Established by an Italian Count who wanted to grow mulberry trees in order to produce silk worms, it became an olive orchard when a Spaniard planted trees there in 1970.

The olive trees are still productive and used by Tony Rak and his wife Marion. And now they are selling cherries to Asia.

The Raks bought the property in 1988, with Tony — a third-generation cherry grower — setting out to plant cherries on the property now known as Cherrybrook Cherryfarm.

“In the first five years we planted about 4500 trees but by then end of 2008 we had lost about 3500 trees due to drought,” Mrs Rak said.

“We then rebuilt the orchard to about 7000 trees, and about 2500 of them are now in production.

“The climate in this area is ideal, because of the cool winters.”

Mrs Rak said the trees flowered in September, with the fruit picked in November and December.

“We grow about 20 different varieties, including white cherries and morello cherries,” she said.

Mrs Rak said a lot of the fruit was sold at the farmgate.

“We have people come from all over, including Melbourne, just to buy our fresh cherries,” she said.

“We also sell them at local farmers’ markets so a lot of our fruit is sold locally.

“But, of course, we grow too much to just sell on a local level and so we also sell on the wholesale market, mainly in Brisbane.

“We are now selling cherries for the export market, with them ending up in places such as Vietnam and Hong Kong.”