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Robyn Lee says the decision to buy a rural property at Canungra was always about lifestyle but then her inner businesswoman kicked in.
Robyn has spent her professional life working in accounting for the mining sector. It was there that she met husband Paul. Their work took them to Bougainville, Indonesia and Perth but both knew that the time would come to settle down. So they began their search for properties with between 40 and 100 acres. Initially they looked in Victoria and hoped to secure something with a water aspect.
Somehow their search led them to Canungra and a 76-acre property on the Canungra Creek. They went ahead and Robyn began to research what could be grown in the area. With the help of the Department of Primary Industries she realised her property was an ideal place to grow Macadamias.
And so began her new career.
“I went to a macca conference and learned some more,” says Robyn, who is now helped on the farm by her 9-year-old twins…
“Maccas are great because you can wait up to four weeks until you pick them off the ground which suited us as Paul was still commuting to the mines in Perth.
“We decided this would suit our lifestyle. We planted 500 trees – we dug the holes, watered them and now we pick the nuts.
“Originally we were selling them to processors but the returns were not great so we decided to crack them and package them on farm.”
Robyn now sells her 100g and 500g packets of raw nuts at the Canungra Visitor Information Centre and O’Reillys Vineyard, as well as at the Marina Mirage Farmer’s Markets.
She also sells honey, extracted from the four hives they have on farm.
“It’s just a small thing, we’re never going to blitz the market with it,” she says.
“But I do have people ring me after they’ve bought our nuts at the markets asking for more.
“This has enabled us to earn a living and live here in a beautiful valley. We have the creek to jump in and we have the winery next door.
“When we first moved here we used to sunbake on the causeway into our property but it’s got quite busy now, particularly on the weekends because we are next to the Sarabah Estate.
“The honey came about because we got the bees to pollinate the trees. We discovered early on that we had more honey than we could eat ourselves so we decided to sell some.”
Tags: canungra, Greenlee Farms, honey, macadamia nuts