Three days in Bundaberg is not the normal backpacker thing to do but I quite liked it anyway. Going from a bad start where my booked hostel stood me up at the bus station and refused to answer the phone but I managed, only by luck of bumping into another hostel manager at a bottle shop, to get somewhere to stay.
Hostels in Bundaberg are not built for comfort but simply for backpackers doing there 3 months of hard labour, oops I mean seasonal work, to get a second year visa, to have somewhere to dump there stuff. I wouldn’t say it’s somewhere to sleep since the beds are so uncomfortable that that is impossible. I describe where I stayed as resembling something the POW camp in the Great Escape. It was indeed a nasty place but all Bundy hostels are. Luckily I was only passing through most are there for months.
Other than the prison camp Bundaberg was a nice place. An outback town that seems to be being forced into the 21st century by putting out of place supermarkets and McDonalds in sleepy streets. As usual I arrived on a holiday so all the shops were shut until my leaving day but I survived.
The Burnett/Fitroy river that the town sits on is quite pretty but the effect of January’s flooding is still evident with all the river based attractions shut down until further notice.
Bundaberg as everyone should know is famous for two major exports. The first is Bundaberg Rum and the second is the soft drink option Bundaberg Ginger Beer. I decided to go see both distilleries which turned out to be quite a long walk out of town.
I didn’t bother with the tours but did get a taster session at the ginger beer barrel where the woman turned out to be from Priesthill in Glasgow. I left having drank quite a lot of fizzy drinks that the company makes so that gave me enough sugar for the long walk home.
Today I’m headed just a short trip to Agnes Water and the Town of 1770 where hopefully I’ll be headed out to the most southern region of the Great Barrier Reef.