Truffle hunting in Australia: June to August

Truffles are the one thing on this site you do not pick. You walk a plantation behind a trained dog, and when it indicates, someone digs. It is the most guided, most expensive and shortest-season experience in Australian pick-your-own, and it exists for a specific reason.

Why Australia grows truffles at all

The black Périgord truffle is a European winter crop, harvested there from December to February. Australia’s winter falls in June, July and August, exactly when the northern hemisphere has none.

That counter-season is the entire commercial logic of the Australian truffle industry, and it is also why you can do something here in the middle of winter that is out of season everywhere else.

How a hunt works

You meet at the plantation, usually in the cold and often in the fog, and walk the rows behind a dog and its handler. The dog does the finding. When it stops and scratches, the handler digs the truffle out carefully by hand, because a damaged truffle loses value immediately.

Most hunts run one to two hours and end with a tasting, often with a meal or a shop attached. Numbers are capped and hunts sell out, so booking is not optional.

Expect a per-person fee rather than anything priced by weight, and expect it to be well above what a berry farm charges. You are paying for a guided experience with a working animal, not for produce. Truffles you buy afterwards are priced by the gram.

What to wear

Winter, before dawn burns off, in a paddock. Warm layers, and boots you do not mind getting muddy. Many plantations provide disposable overshoes and ask you to use them, because truffle plantations are vulnerable to soil-borne disease carried in on footwear. Do as you are asked on that one.

Small children are usually not catered for, and some plantations set a minimum age. Check before booking.

Where they are

Australian truffle country is the cold pockets: the Canberra district and around Pialligo, Manjimup and the far south-west of Western Australia, Tasmania, and cool corners of Victoria such as the Yarra Valley fringe.

Most are small operations running a handful of hunts each winter weekend, which is why they book out.

Using what you buy

A fresh truffle is at its best within a week or so and loses aroma steadily from the moment it comes out of the ground. Keep it in the fridge in a sealed jar with eggs or rice, both of which take up the aroma and become worth eating in their own right.

Shave it raw over something warm and simple at the end of cooking. Heat destroys what you paid for.

See truffle hunts, or find a farm near you on the map.

Updated 27 August 2026