After Five Jobs and 10 Months I Finally Completed My Regional Work

Sadly this isn’t a joke, it literally took me five different jobs and 10 months to finish my regional work in Australia. All to stay for a second Working Holiday Visa.

I wanted to share my experience of completing my regional work for a few reasons. Mainly for the hilarity of it all, but also just to show that completing regional work is a lot harder than you may think.

I never thought it would be easy, but I didn’t think it would be this hard.

These five jobs and ten months taught me there’s a lot of bad characters waiting to take advantage of backpackers. There’s also a lot of kind and honest farmers, just looking for reliable workers. Aside from the really tough times I enjoyed the entire experience to complete my regional work in Australia.

This all started in February, when I arrived in Australia. From the get-go I wanted to stay for a second year. I also didn’t want to work or stay at a working hostel because I was travelling in a van.

Before starting the regional work in Australia, I assumed if the government set these terms to complete the work, then it must be possible to achieve, right? Unless you’re up for being exploited, not necessarily.

Ready for regional work? Check out the best gear for regional work and tips on finding non-exploitive work in Australia.

This is my experience completing regional work in Australia through five jobs and ten months. It was hard, interesting and often exploitive.

First Job: Grape Picking in Heathcote, VIC

March – Regional days completed: 0

I found this job through the Harvest Trail website. I saw an ad posted, called about the job and arrived a few hours later in Heathcote. Over the phone the man said it was grape picking at a piece-rate.

I knew piece-rate was bad, but because it was my first job offer I decided to just try it out. Maybe all the other backpackers were just over reacting?

My partner and I arrived at night, but even the dark didn’t hide the mess of the house. It was a house, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Filled with backpackers and a few Turkish people. Everyone in the world seemed to be in this house except for the man I spoke to on the phone.

The backpackers in the house said they made about A$60 a day picking tomatoes. They added the work was hard, but the contractor was nice.

The next day I woke up and headed to the address I received from the contractor. My partner and I soon found out that we were the only ’employees’ from the contractor at this job. Through another employee we found out the work was paid hourly-rate at A$28 an hour (with tax).

Finding out this information I knew something was up. I called the contractor after our shift. He said the work was hourly, at A$15 an hour. I brought up what the other employee said. The contractor was adamant that the farmers only paid him A$15 an hour. We quit immediately.

We gave our bank details because the contractor said he would pay us later in the week. He didn’t. Instead we had to go back to the house we first went to and demand the money. It was in cash so the one day of work couldn’t be counted towards the regional work.

Second Job: Tree Planting in Kendall, NSW

June to July – Regional days completed: 25

It’s been three months looking for work and we haven’t found anything. Since grape picking, we continued our road trip up the entire East Coast of Australia while looking for work the entire time.

We did everything to look for work, such as asking locals, other backpackers, checked Facebook groups. Then applied online and in-person. After it all, we even went into farmers markets to ask farmers directly about job opportunities. Finally we heard back about a tree planting from Backpacker Job Board.

From Cairns we drove down to Kendall, NSW—close to Port Macquarie. I thought tree planting would be the best of the worst. Yes, it’s piece-rate, but back home in Canada, tree planting is a career for a lot of people.

For this job we lived in the bush, which is a great way to live free rent. However it’s not good for fungal infections, when you can only shower once a week.

The work itself was rough, even dangerous. Three out of the 10 people we started with quit in the first week due to injuries. After that, every new tree planter only stayed for a day.

About a week in to this job, we found out the actual boss, Simon Burns, of the operation isn’t great at paying his employees. We weren’t making good money, but every paycheque was late. Eventually we stopped getting any payment.

There was also noticeable problems with management team I worked with. Then, a mouse started going in my partner and I’s van where we slept. It was tiny and fast enough that once we turned on the light it was always gone. After packing up all of our food it, it chewed through our baby wipes—which we used to wipe off our sweat every night.

The next day we worked on hills steep enough, that with one slip I could break a limb rolling down. It also meant we could hardly plant enough trees to make our goal of A$100 a day (for about an 8 hr shift). We quit.

Third Job: Avocado Picking in Comboyne, NSW

August – Regional days completed: 10

At a brewery in Port Macquarie, we got the contact information for some avocado farms nearby in Comboyne. Avocado farms were supposed to be better than other regional work in Australia because it’s paid hourly and on family farms.

We met with one of the family farms in the area, and they agreed to give us work, but it wouldn’t start for about five weeks. I really trusted these farmers. They seemed kind, welcoming and honest. The pay was above minimum wage and we were quoted three to five months of work. We agreed to wait it out until the work began.

After a few weeks of staying at free campsites in the area, we moved into the farm house with another housemate. A bonus of living on the farm and picking avocados meant we had free avocados!

Finally the work started and it was amazing. I wanted to cry in happiness everyday that I had finally found a good, safe and reliable job. Three days after feeling this joy and my manager started to show his true colours.

He was a maniac with a side order of bi-polar disorder.

Suddenly everything fell to shit. My our actual bosses, whom had been so receptive and encouraged us to go to them if there were any problems didn’t believe that the super was acting this way. I only went to the bosses after our manager on the farm threatened to sack us for no reason.

This is when I felt the reality of being a backpacker in Australia. I went to the boss and three days later my partner and I got sacked.

Fourth Job: Avocado Picking in Comboyne, NSW

September – Regional days completed: 10

After being sacked, my partner and I felt humiliated and distraught for trusting the farmers. We kept searching for work, something to keep us going. Our housemate referred us to another farmer, who changed our mind of avocado farmers again to honest, trustworthy and kind.

The work itself was still hard, but we were no longer treated as just backpackers with no rights or a soul. Instead, we were treated as part of their family and paid minimum wage.

From the beginning, we knew that this job wouldn’t last long, as the farm was smaller. After working as long as we could, we moved on.

Fifth job: Dairy Farm in Kangaroo Valley, NSW

October to November – Regional days completed: 43+

After leaving the previous job in Comboyne, although it was a good experience I didn’t think I would actually complete the regional work. After so long in the country I started to feel like I had wasted time.

But the day we left, something which could only be magical happened. My partner got reply from reaching out to a job posting on a Facebook group. Without saying much a dairy farmer in Kangaroo Valley asked us to come down. As we were on our way to Sydney anyways, we just bi-passed it for the valley.

The downsides with this job were very evident from the first day. Milking cows means we get covered in cow poop. There’s flies everywhere, I actually (not on purpose) sucked a fly through my nose and swallowed it once. And, the milking shifts start very early, 4:30am for me.

My partner and I both work for different dairy farms in the valley. While we still sleep in our van, we have access to a full kitchen and bathroom. It’s a pretty sustainable life. So much so that we’ve decided to stay past our required regional work days to save up for more travelling.

The work is hard, but it pays minimum wage.

Regional Work in Australia: Is it Worth it?

I try not to live with regrets, but I don’t think regional work is worth it for everyone. It’s a really personal decision, and you could end up in dangerous situations. It doesn’t take long to do a quick Google search on the terrible situations people on Working Holiday Visas have gone through.

If you’re looking for advice on what to do after bad regional work situations, don’t feel obligated to stay in Australia if it’s not working out. It’s not a personal defeat if this happens, travelling is really tough.

My experiences doing regional work weren’t completely negative, I had time to learn about travelling and farming practices in Australia. More importantly, I understand what it feels to be a foreign worker without full working rights.

Based on my experience I don’t think it’s possible for everyone to complete regional work in Australia, regardless of determination, and superior employability. Take my experience as an example for if it’s worth it to go through. I can’t say if I would do it all again.

I’m really happy I can stay another year and that I didn’t leave Australia feeling bruised by the bad farmers I met. There are a lot of other backpackers I met that feel this way, though. Just remember not all regional work will be bad or exploitive.

Many good employers find it difficult to find good backpackers or other employees. Everyone has their own story and experience.

Want to learn more? Check out these articles for help on finding and completing regional work in Australia!

Best Gear for Regional Work in Australia, How to Survive Working in the Heat, Best Jobs to Complete Regional Work, Tips for Completing Regional Work, How to Find Non-Exploitive Regional Work and, How to Survive Regional Work