Delicious chocolate covered cranberries, wish we had bought more of it and other dried fruitsread more

We were on the lookout for an orchard to stop at on our way out of Cromwell. We randomly pulled…read moreover to Jones Family Fruit Stand, which seemed to be popular with all the Chinese tourist buses. Guess we hit tourist gold by accident. We dropped on a Tuesday afternoon (around 3:45pm) and it was packed. There's tons of different fruit, dried fruit and nuts, vegetables, honey, wines (out through the back entrance) and best of all, fresh fruit ice cream. Seemed like every single tourist had got a cone/cup. It was also nice that you could sample some of the fruits and dried goods. We took advantage and tried a few samples. It's $5.00 NZD for the fresh fruit option otherwise you can get ice cream for $2.50 NZD (single scoop) or $3.50 NZD (double scoop). For the fresh fruit, you can only choose one type of fruit (lame) from the three options (mixed berry, passionfruit and blueberry). You also choose your base (options: vanilla, cookies and cream, hokey pokey, yoghurt and boysenberry). - Fresh fruit ($5.00 NZD) - we went with boysenberry and passionfruit. Lots of seeds; it's the real deal. Boysenberry base was tasty and had a good creamy texture. They mix it fresh right in front of you. - Yum yum plums ($6.60/kg) - we sampled a few of these and they were super sweet. Bought a half dozen for the road. - Omega plums ($4.00/kg) - we wanted to try these ever since we discovered them at the Nelson Market. These were actually cheaper here so we got a bag. If you stop, definitely get a real fruit ice cream!

I heard that this place has real fruit ice cream so of course we had to give it a try. For a small…read moresize it's $4.50. You first order and pay at the counter inside and then you take your ticket to the stand where you can choose whether you want ice cream or yogurt as the base, and then pick 2 fruits from the list. I ordered the mango and passion fruit with a yogurt base. I will warn that they don't clean the machine in between making the next order so there is definitely some cross contamination going on, and you could taste a bit of whatever flavors the last person got. Another thing is that on the sign they said that they had a dairy free option which I was hoping to get but it turns out that they don't have a dairy free option, only ice cream and yogurt. Definitely rework that sign to be more accurate. If you're wanting to try some natural real fruit ice cream then this is the place to go to. Just know that you have to be able to tolerate lactose though.

We stopped at Jackson Farm for some fruit mixed Ice Cream which was pure bliss. Their ice cream is…read morea revelation, made with local fruits blended with cream or yogurt. Every spoonful feels like summer on your tongue. You choose whether you want cream or yogurt. Then you choose your fruit and they blend right there.