I went to Belkin Lookout Farm for the first time y...

I went to Belkin Lookout Farm for the first time yesterday with some friends and their four year old daughter. We settled on this particular orchard because it was literally the only You-pick orchard that was open on a Monday. They had a nice video on their website which made it look beautiful and family friendly, and I had not read any of the other reviews prior to going.

It was pretty quiet there being a weekday. We paid reduced rates of $8 admission per person, but I was pretty shocked to see the rates were even higher on other days. The man at the ticket window didn't really speak, just took our money and asked if we were planning on picking fruit. Do people come here to not pick fruit? There was three bag sizes you could pay for, I did medium for an addition $16 dollars. We all got a "stamp" that was a big black blob on our hands and walked over to a train.

The train ride felt kind of like being in a disney theme park, but where the staff don't really talk. I would have preferred to walk, but I think they require to you take the train in so we did.

The orchard itself is beautiful!! The train drives under a canopy made from bunches of hanging grapes, through the rows of orchard trees. We tried a few grapes and they are very sweet and provide beauitful shade and atmosphere. The first stop the train leaves you off of had Asian pears and very large Golden Delicious apples. It had just rained that morning so all the fruit was a bit wet, and tasted like delicious pre-washed fruit right from the tree. We kept walking because the train wasn't around to the next train stop for more fruit variety. This just had mostly rotten Cortlands. This is not the farms fault, because certain fruit grows at certain times and these were just a bit past their prime. We headed down to the third stop, which had just more of the same pears and Cortlands, but also had the children's play area.

The four year old with us wasn't really into the apples, but had a lot of fun at the play area. They had some really awesome goats, and a small "petting" zoo which you couldn't pet anything and their was no pellets to feed them. But you could look, and they had sheep, pigs, ducks, alpacas, goats, and donkeys. They had a bouncy castle, some jungle-gym type stuff to climb on, a burlap maze, a small Caterpillar themed train for kids to ride around on, a tree house with a slide, and some picnic tables. The day was beautiful so we sat down to relax as the little one played. It was very empty, maybe one other family there for just a few minutes. I believe on the weekends they do magic shows and have food their, and face painting, but none of this was going on when we were there.

After that we realized the only stop we found fruit that looked great was the first so we just walked back through the orchard to the beginning because again we didn't know where the train was, and it was just too nice of a walk to ruin waiting for a train. We filled our bags then headed to the big barn giftshop/check out place. I was hoping for more fresh farm produce here, but it was more like a market with non Lookout Farm related stuff. We bought some Cider donuts that were half off (probably because they were made over the weekend) but they still tasted good to me.

All in all, it was a good time. It was about 50 bucks for 2 adults to pick medium bag of apples/pears. The experience was still nice for me, but yes this does feel really expensive. I hear other places do not charge as much. You are really paying for them to keep up with a very large farm, and a train, and a children's play place. It was not a bad experience but I'm sure other farms could provide you with a less expensive option as well. Also the staff there seemed pretty miserable. You work at a beautiful orchard, cheer up!