We’d got to that point where a “weekend away” meant driving forty minutes to a shopping centre with a slightly nicer food court. Nobody was relaxed, everybody had a phone out, and by Sunday afternoon we were just as frazzled as we’d been on Friday. So when a friend sent me a video of alpacas wandering up to a campervan window looking for carrots, I stopped scrolling and actually looked up where it was filmed.
It turned out to be The Little Chooks Farm, a small working farm out past Wisemans Ferry in Spencer, NSW, and it’s one of those places that’s ridiculously close to Sydney while feeling like you’ve landed in a completely different country. We booked a campervan for one night, packed snacks nobody needed because the farm feeds you anyway, and drove out not really knowing what to expect.
The Little Chooks Farm, Spencer
The farm sits at 4256 Wisemans Ferry Road, Spencer, in the Hawkesbury hinterland north-west of Sydney. Depending which side of the bridge you’re starting from, it’s somewhere between an hour and ninety minutes of driving, most of it along quiet, winding country roads once you’re past the motorway. There’s no mobile reception worth mentioning once you arrive, which sounds like a downside until you realise it’s the actual point.
It’s run as a genuine working farm rather than a petting-zoo-with-a-gift-shop. The animals aren’t behind fencing for show — alpacas, sheep, a small herd of miniature horses and a very content-looking flock of free-range chickens wander the property and come back to their own yards at night. There’s a resident farm dog too, a Rottweiler with what I can only describe as a golden retriever’s personality, who spent most of our visit leaning against my kids’ legs.
Feeding Time Was the Bit the Kids Still Talk About
We were handed a few buckets of chopped vegetable scraps and pointed towards a ute for a slow drive out across the paddocks. What followed was less “farm activity” and more full-blown negotiation with a mob of very food-motivated lambs, who’d rear up on their back legs for a piece of carrot and bleat the whole time like it was the worst injustice imaginable. The alpacas were considerably calmer about it, right up until one decided my daughter’s jacket looked interesting and left a small trail of spit down her sleeve. She thought this was the best moment of the entire trip, for what it’s worth.
There’s also a vegetable garden you can wander through and pick from, plus the chance to collect eggs from the coop, which is a genuinely good way to burn twenty minutes with a five-year-old who’s supposed to be helping and is mostly just chasing chickens.
Farm-Cooked Meals, Ordered the Day Before
Meals aren’t a café-and-menu situation. You let the farm know what you’d like a day ahead, and they cook it for you fresh in the farmhouse kitchen. We’d ordered a late lunch and dinner, and the standout by a distance was a stir-fried flatbread with a whole fried egg folded through it, along with fresh sesame flatbread straight off the griddle. Even something as simple as tomato and egg came out tasting like someone’s actual home cooking rather than a tourist version of it. Someone at the next table over had ordered the lamb soup and wouldn’t stop talking about it, so that’s going on the list for next time.
Where You Sleep
We were in one of the campervans dotted around the property, and I’ll admit I went in expecting a squeeze. It wasn’t. There’s a proper bathroom, hot water that actually stays hot, and a TV loaded with Chinese dramas and variety shows, which my mother-in-law appreciated more than anyone else in the family. It’s camping in the sense that you’re parked in a paddock, not camping in the sense of anyone being uncomfortable.
What got me was the dark. No streetlights, no glow from a nearby town, just hills blocking out everything on every side, so once the sun’s down the sky does that thing where you can actually pick out the Milky Way instead of squinting at three stars and calling it a night. We didn’t set an alarm. The rooster took care of that around dawn, which the kids found endlessly funny and I found, weirdly, one of the more restful wake-ups I’ve had in a while.
Somersby Falls, on the Way Home
If you’re heading back towards Sydney via the M1, it’s worth detouring to Somersby Falls picnic area in Brisbane Water National Park, about ten minutes off the highway. NSW National Parks describes it as a rainforest picnic spot with barbecues, a short walking track and a series of cascading waterfalls, and after a $4 million upgrade a couple of years back it now has an accessible viewing platform too, as Time Out reported when it reopened. Standard park entry fees apply, and it’s worth checking the NPWS alerts page before you go, since the road in has had weather-related closures in the past. If the kids want to paddle in the shallows near the base of the falls, pack proper water shoes — the rock steps get a coat of moss and get slippery fast, something we found out the inconvenient way.
Practical Bits, If You’re Planning Your Own Trip
- Book ahead, and order your meals the day before if you want the farm-cooked lunch or dinner — it isn’t a walk-up café.
- Pack your own snacks and drinks for the evening, since there’s nowhere nearby to duck out to once you’re settled in.
- There’s no mobile signal to speak of, so download anything the kids might want offline before you leave home.
- Layer up outside the warmer months. Being surrounded by hills means the temperature drops fast once the sun goes down, and campervans warm up but don’t insulate like a cabin.
- Bring closed shoes for the paddocks. Between the animals and the vegetable garden, thongs don’t last long out there.
It sits nicely alongside our other animal farms and zoos listings if a farm stay like this is going on the list for the next NSW school holidays. Worth going outside term time too, honestly — like our trip to Belgenny Farm in Camden, a weekday or a quiet weekend means no competing with a dozen other families for the same three alpacas. If you’re mapping out the rest of the break, our things to do with kids directory is a good next stop, and it’s worth a read through how to dodge the worst of the crowds if you’re travelling in peak weeks.
Was It Worth the Drive?
Completely, and not for any single big moment. It was more the accumulation of small ones — a lamb standing on its back legs for a carrot, a kid falling asleep to actual silence, a stir-fried flatbread that somehow tasted like someone’s grandmother made it. We didn’t check our phones much, which almost never happens on a family trip anymore. For a getaway that’s barely outside Sydney’s postcode, it felt like we’d gone a lot further than the map said we had.