A Singaporean In Australia

I thought this may be one of Perth's best kept secrets of course I was wrong. If it is, it probably wouldn't last long enough for me to finally make my way there. After all, Pickering Brook isn't your everyday suburb. It lies in the eastern edge of the Perth metropolitian right in the heart of the hills. In Singaporean term, it is a damn big sua teng area. And I will be, of course, the sua ku.

From the picture above, it looks like one of those hippy cafes you will find in Hort Park but it really isn't. Though these folks dish out finger food and decent (I heard mains), their core trade is Cider. Core Cider is their business name. The word core, of course, was a play on the apples they actually grow themselves to cultivate into cider. These impressive hectares are their home, orchards, factory, restaurant and sales office all in one.

Here is how it looks from the other side. Bad photography veils the magnificence of the place. What these folks have done right, just like any other agri-tourism businesses here, is to provide a family friendly environment to attract the crowds. When we arrived at the place at 1030 hrs in the morning, we seemed to be the only customers around. By noon, the place was bursting with a multi-national mix of family and young crowd.

They had this tractor. And a long thick rope lying on the ground, which later attracted a lot of children who challenged themselves to a tug-of-war without prompting. Somewhere, I found a cool cart for me to push Albany around the ample open spaces for an hour. She was chuckling all the way, clearly enjoying dad-powered ride. There were sand pits, balls lying randomly around, clearly prepared for children.

Rowdy boys climbed trees and picked oranges. A couple attempted to throw an orange to hit another down from the tree. A few landed near me. So I helped myself to at least 3 good free oranges and shared around the table with friends who went along with us.

A thought flashed across the mind. I wondered how our children with thick glasses and i-pads will fare in harvesting these things with their bare hands. Will they gather everyone for a meeting to brainstorm strategies or derive cool innovative tools to carry out the task in style?

Or will they moan, "Yeeee, don't wan lah~" ? And return to swiping tablets.

Or will their parents scream, "Fistanlistus! Dun touch the tree! Dirty!"

It will be a privilege to observe. Though, I doubt that I will have many oranges to go around to down my hearty meal of chips.