Bundaberg Rum Distillery

Bundaberg Rum distillery is about a 30 minute walk from the CBD.  Not a very fun walk for us as it started to pour with rain and the ‘trusty’ umbrella that I hadn’t used since we first arrived in Cairns was now missing 3 spokes and only kept half of me dry.  When we eventually got to the distillery, we were greeted by a huge model of a Bundaberg rum bottle and inside a stuffed polar bear in a glass case. 

‘Bundy.R.bear’ is a white polar bear and the logo of Bundaberg rum. 

  

 A few of the advertisements for bundaberg rum released over the years. 

The distillery has the option of a self guided tour and a guided tour. The self guided tour allows access to the small museum and the guided tour takes you around the distillery itself. As we are only going to here once we opted for the guided tour. We had a wander around the museum as we had 20 minutes until our tour started. 

We learned that there was a large fire at the distillery in 1936. Some rum that was not on fire flowed into the river and the locals were there filling up buckets and cans with the rum, who can blame them!

The rum and methylated spirit flowing into the river proved to much for its inhabitants. For miles the banks of the river were strewn with thousands of dead fish. Catfish, stingray, salmon, barramundi and even sharks. The health authorities had hoped that the tide would wash the fish back out to sea, until then  ‘the hawks, gulls and other fish eating birds were having a good time’.  

The one question that we wanted to answer was why is a polar bear used as a logo on an Australian rum? It was the clever marketing scheme of a Samuel McMahon. He thought that the polar bear implied that that the rum was a superb drink that could ward off the wickedest chill. The surname ‘Mcmahon’ is also of Gaelic origin and means ‘son of the bear’.  Mystery solved!

Our tour guide then came to find us and the tour began. We had to leave our bags and any electric items containing a battery, including watches in a locker, due to the flammability of the alcohol, so no photographs of the distillery itself im afraid.

The history of the rum factory is that it was formed by some clever sugarcane farm owners, as a good use for the molasses, which is a by product of sugarcane.

We were shown each stage of the distilling process and given some molasses to taste.

I lost Jamie for about 20 minutes and found him here 'savouring' the vapours of the distilling process...he could still smell rum a few days later. 

The last stop of the tour is the Rum bar, where you can sample 2 different rums. I recommend the red rum (as it’s a bit smoother than the original) and the Royal liqueur, coffee and chocolate flavoured rum that you can only get at the distillery.  There are lots of rum related products in the bondstore, where you also have the opportunity to purchase bottles of rum & cans of ready mixed rum.  We bought a bottle of red rum and the royal liqueur – beautiful.

Bundaberg Rum bar

Royal Liqueur 

So the distillery was a great day out and defiantly worth visiting Bundaberg for. So if your ever in Bundy it’s a must see! 

Some parrots just outside the rum factory. 

The following morning we boarded the train and headed for Brisbane. 


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Bundaberg

Attempting to sleep on a train is not the most comfortable of places, but not impossible. We each got a few hours sleep and arrived in Bundaberg at 9am Sunday morning. After dropping off our luggage we did some exploring. Bundaberg is quite a small town. Similar to the towns in the further North of Queensland. There are a number of shops in the CBD (the town centre), the usual chains and a number of privately owned shops and cafes  which is always nice to see. You wouldn’t really expect the town to have many tourists, as its not really on the coast, and we only stopped there to check out the rum distillery, but there are a large amount of backpackers staying in Bundaberg as there is lots of farm work in the surrounding areas.

Buss Park   

Whilst looking in the window of an estate agents we found this.

By far the best real estate advertisement I have ever seen.  You’d usually expect it to be listed as a property that needs a little TLC, but not in Bundy! I couldn’t help but think is this possibly the only honest estate agents in the world?

We got some food, but then the train lag caught up with us so we had an early night, as we wanted to be fresh for the Bundaberg Rum distillery the following morning!

Bundaberg is home to some beautiful Queenslander houses.

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Laters Airlie beach

The following day were going going t do some island hopping of our own. There is a ferry service that runs between the closer islands, however the weather and sea reports were not good, so instead we spent the day in Airlie and the afternoon relaxing by the lagoon.  The best view of the sea and Whitsunday Islands from Airlie Beach, has to be from the Airlie beach Sailing club grounds. We sat on a rock wall looking out to sea and we saw a stingray and a sea turtle swim by, amazing!

Saturday was our departure day from Airlie, but our train wasn’t until 8pm. The apartment owners were kind enough to store our luggage for us and arranged our shuttle bus to railway station. So we had a luggage free day. However if you are stuck with your luggage there are large lockers in Airlie beach  where you can store your luggage for a fee. 

Back home we have pigeons sitting on telephone wires, in Airlie beach they have cockatoos! 

A local market takes place on a Saturday morning selling local produce amongst other things. There was a stall there full of amazing shells, if I’d been able to carry them I would have bought loads.

Whilst we were staying in Townsville my friend had recommended ‘Cold Rock’ ice cream parlor. If you’re a keen reader of the blog you will know that me and Jamie love ice cream, and have eaten a lot of it, so when we recommend an ice cream parlor it is good! Just so happens that there was a cold rock in Airlie beach! So you pick whatever flavours of ice cream you would like, and then pick from a variety of toppings/ chocolates / sweets to mix in.

I recommend white chocolate ice cream with fudge and peanut m&m’s – Nom nom nom!

 Whilst we were waiting for the bus to the station there was the most beautiful sunset, and a huge moon, a fitting end to our stay at the beautiful Airlie Beach.

And so it was back to Proserpine and the 12 hour train journey through the night to Bundaberg. 


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Snorkeling Manta Ray Bay, the Stinger & the Sea Turtle

After a relaxing 20 minute boat ride we arrived at Manta Ray Bay. We’d had a snorkeling briefing on the way.

Jamie and I were still undecided about whether or not to wear stinger suits. After all the stinger season was almost over and we’d swam at Whitehaven beach with no problems. So we made the decision not to have them. At the last minute as we collected our masks and fins and were making our way to the back of the boat to jump in I changed my mind. So we had a very attractive stinger suit each – again.

A bit of spit in your mask (I’m not disgusting this is to stop the masking fogging), fins on and I jumped into the water, closely followed by Jamie. I’d swum about 5 metres from the boat  when I came face to “face” with a stinger – a box jellyfish. Jellyfish are one of my worst fears, definitely  in the top 5! I froze for a few seconds, just watching it float towards me, not actually believing what I was seeing, then I swam like hell! Once I felt that I was a safe distance away I shouted to Jamie to warn him. So luckily we had changed our minds and had the stinger suits! Needless to say that there are no photos of the stinger!

Then the crew member who was manning the glass bottom boat shouted over to us and gestured to “swim over there”, pointing in the other direction as there was a sea turtle.  We swam over and spotted a massive sea turtle gliding majestically through the water. He was huge, and had algae growing on his shell. Jamie swam right up close to him, I snapped away.

There were loads of fish and coral near to the surface and the sea was calm, which made snorkeling so much easier than when we were getting battered by the waves in Cairns. There were shoals of big fish swimming with us, getting really close – it was awesome!

We snorkeled for about 2 hours and then headed back to the boat. There was about a 5 metre swim between where the coral was at its higher levels and the boat, that area was just darkness, you could see some fish swimming, but they very far down… it was scary to think of what might be lurking in the dark depths and it was where I had spotted the stinger. 

We got back on board thankfully only spotting some more big fish. Once we were back on board we chatted with the crew, intrigued to find out which fish we had seen. We had seen a really large black fish, the crew told us it was a ‘GT’. A Giant Trevally fish. They have razor sharp tails, if you were fishing them you’d have to wear gloves to pick it up or it would slice up your hand.  The large black fish is the alpha male of the group. If the alpha male gets killed, fished, etc then one of the females will become male, turn black and take his place.

One of the crew admired my amber bracelet. He had a necklace with a piece of amber on it. He said that he had found the amber himself on a beach in Queensland. Queensland amber is a darker more orangey red, than any amber that I have seen. He said that after a storm you can find it on some beaches in Queensland – he didn’t reveal which beaches though! I would love to have a go at amber scavenging.

I didn’t have an underwater digital camera with me this time, just an underwater disposable film camera. It was a nightmare to try and look through the viewfinder with a snorkel mask on, however I’m pretty pleased with the photos!

Then we headed back to Airlie. We sat on the top deck with the skipper for a little while, but then the waves started to pick up and we got soaked, so we headed back down.  The waves got bigger and bigger and people were falling all over the place, in the end everyone just stayed wherever they landed! The motion of the ocean got the better of one lady who spent the journey back with her head in a bag….. on a lighter note we were fine!

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The Whitsunday Islands

The bus came to collect to us from outside the apartment and after a short drive we arrived at Shute Harbour. There we boarded the the small boat that would take us to the Whitsunday Islands. We sailed for about an hour before we reached the Hill Inlet. The boat anchored a few metres from the shore, we then had to get into a dinghy which dropped us at the shore. The weather was a bit overcast, more clouds than blue skies, but that didnt deter from the breathtaking views that we were about to see. The Hill Inlet is a 20 minute from the beach through the rainforest. On the way up we encountered this........

                                                                   
We think that its part of the Golden Orb variety, but we aren't sure!If anyone reading this does know what variety of spider it is please leave a comment, id really like to know! Jamie was horrified by the size of its fangs, if you look closely theres also a  baby spider in the web....yuck.The spider didn't deter us, we continued our walk to the inlet lookout and it was worth it!What do you think of the view? 

   

I could look out at that view all day long and never tire of it - amazing! 

We spent about half an hour gazing at the beautiful turquoise sea and white sand before we had journey back down through the rainforest, avoiding the spider, to return to the boat. 

                               

                               

Whitsunday Island is the largest in the Whitsunday group of islands and Whitehaven beach, our next stop, is located on the Eastern side of the island, which is an undeveloped National Park.

      

                       
                             

So Whitehaven Beach - WOW. We have never seen sand like it.

The white silicon sand is minute powder-sized grains of quartz and has been analysed at 99.89% pure. Whcih means that it could be used for glass making and even to make the finest glass lenses for binoculars etc. Its estimated that there is around 800 million tonnes of sand!Over the years there had been plans to mine the area, however the area is now protected under the Whitsunday Plan of management and it is located in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. 

We spent a few hours swimming in the warm crystal clear turquoise sea and exploring the beach. Actually we walked so far that by the time we got back to the picnic area we nearly missed the bbq for lunch, however the crew were nice enough to save us some! 

Just as lunch was over a few more boats and tours arrived, so the tranquility was shattered! Luckily that was our time to head back to the boat and on to Mantaray Bay for some snorkeling and a trip on the glass bottom boat.....

Details of which will be in my next post.... which will be up very soon! So keep a look out for it! 

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Hello Airlie Beach....

So after leaving Townsville at 3:30pm, we arrived at Proserpine train station at 9pm on April 24th. A shuttle bus was waiting at the station to take us on the 20 minute journey to Airlie Beach.

As we arrived in Airlie it was a dark so we couldn't really see that much of the town. Thankfully the bus dropped us outside our apartment, as it was up a steep hill and it would not have been a pleasant trek up the hill in the dark with our luggage in tow. The office had closed at the apartments, but the owners had left the light on in our apartment and a welcome note for us on the table, which was a nice touch, made us feel welcome!
The self contained apartments were impressive, excellent facilities and a balcony that looked over part of Airlie Beach Harbour, the view was beautiful.

          

The following morning we did some exploring. Firstly we met the owners of the apartments and they recommended some tours of the Whitsunday Islands to us - there are so many tours available, lots are very similar, so  it helps to have someone in the know to point out the differences between them, the pros and cons. We had a swim in the apartment pool, which also looked over the Harbour which was beautiful, although the pool was freezing cold!

Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. The town itself quite small however has loads of things to do. Its a very popular with backpackers, but does attract a variety of people. For example, families with children & couples of all ages, as there are such wide range of activities on offer- something to suit every ones taste and budget! There are numerous shops, hotels, apartments, hostels, restaurants, bars, clubs, a swimming lagoon and of course the beautiful views. 

      

 

                                      

     

During our stay we fell a little bit in love with Airlie Beach.  

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