Kia Ora,
It's Teo. I am back. How is the corona crisis in your country? Australia is going bad. Victoria is now at the end of the 2nd week of lockdown, whilst in New South Wales a cluster has erupted and exponentially exploded.
I hope you are safe and also your country.
Today, I am going to tell you one of the most unforgettable memories in New Zealand: growing avocado in heaven!
GROWING AVOCADO IN HEAVEN
Well, to me, and maybe to others, New Zealand is a real heaven. Especially, the avocado farm which I used to work for was a paradise in heaven. The farm is located in the North of Auckland, New Zealand: Tapora, and the farm name: Avocado Heaven.
I forgot one thing, people don't say "farm" in New Zealand, they say "orchard". So it is a 320-hectare of Hass avocado grown on the top of mountains.
According to my memory, the orchard has 100 blocks, one block as large as a football ground.
Every morning before getting into the orchard, we were all given a map to know the way. Everyone has a Quad with all tools to do things.
MULTICULTURAL ORCHARD
If you had once experienced a backpacker life, you would know that you always have chances to make friends with many guys from around the world.
When the first day I came to Avocado Heaven, there were 2 guys from Malaysia, 2 girls from Singapore, and 1 girl from Taiwan. On the following days, there were some more Japanese guys coming.
Chia Ki in the left with Japanese guys
IT WAS A FK HARD JOB
To be honest, growing avocado is really hard. To have a good block of avocado, we had to do a hundred tasks: taking care of avocado from the nursery, digging holes, tensile wire to align, growing elephant grass to block the wind when avocado was still young.
We only worked 8 hours a day. In the morning, we did hard tasks such as digging holes, driving piles, pulling water pipes. The afternoon was for relaxing tasks like taking care of pine trees fence, cutting and growing elephant grass, poking bees... I loved poking bees so much, this activity has so much fun.
Wind and dust
This is Andrew. A guy quitted school but read books every time
A block as large as a football ground
A PARADISE MOTEL
It was not easy to find accommodation in Tapora, there was the only motel owned by a retired woman. But believe me, it was a paradise place to me. In the first 2 weeks of my avocado life, I lived with a super beautiful Japanese girl named Chia Ki. She was very adorable. I thought I had felt in love with her so many times. Unfornaturely, she left after working hard for only one month. I had no more reason to stay also.
Chia Ki lived in one of those 2 small houses.
A small alpaca farm
REAL WILD NATURAL
This place was a real wild place. Located very far from crowed. It took 2.5 hours to go to market. We went to the city once a week to buy food. And the way? Thru forest and up to the sky. I almost lost my life once when I drove down the mountain.
I spent almost my free time discovering surroundings and found out that this place has few people living. Seeing someone on the street was a very lucky thing.
The surroundings are mountains, valleys, wild birds, wild pigs, wild geese. It looked like the human activities were still not affected yet.
ENJOYING AVOCADO LIFE
Oops, seem like I wrote too much, no more words from now. Please enjoy the photos to see how I got into the job:
2-year-old avocado
A colorful man
Fishing in the orchard
There is a river that flows through the orchard. We can fishing when the high tide bring fish into the river
A plum orchard on the way from Avocado Heaven to the city
Cheers,