Three students from Congewai Public School recently visited the Lonely Goat Olive Farm to learn about olive harvesting.
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Jade Blackmore, Sean Doyle and Cain Muir are Congewai Public School’s Kitchen Garden students and got to help collect the olives on the day and will be involved in the entire harvesting process.
The idea came about after farm owner Keith Hallett took his neighbour into Congewai Public School following their Harvest Festival to collect some hay.
Mr. Hallett got talking to principal Donna Stackman as the business that he sells his olives to – Bellbird Premium – had a stall at the festival.
The two then put plans in place to have the students visit the farm. The students picked and took the olives home and will soak them in brine to de-bitter them over the next three to six months.
They will then put them into a flavour and eventually end up with Ligurian olives, which Mr. Hallett says are ‘absolutely beautiful’.
Once the olives are ready, the students will then sell them at their Harvest Festival next year.
Mr. Hallett plans to donate 250 kilograms of olives to the school each year, which could potentially earn them around $5000 in sales.
The farm has been a 14-year project for Mr. Hallett (a software engineer by trade) and his wife Elisabeth, who were living in Sydney when they came up to the area looking for wine.
The pair visited the property and loved it so much they bought it the very next day.
They planted 500 olive trees eight years ago followed by another 2000 four years ago, and now grow 15 different varieties of olives.
They also run accommodation on the property which was ranked in the Sydney Morning Herald’s top 52 stays in Australia.
The cottage is also a finalist in the national sustainability awards as all of the electricity, water, sewage and heat is sourced on sight.
“We try to be self-sufficient in one more thing each year,” Mr. Hallett said.
The olives are also award-winning; Bellbird Premium recently won several awards in the 2014 Hunter Valley Olive Show.
Mr. Hallett is hoping to stay involved with the school, and utilise his IT background to help them out in the future.
Congewai Public School teacher Gabrielle Naysmith said the children thoroughly enjoyed the visit and that they are hoping to make more visits to the farm in years to come.
