When you think of Bilpin, you think of apples.

The historic town on the Bells Line of Road in the Blue Mountains is synonymous with apples, but this season there's a problem.

There's not enough of them, and it's all a mystery.

"I've not seen a season where there's been such a devastatingly poor set of apples," Bill Shields says.

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And he would know.

Shields has run Shields Orchard since 1980, and it's been in his family since the 1950s.

"We estimate we have between five and 10 per cent of what we usually have on our apple trees," he says.

That's five to 10 per cent of the 40 tonnes of apples they would pick in a normal season.

"It would be like me saying to you, I'm only going to pay you 10 per cent of your salary for this

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