Great olive mystery baffles Australian growers

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

SYDNEY (AFP) — The quiet community of boutique wineries, upmarket guesthouses and fine restaurants of Lovedale in Australia's Hunter Valley has been gripped by mysterious goings-on in its olive groves at night.

Around eight tonnes of olives disappeared without a trace from hundreds of trees on five properties in the popular tourist destination north of Sydney virtually overnight earlier this month, residents said Wednesday.

The first Quentin von Essen heard about it was when a neighbour telephoned to say that when pickers turned up to strip his 120 trees, they found them bare of olives.

"We promptly went and checked our larger grove of 400 trees around a boutique guest house," von Essen told AFP. "All except two, which had a spotlight on them, had been...