Lakelands Olives - Our Story

After moving from Germany to Australia, we, Knut and Mia Kammann, bought in 1988 'our' country retreat west of the famous World Heritage listed Blue Mountains on New South Wales' Central Ranges. South of the wine growing area of Mudgee, near picturesque Rylstone and busy Kandos, we found a 100ha property, 700 metres above sea level, with a typical Australian bush cottage and a beautiful man-made lake,surrounded by rugged sandstone cliffs.

Originally built in the 1930's as a large water reservoir for the Great Western Cement Company', it never had to serve its industrial purpose as the company went bankrupt before production commenced.

The reservoir rather turned into a beautiful nature reserve with an abundance of native fauna and flora. Black swans, Ibis, Pelicans, Platypus, Cormorants, Musk duck, Yabbies, Trout, Wedge Tail Eagles, Kookaburras, Parrots, Cockatoos, Kangaroos, Wombats, Echidnas and many other animals enjoy the peace, freedom and the abundance of food.

In 1995, we were able to procure 100 adjoining hectares and secure irrigation rights for a 10ha block of land next to the lake.

Unaware of the 'new Australian olive industry', we decided to plant olive trees to
enhance the quality of the land. Holidaying in Spain and Italy for many years, we loved the trees, taste and health benefits of olive products. In keeping with the names of surrounding properties, the 'Lake' turned into 'Lakelands'.

Lakelands Olives was born and after thorough land preparation the first 1200 trees were planted in November 1996, pioneering high altitude - cool climate growing of olives west of the Blue Mountains.

Knut joined with other Australian growers to visit olive groves and processing plants in Australia, Italy, Spain, California and Argentina. Many courses, team building and training, trial and error, intuition, innovation and perseverance with hours of bliss and frustration have turned vision into passion.