Number 57 Map 4 Hawkesbury Harvest Farm Gate Trail Maps
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In 1948 Leo Rideout purchased what he later called the best (and highest) forty acres of land in Oakdale and began to clear it. In 1950 he built a house there for his wife to be Audrey, a girl eleven years younger than him that he had had his eye on since she was 15. In 1952 they married. Audrey was one of 8 children and had been born in 1931 in the upstairs bedroom of the family fruit shop in Glanville. Her mother was weighing beans for customers six days later!
Leo and Audrey had been married 22 years and told they would never have children, but much to their surprise Audrey did fall pregnant and gave birth to Lynette in 1974.
Audrey had always dreamed of having an orchard. Leo was a jack of all trades who was originally a timber getter and then went into the mines in Wollondilly. He would work the night shift in the pit, come off shift at 7.00am, eat and then work until 3.30 pm in the orchard Audrey had dreamt of. Then he would sleep until it was time to go back to the mine. He did that for 15 years. Leo and Audrey grew flowers and vegetables whilst the fruit trees established and then once the orchard was established they concentrated on the apples, plums and peaches the trees bore.
Lynette undertook a Diploma in Calligraphy. She was adamant she did not want to be a farmer because of the heartache she knew from first hand experience was involved. Eventually though she came to the realisation that it was in her blood and had to come back to the farm, which she did in 1998/9 on a full time basis.
It is indeed in her blood. Two uncles on her mother's side were orchardists. Her mother's oldest sister married an orchardist. Another brother was in the transport industry and carried fruit.
Her mother's youngest brother suffered from rheumatic fever in his youth and at 39 died (head first into the gladdies as Lynette says) on the farm where he had stayed.
Leo's father, after working as an apiarist and in the silver mines as a young man, eventually established a fruit and vegetable run between Camden and Yeranderie where Leo was born.
Leo sadly died from lung cancer in 2000. Of comfort to Lynette is that he knew that she was there to take over the farm.
"As history unfolds," says Lynette, " I have gone back to growing flowers and vegetables as well as continuing with the orchard," much like her parents had done in the early days of the property.
The public come to the property to buy Lynette's produce from the roadside stall, using an honesty system. At the end of November they come in droves to select the Christmas trees this entrepreneurial young woman has grown now for several years.
She also attends the produce markets with her partner Christopher, at Camden twice a month and Picton once a month.
From mid December the white nectarines, peaches, white plums, Doncaster plums and apricots are ripe. Garlic, potatoes and gourmet pumpkins are also available. Then follow blood plums, European plums, white Fragar peaches and in late January, early February come the pears. Seven different varieties of red delicious apples follow and Granny Smiths in April.
Daffodils, irises and poppies are also an integral part of the produce from Top 40 Orchard.
The property has been savaged by wind, dust storms and vicious hailstorms in its time.
Lynette calmly accepts this as part of farm life.
"I love what I do and I do what I love," she grins.
Audrey looks with evident pride at her daughter as we sit and talk. I am sure Leo would look just as proud if he were there sitting by his wife's side.
Top 40 Orchard
1755 Burragorang Road
Oakdale
ph. 0429300474
Please visit the Hawkesbury Harvest website.
