The Salleras family grows an astounding variety of tropical fruits in rain-drenched Tully, Qld.
Story By Fiona Lake
If you’ve ever sunk your teeth into an Australian-grown wax jambu, then it’s odds-on that you’ve eaten fruit grown by the Salleras family. Perched high on a rainforest-clad hill in the wettest part of the continent, Fruit Forest Farm is a lifelong labour of love for Peter and Alison Salleras.
More varieties of tropical fruit are probably produced on this 87-hectare Tully farm than anywhere else in Australia. Walking around it is like a treasure hunt of brilliant shapes, colours, textures and sizes. Not to mention tastes. Brilliant orange, covered in soft spikes and hanging from a lime-green vine? That would be a gac, from Vietnam. Covered in smooth brown velvet? That’s a cupuassu, from Mexico. A magnificently overgrown grapefruit? Pomelo. Oddly shaped and covered in large scales, like shingle-backed lizard skin? Custard apples. Evenly knobbled and around the size of a weighty, elongated basketball? Jackfruit or durian. There are plenty of bananas, but not a Cavendish in sight. Just every other variety, starting with flashy “red daccas”.
This Story is from Issue #97
Outback Magazine: Oct/Nov 2014
