Who’d have thought there was so much to see in Charleville.
On our next day we went on yet another tour. This time it was to a date farm. Now that is something different, so not to be missed. We had spoken to a lady at the caravan park who highly recommended it after her visit the day before.
The farm is “Outback Date Farms” and was established in 2014. Mark, the owner had grown some date palms near Brisbane and wanted to take it further. He settled on Charleville, due to the climate, and in a very enterprising manner, approached the local council. The property he had selected was just downstream from the sewerage treatment works and the runoff after treatment was literally just running down the paddock. Mark requested to use the water, and the council agreed, on the condition that once established, he conduct tours.
He has established a series of ponds and dams.
There are 500 trees on the farm. He had planned to plant more, but has determined that it would be too much work to manage.
Date palms are the most salt tolerant of all fruits trees, so suit the climate well. They also produce lots of offshoot plants, so are easy to propagate. You can see one of the offshoots on this palm.
There are several varieties. The only variety that most of us had heard of was Medjool. Most of the ones we see in Australia are grown in California. Mark grows a lot of other varieties, which are familiar to people from the Middle East and they are delighted to be able to buy them fresh in Australia.
We did a taste test and there really is quite a difference between varieties. As well as fresh dates, we tasted date juice and date liqueur, both delicious. As they are only a small operation, they only sell fresh dates and the value added items, not dried dates. Sadly, in the heavy rains earlier in the year, his cool room leaked and much of the most recent harvest were spoiled.
The tour concluded with morning tea of a delicious date loaf and we were all given the recipe.
You could purchase some of the products and we bought some sticky date pudding for tea that night Yum.
We really enjoyed the tour and Mark was a very engaging and informative guide. It was not something we had expected to see, so a nice bonus.
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