The property now known as Tropical Fruit World was purchased by Bob and Val Brinsmead in 1972. It was then a run down small crop farm - beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes - which had been given over to cattle grazing. But the Brinsmead's selected the property as an ideal site to build a new residence and to raise their young family.
Bob and Val considered that the property had everything to become a kid's paradise. To start with, there was breathtaking scenery from the Duranbah ridge - the mighty Mt Warning Caldera and Tweed Cane fields to the West, the blue Pacific to the East, and lush rolling green hills all around. The previous owners had left a beautiful little rainforest reserve in the valley. This had water springs, koalas, possums, and wallabies as a delightful place of family discovery.
The family plan was also to grow tropical fruit on the red soil hills. Bob was fully aware of the farm's fruit growing potential. When he was growing up on the Tweed, the Department of Agriculture had a 10 acre Research Station here. For 30 years - 1937 to 1967 - the Experimental Plot grew bananas, and as a kind of appendix, avocados, lychees, mangoes and macadamia nuts. It was actually the first place in N.S.W. to grow avocados and to market them.
Before most Australians had even heard of avocados, Bob had often visited this Research Station and had acquired a taste for this new fruit. When he brought his Cootamundra bride to the Tweed, they both became addicted to avocados. They used to purchase them straight from the Research Plot.
Unfortunately, the Research project closed down in 1967. The gorgeous little fruit paradise reverted to a cow paddock, and the Brinsmead's had their source of avocados disappear.
One day in 1972, the landowner, wanting to retire, put his farm on the market. Bob and Val bought it the next day.
Bob started planting lots of avocados. But just to make it interesting and to grab the enthusiastic help of the kids, he regaled them with stories of restoring the lost fruit Paradise. So they scattered lots of other fruit among the avocados - custard apples, mangoes, lychees, guavas, macadamias, citrus, papaws and much more.
Pretty water catchments replete with diving boards, Tom Sawyer rafts, and Flying Foxes, were constructed in the valley. The kids made trails through the rainforest and places to camp with their friends. It just had to be the most idyllic family fun-farm in the world.
