Sunday 23 October 2016

Tropical Fruit world adventuring

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Visit Gold Coast instameet which took in sunrise at Currumbin and then a trip to Tropical Fruit World which is just over the border in the Tweed Valley. The instameet was originally planned for September during the Swell Festival but unfortunately bad weather postponed the meet and yesterday we were lucky enough to get some good weather.

Waking up at 3.30am is really not my idea of fun but when you are greeted with a sunrise like this you forget all about the early morning wake up and thank Mother Nature for making it all worthwhile..

After the sunrise blew all of our minds we were all loaded onto a bus and took the 20 minute trip to Tropical Fruit World which is located just over the border in Duranbah. The farm doesn't open till 10am so we were treated to a private tour of the property and boy was it a gorgeous place!
I had heard many different opinions of the farm over the years, some had said it was run down and boring, others had said it was a cute place to take the kids and to be honest I really didn't know what to expect but once we arrived I was not disappointed. We were greeted by our hosts, Kate, Max and Aymon the General Manager and we were all piled onto the tractor to drive around the farm.
Checking out all the crops







Akiko just chilling in the tyre...
The problem with being a photographer is that you are always looking for something to take photos of and this ended up with many of us yelling to our driver Kate to STOP as we wanted to keep jumping off the tractor to explore and take photos of things we were seeing!




Tropical Fruit world was purchased by Bob and Val Brinsmead in 1972. It was then a run down small crop farm with beans, tomatoes and sweet potatoes.  The Brinsmeads decided to build a life and raise their young family on the farm. Bob knew the land was perfect for growing tropical fruit as he had visited a research station in Tweed that was growing fruit successfully and a new fruit called the Avocado. Bob and his wife both became addicted to Avocado's and decided to grow them themselves on the farm.   

Bob started planting lots of avocados and many other fruits including custard apples, mangoes, lychees, guavas, macadamias, citrus and papaya.  His collection grew and over the years the garden became a fascination for his family and friends.
After 11 years of growing fruit the birth of Avocado Land happened in 1983 which was the first part of the farms Tourist attraction and which became hugely popular, then in 1995 the name changed to Tropical Fruit World to encompass all of the different fruits found on the farm. 
Courtesy of www.tropicalfruitworld.com.au
There really is nothing more peaceful than wandering through the orchards, checking out all the different fruits, taking photos and learning about the history of the property.  The staff were so accommodating and the atmosphere was so relaxing, I just loved soaking it all in and enjoyed the whole experience.
The Passion fruit archway
After we had spent about an hour checking out all the amazing fruit crops, tasting them and learning about them we headed back up to the main area to be greeted by the staff with this:

Fruit platter with all the fruits we had seen growing on the farm - So good!!

Chocolate fruit which tastes like Chocolate mousse! Yummy

As you can imagine so many photos were being taken of these delicious fruit platters but all we really wanted to do was start digging in and eating all the goodies!  Such a wonderful way to end our little tour.
Tropical fruit land is definitely on my list to take my kids to one day, it really is so much fun wandering around the farm and checking out all their different orchards and other attractions which include things like the Fauna Park which has lots of farm animals for the kids to get up close and personal too, the wildlife boat cruise and the miniature train which is fun for the kids.  It's a great day out and only 40 minutes drive from Robina.  You can check out all of the info here: http://www.tropicalfruitworld.com.au/ 

And for those of you who are keen to check it out for photography @igersgoldcoast will be holding an instameet there at some stage in the new year so make sure you are following our Facebook and Instagram pages for the details to be posted later in the year.

Some of the goodies found around the farm!


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