Tropical Fruit World

Last Sunday we spent the day with Fiona and her two girls on a trip to the Queensland-New South Wales border. It was Fi's birthday and her husband Ian was on a business trip. For the first part of the day we went to Tropical Fruit World, a family-run attraction just south of Tweed Heads in NSW. Going on the basis of two brief word-of-mouth reviews, we really weren't sure what to expect. Well, it turned out to be quite wonderful. TFW is a real working fruit farm full of vast orchards of exotic fruits from around the world. Things start off with an introduction to the wide variety of fruits in a sort of stage show that included a chance to taste everything. As you can see here, even Will enjoyed himself.
Afterwards, we boarded a tractor-train that took us around orchards of avocados, bananas, oranges, soursop, coffee beans, pineapples, and many more. At one point we got off the train next to a macadamia tree (native to Australia), where we picked up nuts off the ground and cracked them at little nutcracker stations set up underneath the tree. At the end of this tour we were let off at nice little oasis called Treasure Island. A miniature train took us for rides around the perimeter of the island. We then boarded a covered boat that slowly took us on a lagoon tour while we fed ducks and geese swimming alongside us with bread provided by the tour guide. But that wasn't all! We then got off the boat to spend a little time at a petting zoo, complete with cows, mules, sheep, wallabies, and kangaroos. Will was having such a great time, but so were the rest of us. After spending a few minutes buying some fruit at TFW's little shop, we then headed off for lunch at the Gold Coast. We found ourselves near the most southern point of Queensland at Kirra Beach. Yes, once again we whiled away some time at a beautiful Australian beach. V. and I took turns standing guard while Will ran back and forth in the surf among Fiona's girls making sand castles. During the one-hour drive back home, a few passengers may have fallen asleep. It was a superb day. More pictures can be found in the album.