THIRTEENTH DAY – 21ST JULY
Departed Apple Tree Creek at 8 am after having a nice breaky of eggs and bacon etc cooked on the park bbq. Off to Bundaberg we go. There were many sugar cane crops growing and Graeme just had to cut a bit of cane off didn’t he? Yes he did!! There were also some orchards of maybe mangos and lyches or they could have been avocados – not quite sure! Some pine plantations of varying degrees of maturity are also grown along this area. In some of the bush there was a patch of banksias growing which lovely with their big yellow flowers. We arrived in Bundy about 8.50 am. Went to the info place and found out where to find the Bundaberg run factory. We booked ourselves in for the 10 o’clock tour so had a look around at their display/interactive area which was very informative and fun. We then went on the tour. Everyone had to put all things with batteries into a locked locker – and i mean everything – watches, hearing aids and all techno stuff. The reason for this is that if anything should go off or malfunction for any reason it could cause the whole place to blow up!!!!! We were taken around the factory/distillery and saw the millions of litres of molasses which is the bases of the rum. This comes via a pipe from the sugar factory next door. The molasses then is put through various pipes and sieves to be cleaned then in goes water and yeast and into more tanks and distilleries. Then when it is ready it is put in these absolutely huge barrels which stand about 10 -15 meters tall. They are specially made from Canadian white oak which are grown in north America and Canada especially for their barrels. Each barrel cost $70,000 to build. They build them insitue and they have special buildings with about 15 barrels in each one, there are about 8 buildings each with as many barrels in. The contents of each barrel are worth three million dollars!!! Aussies drink one million dollars of bundy rum a day!! Yes a day!!!! And yes we bought some – how could we not!! We continued on our way go Gin Gin. There were lots and lots of sugar cane grown in this area and they were cutting it and transporting it in long trains and trucks to the sugar mills where it gets rolled and crushed and made into sugar, golden syrup, etc and molasses is the bi-product of this process. In Gin Gin we checked out some Mystery Craters. They were very interesting. Some guy decided to do up his garden and discovered these amazing formations under the surface. It is an area were the rock is mixed up colours of ochre, red and black rock and there are big scoops out of it, like someone’s come along and scooped it out with a giant icecream scoop. There are many theories as to why it is like that but no one really knows. We bought a fresh crab sandwich from the Travellers Rest Cafe in Gin Gin which is supposed to be famous, it was ok – a bit boring. I discovered a Hippy Shop with painted VW wagon out front. We continued on up the Bruce hwy towards Rockhampton. We realised we weren’t going to make it to Rocky so decided to camp at Calliope River Rest Area. On the way there was mainly open bush with this great looking long grass which has three colours in each stem in alternating sections. It looked fantastic. There was also plantations of tall skinny gums of some kind and undulating landscape. We finally made it to the rest area and discovered so did many other travellers. We drove all the way to the end to find a spot and found a nice spot under some trees. Graeme made a nice fire which we sat by and cooked our dinner of carrot, zuc and potatos and marinated lamb chops and lamb sausages. When we had eaten that delicious meal I got enthusiastic about cooking things in the fire and so I made dessert of a banana and apple in foil and with chocolate inside them. They didn’t take long to cook and they were very yummy. We are just chilling out and relaxing this evening. What a great day we had.