13th August 2011 - Bundaberg QLD Australia

Moore Park Beach Festival



Kites at Festival



Nice drive along the scenic route to Bundaberg passing very close to the coastal towns of Agnes Waters & 1770 (& yes, that is the name of the town).  Both are apparently beautiful spots but my driver & tour organiser said 'next time'???   There are beautiful farming properties along this route, mostly cattle.  We head for a caravan park at Moore Park Beach which happens to be just a short distance from my Australian daughter-in-law's mother on her cane farm.  Unfortunately on arrival at the park we discover there are no powered sites available, for the first time in our travels, due to a festival being held here on the beach for the whole weekend.  Also for the first time our batteries for the van were right down, so it wasn't very good, but we thought we would stay for one night on an unpowered site, see our friend, then move on to somewhere else.  So we duly spent the afternoon with Yvonne & a friend of hers, had a barrel of laughs, then she very kindly offered for us to bring the caravan & park at her place - great!  It's the best caravan park we have had, with a lovely lunch of Italian spaghetti bolognaise accompanied  by our red wine for lunch & lots of laughs for lunch.  Then Stu & I had a look at the Festival stalls, art & photography display & walked along the lovely long beach.  Only intending to be in Bundy for two nights, we were all getting along so well we extended it to three as Stu was very interested in the workings of the cane farm which Yvonne & her son now do together.  Next day Stu did a tour at the Bundaberg Rum Distillery, which he enjoyed, especially the two free drinks at the end,  while Yvonne & I did the girls' thing - coffee in town.  90% of Bundaberg Rum is consumed in Australia, 5% in NZ & the remaining 5%  to the rest of the world. Remainder  of the day was spent gathering bits & pieces of 'man things' around town then Yvonne cooked us a beautiful roast lamb dinner, the first we have had in 6 months.  She is a wonderful hostess, & we certainly did not expect such hospitality.    Following morning  Yvonne took us on a  grand tour of the cane farm, Stu armed with camera taking in all the details of the industry - a real man's tour.  Very interesting even for me.  It's certainly quite a hard industry to be in, with long days often started at first light & ending at sunset.  At present the cane is being harvested & is sent to the mill in bins on small gauge railway tracks which run through the farms & direct to the sugar mill in Bundaberg.  The mill dictates when they will take the cane & the no of bins.  They are constantly fertilising, ploughing & replanting.  Usually the cane plants can be re-planted for 4 years all going well, but the floods ruined a lot of the cane this year, so quite a lot was lost.  Burning off of the stubble is still carried out, but not as much as in earlier days though it is good for the soil etc.



Sugar Cane Harvester



A long day on the Cane Farm

 Stu did a few handyman jobs for Yvonne which were greatly appreciated & he of course likes to do it.  My son & Yvonne's daughter used to live here in Bundy too before they went to Maleny on the Sunshine Coast, so Stu & I decided to cycle to the area they lived in & see how it had changed. Yvonne gave us directions but as usual we took an unplanned detour, found the road was a dead end, found a rough track & luckily ended up in the right place.  Another 20kms to add to our total. Then we all had a BBQ dinner together on what should have been our last night, but were invited to stay another night which we were only too happy to do. Next morning we walked the beach.  In total it is 19kms long, but we only managed about 9km as of course had to return as well.  Both had sore heels as we are not used to such a long distance in bare feet - the only way to walk a beach in my opinion.
 This time definitely our last night, so we feel a bit sad about  leaving  as it's been such fun & delightful company.  Stu reckoned Yvonne, I & her friend Leda are like a lot of teenagers together, so perhaps it's just as well I am going before we all get into trouble together.  He has been very tolerant being with laughing women.  To top it all off Yvonne came to surprise us with a 'novelty, item that afternoon.  Her telephone in the house rang, & when she went to answer it she found a very tiny python snake wrapped around her handset!!!  She picked it up by the head with some kitchen tongs & brought it out to show us.  While we were trying to get photos she dropped it & we all scattered (what a lot of whoosies).  The poor little thing was most indignant when she tried to pick it up again, it's little mouth opening extremely wide & hissing at us.  In the end after getting a long stick, she took it down the back to the dam.  My worry was where mummy & daddy might have been??? 
As we have to get into Bundaberg early to have our caravan fridge looked at first thing next morning, there is no  time for long goodbyes.  Unfortunately the fridge thing took much longer than anticipated, so it was midday before we left Bundaberg & hit the road towards the Sunshine Coast.  


Blue Faced Honey Eater