This Autumn past we worked in a kiwifruit packhouse in the Bay of Plenty – Bay of Plenty kiwifruit. It passed quite quickly. We worked mostly three days on and one day off which didn’t leave much time for thinking about it. Or saying about it. We were working ten-hour days which didn’t leave much sunlight or leisure time either.
We chose to work day shift this year. Which meant we saw less of the day and more of the dark. But we stayed in synch with the rest of the world which was better. We worked on the same shift on different sides of the packhouse. Wyn was an In-Line Quality Checker and I was a trolley boy. I had a trolley-barrow for moving pallets of empty boxes. Wyn had a trolley for checking little kiwifruits and their labels and their packaging.
Kiwifruit packhouse. On the left we line the empty boxes with plastic liners. The boxes pass under the lines of kiwifruit to the packers who pack the little kiwifruits into them. Wyn worked on the end of those packing lines It was my job to keep the tray/box liners supplied with boxes.
Ross the trolley boy. I zoomed around with my trolley moving pallets of boxes to where they were needed. It kept me busy and warm. I am not usually as fuzzy as I look in this photo.
The two of us almost at the end of the season. Wyn had a red apron because she was special. I had a hi-viz vest. It has just occurred to me that nobody explained why I needed a high-viz vest or what danger I was being protected from.
Wyn and friends on the packing side – the season was almost over and this made people happy.
[Photos taken on my Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 phone and processed with Lightroom. The low-light meant a struggle for the phone camera.]
