If you're up in the Daintree make sure you visit the Tropical Fruit farm that offers tours near Cape Tribulation. They do a taste testing of 10 tropical fruits, then walk you through their garden. It's marvelous! They are two ex school teachers that came on a holiday and never left with hundreds of different trees growing in a jungle that was once cow pasture.

If you're down near the Gold Coast there is Tropical Fruit World, who also offers tours (haven't done yet) and has a small store that sells fruit in the front. We've found yellow sapote, sour sop and a few other unique fruits there. I think it's all dependant on what time of year you visit. Ice cream bean comes into season in December... I'm looking forward to trying that.

We've had the best luck in Australia finding interesting and new tropical fruit at specialty places like the two I mentioned above, and also in CHINATOWN!!! Durian and Jackfruit seem to be readily available in Brisbane in Chinese Foodmarts. Young coconuts can be purchased by the case in the Rocklea Markets in Brisbane, and even Coles is stocking more interesting fruit lately (NZ fruits - I forget the name, Mangosteen, Young coconuts and more).

A few you'll definitely want to track down are (that are quite available right now in Australia):
* Mangosteen (imports just opened up from Thailand - expect to see this one more)
* Yellow Sapote (tastes almost like sweet smooth pumpkin)
* Durian (usually found frozen)
* Jackfruit (make sure it's a sweet edible one - some are for cooking only and resemble rubbery cabbage)
* Sour Sop (luscious sweet lemonade fruit - a type of custard apple)
* Black Sapote (chocolate pudding fruit - delicious blended with avocado, carob and something to sweeten the pudding)
* Sweet sop (another type of custard apple)

Interest in delicious raw foods is definitely building in Australia... the next step is organizing monthly raw dinners in all major cities!!! Now that will be progress!!! Meetings in Coolangatta start next month!! Gold Coast meetings are already running!

Thanks so much for posting!
Sheryl

The (quite good) website of the tropical fruit tasting place is at:

www.capetrib.com.au

It's got some nice pieces of video and photo's worth checking out (not to mention of course their tropical fruit tasting tours!).

Piers

Fresh durians are occasionally available, but not very often. Apparently durian season in Australia is around Christmas, so that's the period you're most likely to find them. The Rocklea markets occasionally have sweet jackfruit and fresh durian when it's in season (but I have yet to personally see this). They have jackfruit now, but it's the immature 'cooking only' jackfruit. I'll post here whenever neat new tropical fruits come into season around Brisbane!  

Good luck with your durian hunt this weekend. Chinatown in the Brisbane CBD is also a good bet - I know people that have found fresh durian there over the last few months. You just never know what wonderful surprises you'll find!

Cheers,
Sheryl