Scenic Rim farm gate road trip

Pull out the esky and head off on a Scenic Rim farm gate trail and fill your car with fabulous local food, beer and wine. This is a Scenic Rim road trip that you can do in one big day or break it into a two day adventure.  Check my map at the end for road trip directions.

Scenic Rim road trip

The Scenic Rim is around an hour’s drive from both Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Here are four places where you’ll find a wide welcome, a fascinating food or drink experience and a great day.  It’s a big day out, but the scenery is so beautiful you won’t want to leave. There’s a map at the end of the story which shows you the route to take.

Another way to support the Scenic Rim is to order direct from the region with a Scenic Rim Farm Box.

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​Take a Scenic Rim food lover’s trail along on a road less travelled. Photo: Kerry Heaney

Stop 1 Scenic Rim Farm Gate trail – Summer Land Camel Farm

With a sprawling white timber and tin homestead surrounded by wide verandas, Summer Land Camel Farm is an attractive stop right from the beginning.

Joint owner Jeff Flood comes from a farming background, but he didn’t grow up telling his mum he was going to be a camel farmer. Instead, he stumbled into camel farming to help find a cure for his baby son’s eczema.

Jeff is passionate about the benefits of camel milk and with a background in epigenetics (the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself) he has discovered multiple benefits for people who everything from inflammatory bowel conditions, anxiety and depression and type one and type two diabetes to autoimmune disorders, skin disorders.

After four and a half years of work and $17 million, along with business partner Paul Martin, he now runs Australia’s largest camel dairy which is also the third-largest in the world.

Jeff Flood at Summer Land Camel Farm. Photo: Kerry Heaney

A visit to Summer Land offers a wide range of experiences.  You can ride the camels around the garden or on a trail, but for the camel novice, there are $2 food packs so you can feed them.

Behind the scenes, tours will teach you about camels or their milk. You can even join the operations team at the training centre when wild camels are domesticated.

The café is my favourite and with a new chef ex Spicers Hidden Vale joining the team the menu is set for a boost.  Do try camel milk and ice cream and fill that empty esky with your take-home treats.  It really has a mild flavour and is nothing like goat or sheep milk.

I came away with camel soap and a face moisturiser which is going to make me look 10 years younger in six weeks.  You won’t recognise me!

Don’t miss their Summer Land camel feta.  A jar of this is a constant in my fridge and it is the perfect addition to brighten up the flavours in a salad.  The Persian Camel Feta also is a Queensland finalist in the delicious. Produce Awards for 2020.

Find Summer Land Camels, at 8 Charles Chauvel Dr, Harrisville. In between visits, you can order the Persian Camel Feta in your next  Scenic Rim Farm Box.

​Camel milk can be used in a wide range of beauty products

Stop 2 Scenic Rim Food lover’s trail – Scenic Rim Brewery

Located in a cute old general store with a breezy deck at the back, Scenic Rim Brewery & Café is Mike Webster’s brewery dream. It’s the sort of place that screams ‘interesting’ and is a natural inclusion on a Scenic Rim food road trip.  Just don’t combine the beer and driving!

Visitors take a spot at the kerbside tables or walk through the store past big brassy tanks that brew the beer.  Inside the shelves are lined with local products and of course, a selection of their top brews.

Mike Webster Scenic Rim Brewery. Photo: Kerry Heaney

I walked out with a mixed six-pack which includes Shazza ( a mid-strength mild beer with a well-rounded flavour), Digga’s (a pale ale with a spicy, nostalgic flavour) Giddy Gout (A milk stout that claims to taste like a chocolate milkshake and Phar Que ( say the name of this Belgian abbey ale out loud for a laugh). It’s a great buy from the bush, so take your empty esky.

It’s a great place to eat too, and you’ll find it hard to resist the freshly baked scones and pretzels that Wendy Webster churns out.  Plus, there’s a cheese platter filled with local cheese or the ultimate Chiko Roll!

I’m going back for a shandy!

Find Scenic Rim Brewery at 898 Reckumpilla Street, Mount Alford

​Stop 3 Scenic Rim Food trail – The Overflow Estate 1895

How long has this been going on and why didn’t I know about it were the first words from my lips when I saw the next stop on this Scenic Rim food road trip – The Overflow Estate 1895.

David Morgan’s boutique winery perched on the edge of Lake Wyaralong about 20 kilometres east of Boonah is an unexpected delight. The property sits on a peninsula that juts into the lake with around 12 kilometres of waterfront. The estate takes its name from an 1895 pastoral holding, and the cellar door restaurant is modelled on a shed with an outdoor pavilion.

Reservations are required, so don’t just rock up here.  There’s a selection of cake, brownies and scones for morning tea which also double as dessert. Share plates, tapas platters or selection of delectable meals are available for lunch. Estate grown grapes include Vermentino, Fiano, Tempranillo and Montepulciano, all chosen from Spain and Italy for their suitability for the climate.  I tried the Vermentino which has a few wine medals under its belt. It is crisp, dry and refreshing with like fruity flavours and gentle spice notes.

There’s a black lab called Nero wandering around, but I didn’t get to meet him.

Find The Overflow Estate 1895 at 1660 Beaudesert Boonah Rd, Wyaralong.

Kay Tommerup, Tommerup’s Farm, Scenic Rim. Photo: Kerry Heaney

Stop 4 Scenic Rim Farm Gate trail – Tommerup’s Dairy Farm

That time I had Curtis Stone eating out of my hand. Yes, it’s true.  It’s also true that Curtis Stone is a calf at Tommerup’s Dairy Farm in Kerry (another connection).  He did take hay from my hand so that part is true too!

Kay Tommerup names the calves after chefs, so they all have a point of difference.  Curtis got his name because he is undeniably pretty. What did the really, really cranky calf get named? He’s Roco de Spirito.

This is a sixth-generation working farm in the beautiful Kerry Valley. The region is known as the Lost World, and you’ll feel like you have stepped back in time on your Scenic Rim food road trip. It’s also where they make butter that still has that old-fashioned flavour.  Tommerup’s Dairy Farm Jersey Girl Cultured Salted Butter (another of my fridge favourites) is a finalist in the delicious. Produce Awards for 2020.  It’s a full-flavoured butter that you can really taste and enjoy.

Curtis Stone eating from my hand.

It’s a place where you can meet the sort of cute critters that you’ll find on a real farm – dogs, chickens, pigs, calves and sheep.  Actually, the sheep were not very social, but the calves and hens really made up for that.

We took some watermelons for the pigs to eat, but it was a throw-in only job.  Pigs have teeth and can crack open a watermelon with their mouth. That’s about the same size as your head, so no one was going too close. Then a hat flew into the pen amongst the mud. The pigs thought this was some new type of food and did their best to eat it until it was retrieved by the farmer.  I don’t think I saw it back on the owner’s head.

I loved the animals but the best thing is the farm gate shop which sells ice cream (if they haven’t sold out), their own meat and the best butter.  This is definitely a place where you will fill your empty esky.  There’s nothing like country meat and freshly churned butter.  Definitely buy from the bush.

Which reminds me, I’m outa here off to have another piece of bread spread with Tommerup’s amazing butter.

Tommerup’s Fairy Farm 2142 Kerry Rd, Kerry

What’s in your Scenic Rim food road trip take-home haul?

I came back from this trail with a haul of Scenic Rim food.  There was a pat of Tommerup’s Dairy Farm butter, a jar of Summer Land Camel feta and some camel milk soap.  I purchased a six-pack of local beer from Scenic Rim Brewery and wish I had bought wine from The Overflow Estate 1895.

Follow some other food trails

If you like following a food trail to find new and interesting eats try these ways to explore

• Foodies guides to NSW wine country
• Granite Belt Food Lover’s Guide
• Australia’s top food festivals

Disclaimer: Ed+bK travelled as a guest of Tourism and Events Queensland.