any other New Zealand backpacker jobs because it’s tax-free.
Freelance Writer
Come May, when that blazing Kiwi summer sunshine is exchanged for frosty evenings, I was colder, hungrier and significantly poorer. My seven weeks of agricultural work had afforded me some new tires and a month to explore the Southland and Rakiura/Stewart Island. It’s true what they say, New Zealand is expensive.
Knowing my visa was coming to an end soon, I turned my attention back to remote work.
Whilst travelling in Southeast Asia, I’d freelanced as a publicist and taught English online. However, I’d also used the time to research and read about getting started as a freelance writer. At the time it seemed like an unattainable source of work. But, after spending some head-clearing months in beautiful Aotearoa, I was ready to throw myself into it. So, whilst house sitting over winter I used the time to build a portfolio and find my first clients.
Life Model
And about that .5 job. Mission aborted: Aunt Flo came knocking early that month.
New Zealand backpacker jobs 2:0
Besides working various New Zealand backpacker jobs, my working holiday visa also gave me the opportunity to dabble in a few more alternative experiences.
Here are a few things I did in exchange for food and/or lodging.
Work-exchange at an animal sanctuary
In exchange for food and a warm bed in the depths of the deepest, darkest South Island, I volunteered at a vegan animal sanctuary. For one week, I spent my days shovelling crisp autumn leaves (and less crisp horse and sheep poo).
Actually, most of the day was spent being PA to five extremely demanding (but utterly adorable) whippet pups. Although, I think tucking four giant pigs in under their blanket at night might take the biscuit for my favourite duty. That breathed a whole new light into the ‘pigs in blankets’ idea.
Volunteer in the New Zealand Coast Guard
One thing I’ve always wanted to do is work with boats. Whilst living in London, I learned to sail dinghies and I dream of having my own houseboat one day.
Whilst looking for jobs in Christchurch, I came across an ad that the Canterbury Coast Guard needed more volunteer crew. There was no monetary payment, but signing up as a Coast Guard trainee came with heaps of nautical training. So I spent my last few months volunteering and learning how to rescue tipsy kayakers and straighten up capsized yachts.
Bay of Island day out
Back up the Bay of Islands, I got a free day out to Urupukapuka Island courtesy of Explore Group. They were refreshing their branding with new content and needed a couple of humans to populate the photos.
In exchange for a day of frolicking under the tropical sun, I was filmed for a new promo video. This saw my first attempt at stand up paddleboarding being captured by a roving camera team zigzagging around me on a motorboat. More importantly, it gave me a chance to work on my ‘reclining a bean bag with a glass of wine’ pose.
House sitting
Before arriving in New Zealand, I’d signed up as a house sitter and completed a couple of sits in Southeast Asia. There were ample listings in New Zealand, so I booked in a couple of assignments in winter when it was too cold to live in my camper car.
I absolutely love house sitting. For me, the hardest thing about living a nomadic life is not having my own cat or dog. House sitting means I get to pamper other peoples’ pets and indulge in some fur-therapy. At the same time, I’ve made some truly special friends and am still in touch with a number of people I’ve house sat for.
House sitting was a great way to take a pause from the typical New Zealand backpacker jobs and focus on building my writing career too.
Takeaways
In all honesty, I loved my working holiday visa experience. Working whilst travelling gave me much more insight into the character of the country and the chance to travel to more offbeat places in New Zealand. Hanging out with Kiwis, I came to understand the quirks of the Kiwi humour and the pride they have for their beautiful country. Even if I often couldn’t completely understand what was being said beneath that adorable accent.
A working holiday in New Zealand is way to learn more about the industries that keep the country pumping away. And, I can finally tell you the difference between an IPA, an APA and a simple PA.
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