Thieves have stripped a NSW Hunter Valley olive grove of its fruit in an overnight raid, the latest of a series of such bizarre thefts.
Quentin Von Essen, who runs an olive grove in Lovedale, was alarmed to find that all but two of his 400 trees had been stripped of their olives earlier this month.
The two trees that were left unpicked were the two closest to the Wilderness Grove guest house, and Mr von Essen believes a censor light may have deterred the perpetrators, according to The Advertiser in Cessnock.
Mr Von Essen said he was dumbfounded by how the theft of about four tonnes of olives could have happened without anyone noticing.
"It would take approximately six people up to three days to pick our olive grove," he told ABC Radio today.
"It appears that ... a whole lot of people have come into the grove overnight and just stripped the trees.
"The eerie part is ... there is not an olive on any of these trees and not an olive on the ground.
"We would have been able to hear a loud machine."
Mr Von Essen said he knew of five other properties in the area that had been raided recently.
The Advertiser reported that about 750 olive trees were stripped bare (about 7.5 tonnes of olives), with an estimated retail value of more than $10,000.
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