Work at Rakaia Van Zanten Flowerbulbs

August 2008, few weeks after we left Blenheim for traveling,
finally we got a 3 weeks seasonal job offer from Van Zanten flowerbulbs when we at Lake Tekapo,
they got worker leaving so they need to fill up people for last few weeks.
Van Zanten locates at Rakaia, about 1 hour drive south from Christchurch and half hour up from Ashburton in Canterbury on the South Island.


Van Zanten is factory doing Lily flower Bulb Processing, they need people for cleaning, counting and packing the lily bulbs in order to export, the season start from May until end of august.
4 of us stay at Rakaia Holiday Park, it cost us 110 dollars each per weeks for staying in the cabin. Starting I really feel suffer staying there because the cabin don’t have kitchen and bathroom. We need to go out to toilet or even cooking and the problem is it’s freezing outside the room because of winter!

I work as packer in the factory, the machine packs the flower bulbs in the basket and mix up with dirt, and then I wrap it properly and put on the cover, that’s all what I do everyday. I only feel tough for first few days, because the machine is not slow, it comes out 3-4 baskets every minute and I need to follow that speed!

By the way, this job also become quite an easy task for me after I get used to it, just bit boring and the cold weather here make me feel cold for all the time.

This is my 3rd job at New Zealand during working holiday, as lily bulbs packer.

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