While the coastal towns on the NSW Mid-North Coast have all the foodie experiences you’d expect – chilled-out cafés, weekend farmers markets and destination fine dining (The Stunned Mullet, for instance) – they’re also home to a host of quirkier options.

From strawberry picking to ricotta cheese making, here are just a few of the more unusual culinary adventures you can have there too.

Pick your own strawberries and tomatoes at Ricardoe’s 

It’s hard to say what’s the better part about a visit to Ricardoes Tomatoes and Strawberries, 10 minutes north of Port Macquarie: the fact you can pick your own strawberries or tomatoes from vines in a beautiful greenhouse or the taste of the delicious fruits themselves.

Grab a bucket and scissors in the main building before hitting the greenhouse. Afterwards, drop by the café for breakfast or lunch before picking up a packet of Byron Bay Cookies or accessories like a strawberry slicer or chocolate dipping sauce on your way out. Free farm tours run 11am weekdays.

Learn to make cheese or pasta at a workshop

Who knew ricotta could be made with just three ingredients, involves just a few simple cooking steps and can be used for countless sweet and savoury dishes? Guests at the end of workshops at The Cheesemaking Workshop & Deli in Coffs Harbour, that’s who.

Run by a mother-daughter duo, the 12-person workshops, held in cooking rooms behind The Big Banana, teach visitors not only how to cook cheeses, yoghurts and pastas from scratch, but also what you can make with them. A workshop is on every day except Thursday, but book ahead.

Visit a winery with an actual grass maze

Most wine tastings end with sleepy gazing into the distance and an unwillingness to move, but at Bago Vineyards, they typically finish with a wander through a hedge maze. And if you thought mazes were just for kids – think again. This maze would take even the most switched-on visitor 20 minutes to complete.

Tastings are free and will see you sipping and swirling your way through the dry Spritzy Chardonnay, semi-sweet Jazz White and flagship wine Sparkling Chambourcin, a grape the area is known for. And with many bottles under $20, you’ll want to stock up before you leave.

Stroll authentic Bollywood beach markets 

Coffs Harbour has one of the largest Seik populations outside India, a statistic that comes to life at the Bollywood Beach Markets. The markets, held on the first and fourth Saturday of every month at Woolgoolga Beach Reserve, 15 minutes north of Coffs, are a feast for all five senses.

Shop for Indian clothes, jewellery and art, and dance to Bollywood beats before settling in a spot on the grass next to the beach to sip on mocktails and dig into spicy samosas, butter chicken and naan.

Go on a sweets-making factory tour

A healthier, but still equally sweet substitute for chocolate? Count us in. The carob is an endlessly useful plant you can learn about at Carobana Confectionary, 10 minutes north of Coffs Harbour. Once a banana farm destroyed by fruit bats, the property has long been a working sweets factory with products stocked in shops around the country.

Drop by Mondays to Thursdays between 10am and 4pm for a self-guided tour. Watch a video on the growing of and use of carob, read about its 4000-year-old history and see nut brittle, honeycomb and carob-coated rocky road being made with custom machinery from the 1920s.