Join Jill and Nick as they take you behind the scenes to see where your food actually comes from!

Did you know that the United Nations has declared 2014 the Year of the Farming Family?
Did you know that 99% of Australian farms are still family owned and operated?
All the more reason for us to support our local producers, eat local fresh produce and generally celebrate how lucky we are to have access to these wonderful farming families in our community.

We love meeting new farmers and exploring if we can include them in our FoodPath Tours. In the past 3 weeks we have discovered:

• An Australian wildflower farm at Alpine, near Mittagong
• An alpaca farm at High Range where Jessica raises alpacas for meat, and
• A new certified organic free range egg farm at Colo Vale

Can you believe that - three new farms!! We love it.

Also have a meeting lined up next week with a Naturopath who runs cooking classes.

So - keep an eye on our program, we have lots of interesting things in the pipeline :)

I have been really bogged down with paperwork for the past three weeks - don't you hate that?! I do. I would much rather be out and about in the Highlands meeting new producers and developing new products for you dear customers :)
Had a call today from another free range egg farmer at Marulan who has free range chooks too AND free range pigs. Very exciting. It is nice when people get referred to us and we can look at incorporating them into our tours and activities - and also put them on to outlets for their products. It is all about helping each other I say, then everyone benefits.

We were so proud of our local producers last Sat when we put on a showcase for a bunch of Travel Writers.
Tourism Southern Highlands asked Southern Highlands Food and Wine Association to help with this
and of course we need the producers to come along. Thanks to all those who did and thanks to Tertini Wines for hosting this event.

See the great photos - and come along one day on a FoodPath tour to meet the people behind the food we grow in the Highlands.

Steve from the 1910 Bottling Company and Nicki from Cuttaway Creek Raspberry Farm

Delicious raspberry products from Cuttaway Creek

Lyn's beautiful skin care products made from her own olive oil

A range of gourmet potatoes from Robertson, Berrima Ridge free range eggs and Highland Organic Cheese made by their new cheese maker David Snibson

Kym of Sutton Forest Olive Oil who does all the work on the farm and produces award winning olive oil at Sutton Forest

Montrose Berry Farm have 8 varieties of berries and Bruce and Fiona make a huge range of jams, pies and vinegars

Our business FoodPath - and we work with all these wonderful producers, either tour or a workshop

Steve Hogwood telling the travel writers about his business

Fabulous fresh raspberries from Cuttaway Creek - sumptuous.

As always the Family Farm Tour was good fun - see the album of photos on Facebook if you can. Search for the "FoodPath Culinary Food Tours" page. Cloe a large gentle Maremma dog took a shine to the oldest child in the group - also named Cloe and we got some good pics of them together.
Warryn did a great job demonstrating pasta making using free range eggs, Durum wheat flour and plain flour - and sent the kids on their way with a sample of fresh pasta to take home.
All kids seem to love pasta so this is always a hit.
As always Anne got the children involved in the shed washing and grading the eggs and showed us how they manage to do this for up to 2000 eggs a day!!

Anne and Warryn are now supplying eggs to three IGA supermarkets in Sydney as well as all around the Southern Highlands.
Look out for Berrima Ridge eggs - from these very contented chooks who are free to roam and scratch in the dirt to their hearts content.
Craig came home from his holiday early to take us on a tour of the dairy - thanks Craig!

After the milking there were poddy calves to feed and one father and daughter were particularly enthusiastic about this.


I always feel happy after our Family Farm Tour because you can see how much everyone gets out of it.

How disappointing that the weather has been so miserable for the school holidays so far. Disappointing for Tulip Time and the open gardens too - mind you the tulips are beautiful, best I have seen in my 14 years in the Highlands!
We say we will do the Family Farm Tours rain, hail or shine but it was very soggy underfoot yesterday so we have changed our minds. Not very pleasant so we have decided to cancel the tour scheduled for Sun 2 Oct. We have to give notice a few days prior.
Other options for you to consider in wet weather are:

• 10 pin bowling (Mittagong)
• Neeny's Playhouse (Mittagong)
• A range of movies at our wonderful Empire Cinema (Bowral) and 
• Bunnings are offering a free DIY Workshop for 5yr + age group. 

There is one FoodPath Family Tour to go these holidays and that is on Wed 5 Oct if you are interested? We will be visiting the free range chook farm in the morning, a dairy in the afternoon with a picnic lunch in between.

Cross your fingers conditions improve by then. Please contact us if you want to come because we have to have a minimum number.

We have our final farm tour for Autumn next Sat 21 May and we are looking forward to it. It is virtually booked out which is exciting - maybe room for 1 more? 
Kym at Sutton Forest Olives is just about to harvest so we will be able to see her trees laden with olives. Alan is busy training his dog to find truffles in anticipation of the season - he rubs some cotton wool with truffle oil then buries it and the dog has to find it! Hope he succeeds in time - wouldn't want to miss any! We are having a lovely lunch at Stones Restaurant at Eling Forest winery. Anne and Warryn are busy with a new batch of hens settling in. It is all good - just hope the weather warms up a bit, it has been freezing.

Well our second Family Farm Tour was great fun too. Same itinerary as on 8 Jan but with the added treat of seeing the 9 tiny baby goats at one of the farms. Very cute and lots of photos taken by adults and children!

The birthday girl holding a baby goat!

Cute little baby Boer goats!

Our picnic lunch was very pleasant sitting under the trees by the lake at Eling Forest winery.

Lunch under the trees at beautiful Eling Forest

We had a birthday girl along on this trip who had chosen to come as a birthday treat. Mark at Eling Forest dressed up one of his delicious little cakes as a b'day cake which was kind.

We had a large group of little children this time (aged 3 - 6yrs) so at the free range egg farm we divided into two groups - the adults and older children in one group and the little ones in another.

Inquisitive kids!

Warryn's pasta demonstration was popular. This is a good way to use surplus eggs. It is only made of eggs and flour, nothing else. What child doesn't eat pasta these days - so good for them to see how it is made. They were fascinated! Each family was given a sample of  pasta to take home, cut to their choice - tagliatelle, fettucine etc.

Collecting eggs rated highly too and the children learnt a lot about where their eggs come from. We even saw a hen actually lay an egg this time, which was a first! The children painted faces on some hard boiled eggs and took them home to eat.

At the dairy this time we got very close to the cows who were anxiously waiting to be milked. Craig showed us the milking apparatus and we got to feel the suction that is used to actually milk the cows. The children loved that and it caused much hilarity!

Eva and Sam feeling the suction on the milking machine

Feeding the calves was popular again especially with the bigger children (and some of the adults)!

Zoe helping to feed the calf

Thanks to all our kind producers who let us visit their farms! These school holiday family farm tours have been such a success that we will repeat them next holidays. Let us know if you want to go on a waiting list?

We are kick starting the year in 2011 with two Family Friendly Farm Tours in January - on Sat 8 Jan and Sat 22 Jan.


Come with us to visit some farms and meet the animals and their owners.


Feed the chooks and collect the eggs at the free range egg farm near Berrima. Bottle feed the calves at a dairy near Burrawang.




Enjoy a picnic lunch in the beautiful grounds at Eling Forest winery.
All this and more!




For more info - contact us from the website or ring Jill on 0419 617 021.

On Saturday we had a great group who booked out our regular Sat FoodPath tour for a Hen's party. A new one for us - but the bride-to-be had seen the film Food Inc and decided that she wanted to do one of our tours as part of her Hen's weekend. We were thrilled.
We had a lovely day. The weather was perfect although a little chilly out of the sun - it is the Southern Highlands after all!

We went to Berrima Ridge poultry farm and Sutton Forest olives in the morning.

Of course we took a photo of the Hen's Party with the hens!

 After lunch we went to Tertini Wines out of Mittagong for a wine tasting and tasting of cheeses from Small Cow Farm.

Lunch was delicious as always at the Stones Restaurant at Eling Forest