If you take a right turn off the Barton Highway, not far past the village of Hall on Canberra's outskirts, you might find yourself at an organic orchard called Loriendale. Today was the annual Apple Day at Loriendale, so we (and several hundred other Canberrans) decided to head out of town for a few hours.
The orchard was established by Owen and Noreen Pidgeon in 1982. My children were especially keen to visit as, up until her retirement at the end of last year, Noreen was the librarian at their school.
Apples aren't their only crop - they also have quinces, pears, hazelnuts, potatoes, stone fruits and tomatoes, and we saw some rows of strawberries hiding in there too. There are other berries in summer, bantam hens loose in the orchard, and sheep.
You can visit and buy their produce at other times of the year, but on Apple Day there are all sorts of things for sale, including fruit pies, fruit and potatoes. You can see apples pressed for fresh juice (and then buy the juice by the cup or bottle), sit on the lawn and be entertained by local musicians, and the kids had fun in the wire & hessian maze.
3 comments:
That sounds like my every dream come true. And I do like their names: Owen & Noreen Pidgeon. Suits their farm in some wierd way ...
One of the really lovely things about Canberra, especially with young children, is that you're never more than about 20 minutes from the edge of the city. I lived in inner-city Sydney for quite a few years (Surry Hills, Chippendale, Newtown/St Peters and Alexandria) and loved it, but the ability to get OUT of the city easily is very attractive at this stage in my life. And from time to time we have fantasies of the rural life ...
Yes,I live in Paddington and now find it hard to consider anything suburban.
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