Having waited for a whole year, now it’s finally the time. We were with a few friends on the road to Young, queueing up our vehicles in the highway. I couldn’t get rid of those dark red, juicy and perfectly shaped little round fruit out of my mind. “Oh yeah, I MUST grab enough of them home……” I think.

Last year, I brought some of them back from my business trip to Young. From the moment I put the first one in my mouth, I knew I have to go back. It’s too hard to resist the temptation coming from the taste, which was nothing like what we bought from the Fresh Food Market. They were so firm, sweet and rich in flavour that I really regretted that I didn’t buy more.

I actually think this year it was even better, not just the cherries we’ve got, it’s the whole experience of getting them. Two and half hours drive, I appreciated every second of scenic view passing by the car window. The endless golden Australian grasslands which are scattered with beautiful round hay bales, embrace the typical summer weather after the many weeks of dry days. Up there was pure crystal blue sky. I could never think of any colour combination better than this kind of blueness and that type of yellowness.

We went into the cherry bushes in one of the cherry farms in Wombat eventually. The farm was soon crowded with eager people carrying all sorts of buckets and their hearts with a desire. I can’t believe that there are so many cherries growing on only one tree, I reckon it could take me a whole day just to empty one bush, if I have to work here. They are beautiful and sweet, but the best ones went into our mouth directly, and who cares how much we could collect in our picking bucket at the end of the day?

We picked and ate, ate and picked……I overheard a young fellow’s conversation with his friend standing next to me. He said “I don’t want to leave….”. It sounds a bit of sissy to me, but I absolutely understand what he was talking about. Why would you want to leave, when you are having your dreamed scene fulfilled in the reality? My husband joked about accomplishing one of his childhood dreams in here too. The dream was about simply passing by a tree and grabbing the fruit from there without being worried. So this is what we ended up getting, two varieties of cherries, one box is Sweet Hearts we picked, the other box is called “Lapton” (not sure about spelling). I also bought cherry jam and cherry wine.

Then the next stop was Chinese Tribute Garden. We went there for our BBQ lunch. Plenty of nice food, lovely social companies, relaxing conversations, and annoying flies sharing our meals. After the lunch, we sat at the bank of the little river crossing the Chinese Garden, my arms got slightly sunburnt, but I felt my day was quite blessed.

Now all I want to do is to go back home and taste the best cherries in the world.