A Day out at the Big Banana

Well, you can't go to Coffs Harbour and not visit the Big Banana. We'd been in Coffs Harbour for nearly 3 months and were coming to the end of our time there, so we thought we'd better go, see what it was all about and have some fun...

The above was taken at the end of the day, with a belly full of bananas, but it's a good photo to start the bana... oops...ball rolling.

There was a tour of the banana plantation,

info on bananas inside a banana

seeing bananas close up...

Much to our amazement, these are nearly ready for picking. But it takes several days/weeks to reach the supermarket shelves, so they are picked in advance of them ripening.

The mysterious case of the "double banana" below.

A bunch of bananas typically weighs 50kg and 2 bunches are carried at a time in the plantation. So we all had a go at lifting a single bunch. Up a bit higher....go on...nearly there....

After all that hard work, it was soon time for lunch. The children are now experts at making butties - it's like a produciton line on a morning in the caravan; one butters the bread, one adds the filling and the other chops the butties and the slices the filling, where neccessary (slicing cheese is good, but slicing jam is a bit messy).

However, we came to sit down at the back of the Big Banana Cafe, when we had a pleasant surprise. We almost found ourselves tucking into a hot meal...

...until Nurse Hayley warned us about the dangers of eating somebody else's leftovers. (I did manage to squeeze the pie and a handful of chips into my pocket though).

After lunch we went toboggan riding.

The toboggan is a tray on a wheels which runs on a rail. There is a brake, but it doesn't tend to get used much by 10-year old children!

STOPPPPPPP!!!!!!!