In 1866, a railway tunnel was laboriously cut through a mountain separating the rural New South Wales towns of Mittagong and Bowral. In 1904, when Canberra was declared capital city of the newly federated Australia, a bigger railway line and tunnel were constructed near the site, to connect the nation’s largest city (Sydney) and its new capital city. The original tunnel became obselete.
These days, the dimly lit 1866 tunnel houses more than a dozen varieties of exotic mushrooms, which are grown here year-round. Cooma-born doctor of microbiology, Noel Arrold, settled in Mittagong in 1979 and began the painstaking work of isolating mushroom strains and growing them in sterilised conditions both in the railway tunnel and his nearby laboratory.
Conditions in the tunnel are consistent, with temperatures hovering between 16 and 18°C all year round and a humidity level between 80 and 90 per cent. At certain points the 650-metre long tunnel is further than 50 metres under the ground. The tunnel is a warm cocoon: perfect for farming the mushrooms that prefer these conditions. In fact the climate is strikingly similar to those of mountainous regions of China, Korea and Japan where some of these mushroom strains grow wild.
Arrold has travelled far and wide researching exotic mushroom strains for the market in Australia. A recent trip involved travel to villages 60 kilometres from Lijiiang, near Tibet, to study the potential for importing exotic mushroom strains, which fetch up to A$3000 a kilogram on the Japanese market. In terrain similar to that of the Rocky Mountains, Arrold explains, entire families venture into the mountains to pick mushrooms.
Importing mushroom spores into Australia can only be done through approved laboratories and Arrold deals with laboratories and universities in France, Hong Kong and the United States. The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) is currently reviewing the mushroom species approved for import into Australia and Arrold is hopeful they’ll approve a further three or four species.