A working holiday visa to New Zealand allows you to work in a variety of jobs, with one of the main attractions for many young travellers being seasonal work such as fruit picking and vegetable harvesting. This type of work requires no previous experience, provides training on the job, and is available almost all year round. This article explains the working holiday visa, what seasonal work is available, where and when, and what working holiday travel insurance you will require for your trip.
Working Holiday Visa
With winter settling in over the southern hemisphere, now is the time to start planning your summer trip to New Zealand. If you are eligible, the New Zealand working holiday visa is a perfect opportunity for you to enter New Zealand (NZ) and work legally. NZ currently has agreements with 34 countries and the visa allows you to work here for 12 months, and up to 3 months for any one employer.
You can apply online for your visa on the Immigration NZ website. Here they provide a list of Countries that are part of the working holiday agreement, age and other criteria, and they outline they process you have to follow to successfully apply for your visa. Applying for your visa isn’t hard, and the application usually doesn’t take very long.
Seasonal Work
If you time it right, then you can arrive just in time for fruit picking season. During this season you can pick up work harvesting or packing fruit, vegetables and grapes, pruning trees, and help maintain crops.
The beginning of the season is usually about October, this is when strawberries come into season. The regions strawberries are grown include the Waikato, Hawke’s Bay and Horowhenua. You could stay picking strawberries right through to March, otherwise the summerfruit harvest starts in November in the Hawke’s Bay and December in Central Otago. Summerfruit includes cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums. The season for summerfruit goes through to early March. In mid-February to mid-May you will get the apple harvest in regions mentioned above and in Nelson.
All growers will provide on the job training, so all they require is for you to be fit, and have good vision! Fruit harvesting is the perfect way to see the Country, and meet locals and other Biutifuloficial while earning money.
Working Holiday Travel Insurance
Whenever you travel it is important to have appropriate travel insurance. If you are travelling to NZ on a work visa, then you are also required to have adequate medical insurance. There is a wide range of travel insurance policies available through a number of different insurers.
Working holiday travel insurance should protect you for a range of activities, including horticultural work, and cover areas such as medical expenses, repatriation, lost baggage, theft etc.
