Bundaberg

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get back on the road again…” Well that should be our theme song, we seem to keeping a pretty good pace, there is just so much we want to see and the time seems to slipping away from us. Tomorrow marks the 2 week point, phew, what a blast it has been so far. Yesterday, March 15^th, we made our way to Bundaberg –“Bundy” as the locals refer to it. This sugar cane growing area was beautiful and seems so typical “Aussie”. Lots of pubs, shops, parks, recreational activities, cricket games, hoop ball (basketball), moto cross bike racing…. Looked like a Saturday, in the US, with families our doing a lot of different family things.

Everyone we talked to had recommended that we do two things while in town: go to the Bundy Distillery and go see the sea turtles. We did both! We got to the Bundaberg Rum Distillery just in time for their last tour of the day. It was very interesting and tasty. The plant was quite concerned about safety and security. You had to lock up all of your possessions, camera, wallet, watch, hearing aids…in a locker they gave you. The lockers were all controlled by a wrist band they give you with a bar code (no keys or coins). You put your hand under a scanner and it reads your code and then a voice comes on and tells you that you locker #24 is open and available to store your belongings. You repeated the process to reclaim your stuff. We learned that rum is distilled from molasses a sugar by product. The sticky stuff is piped directly from the sugar processing plant to the distillery. There it is distilled in a process similar to making beer. It only takes about a week to process it and from there is goes into HUGE American white oak barrels and sits for 2 years. They said it was a law that the rum must age that long. We went to the tasting room where we were given very small tastes, the Australians take their alcohol consumption and driving very seriously, they warn you not to consume any more than two of these little drinks. It is good that they are taking this stand, as we have heard that drunk driving is a very big concern here too.

Our next stop was to get our camp sight and rest before the night’s turtle hatching. We camped in a nice little camp ground right off Mon Repos Bay. This was beautiful little bay and safe to dip our toes in, no stingers or crocs this far south – FINALLY! This is where the Loggerhead turtles have come ashore and laid their clutch of eggs in January or so. The turtle conservation folks have done a really nice job of organizing this, they are trying to educate the public and make them part of the solution of saving this endangered species. Only about 1 in 1000 ever reach maturity (30 years plus). We met at the visitor center about 7:00pm and were put in groups of about 70 each. Each group got to go down to the beach (which had been closed off from 6pm – 6am) and watch the hatchlings make their amazing trek from the nest to the ocean. These little guys scampered about 50 yards or so from their nest to the ocean. At high tide they start their journey, becoming imprinted as they go. The females that survive will come back here to lay their eggs when they are 30years old or so and may come back as many as 20 years. It was an incredible experience for us, we are so glad we were here at the right time to see it. The Ranger said that is was getting close to end of the hatching season. Another amazing day “Down Under” .

Cheers Mates! M & K