Just outside Sydney, a forest foraging experience reveals a delicious secret

Two hours drive from Sydney, the Lidsdale State Forest just outside of Lithgow transports you to another world. Standing underneath the forest's canopy of pine trees, the noise from the nearby Great Western Highway seems miles away.

And standing underneath the pine trees are mushrooms. Helping guide people through this forest is Diego Bonetto, who runs regular mushroom-foraging tours in autumn at Lithgow, Oberon and the Southern Highlands.

Bonetto grew up on a dairy farm in northern Italy where he was taken mushroom foraging from the age of five. His knowledge and passion make him the ideal person to show foraging fledglings how to safely identify and pick wild mushrooms.

One of the most common mushroom types found in the Lidsdale State Forest are Saffron Milk Caps (Slippery Jacks are the other), which are exclusive to pine trees and have a distinctive orange colour. They grow from the size of a button to as big as dinner plates in the right conditions.

Easter usually marks the start of mushroom season. They need single-digit overnight temperatures to grow (so by the time winter arrives, with its early-morning frosts, it is too cold), plus humidity - or a "splash of rain every now and then" in Bonetto's words.