The story of A Taste of Tingoora

A wealth of life experience and agricultural knowledge has gone into the creation of local produce business A Taste of Tingoora.

ADVENTUROUS PAIR: Rowly and Cynthia Bendall, the couple behind A Taste of Tingoora. Picture: Elaelah Harley

BEFORE farming produce for A Taste of Tingoora in 2010, founder Rowly Bendall had quite an interesting life journey.

"I had a small farm in England near Cambridge before I moved over. I was brought over here to work at a feedlot, which I did for a year," he said.

"I moved on and worked for Comet Windmills and did most of western Queensland there before joining the Water Resources Commission in 1972. That was my career from then onwards in Australia."

Mr Bendall met his wife Cynthia while working in Brisbane.

"I worked at an adult TAFE college in Brisbane before I met Rowly and have followed him around ever since," Mrs Bendall said.

Together, the pair planned to travel and work throughout Australia.

"We bought a big F350 truck, equipped it with a mobile workshop and bought a custom-made Kedron caravan. We were going to tour Australia, but we got as far as Julia Creek," Mr Bendall said.

"We couldn't keep up with the work. We loved the experience, but it was hard to constantly pack and unpack. In the end, we were going to buy a block somewhere."

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The decision came at the perfect time, as they were then offered another farming opportunity.

"We had an offer to be caretakers at Oakley station, which was 100,000 acres with 4500 brahman breeders, which we did for five years," Mr Bendall said.

"After that we got wind of a place in Tingoora as a bare block. We bought this place and then the people next door moved out two years later and I put an offer on it. Now we rent the house out and I farm the land."

Since building up their produce capacity, Mr Bendall has made exciting plans for his property.

"Our intention is to build this up and work with the South Burnett product group," he said.

"We've built a big deck out the back and we plan to take people through and show people what we're doing, organised through the South Burnett Regional Council."