Te Puke - Kiwi Fruit Capital of the World

Here we are at Te Puke to start our life as a kuli. Te Puke is a town located at southeast of Tauranga in the Western Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand. This town is the kiwifruit capital of the world, where New Zealand's booming kiwifruit industry begins. Kiwi fruit is now a major export crop of New Zealand. Every year, hundreds of local growers produce millions of trays of the traditional "Green" and the luscious "Gold" that are shipped worldwide.

After saying goodbye to alpacas village, we started our 4 hours drive to Te Puke. Along the journey, we passed by some beautiful scenery that stopped us awhile to take photos.

A beautiful I-Site at Hobbiton town

Hobbiton, a MUST VISIT here but we are too poor to join the tour now

scenery along the roadside

The first thing we do once we reach Te Puke -- Mc Donald's!!! Mr Kuo taught us several tips to save costs on how to order the set meal. We also tried the NZD1 Mc D's ice cream. The tastes is different with Malaysia Mc D's as the ice cream here has heavier milky flavour, and the cone is longer. After lunch, Chuen called the person in charge of our kiwi thinning job, and this is where our nightmare begins..........

The person in charge (we called him "head wind S") is a very arrogant and fierce people. Once we met him, he asked us to follow his car without a second word. He brought us to SEEKA food packing factory, and we saw him muttering to a 60 year old woman. After that, he asked us to follow this woman home. We were curious as we didn't know where are we going, how is the rental, and what's our working details. Hence, we called "head wind S" on the phone again to confirm everything. Unexepectedly, "head wind S" was irritated by our enquiries and he cut off the line. 

Nervously, we followed the woman's car. Four of us had the feeling like being "sold piglet", as we were not being informed in details about our job scope, working hour and the pay. The woman brought us to her home, it is a cottage with huge greens surrounding it. Now we knew that her name is Lynne. Lynne explained to us about the terms and conditions to stay at her house. Perhaps because she is rushing, her tone is abit fierce too. We also saw a lot of bugs flying in the bedroom. The feeling of uneasiness overwhelmed us, as this is so much different with the heaven we had just stayed.

Another devastating moment is when we realized that the wooden clog we DIY was broken. This make us worried as "head win S" emphasized that if we were not tall enough to pick kiwi buds, we wouldn't get the job. My height is a really big probolem, hence we thought of different sourts of way to increase my shoes height. Finally, we decided to stick few pairs of slippers underneath my canvass shoes, so as to increase my height and hope I could manage the job.

Hope everything goes well. This is what we pray for tomorrow.