Above: The beach at Agnes Water; would have been awesome if the weather had cooperated.
Bundaberg
We said goodbye to Paul and Vanessa at 0810 and started our road trip in earnest. We are headed for our nightstop at Agnes Water stopping at Bundaberg.
On the road, we were surprised by how disciplined Australian drivers are. Despite having a rough and tumble nation, drivers hardly overtook or exceeded the speed limit.
Along the way we took advantage of free coffee/tea offered by volunteers to revive weary drivers so as to reduce accidents. As another way of keeping drivers alert, trivia questions and answers are part of the road signs in some areas.
Passing through the town of Childers, we drove past a building that was marked as the Isis Cultural Centre. I bet it doesn’t have the same connotation now as it did when the sign was put up!
We arrived at Bundaberg at midday. Despite being a relative small town by population, it was very expansive and had many businesses. Presumably, it is because the town serves a large hinterland.
Our first stop was the Hinkler Hall of Aviation, a museum which pays tribute to one of Australia’s great aviators. He flew from England to Australia in his tiny flying machine making numerous stops. I worked it out that each leg corresponding to one day of daylight would be covered in a modern jet in around two hours.
Lunch at their adjoining café was surprisingly good, especially the very tender lamb-stuffed pita pocket.
We took quick visits of the Bundaberg rum and ginger beer factories but only from the outside, due to time constraints, lack-of-interest and cost.
Leaving Bundaberg, we bought some reject strawberries of unusual shapes and sizes from a farm shop. A big tray for AUD5.
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- Free coffee and tea intercity to revive drivers.
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- Bundaberg has an aviation museum dedicated to Bert Hinkler, an Australian aviator.
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- Bundaberg is also home to a factory that makes rum of the same name.
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- Bundaberg, for me, is the place that makes ginger beer of the same name.
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- Reject strawberries of imperfect shape and sizes, for $5.
Agnes Water and Seventeen Seventy
Kim continued to do the driving to our final destination, meaning that he did all the driving today. We arrived at Agnes Water and pushed a little further to Seventeen Seventy amidst the rain. We arrived at our the Mango Tree motel around 1500. Despite the rating of 9.1 out of 10, it was surprisingly dated and simple. Australia is expensive for us, so it was by far our best value choice.
A little drive and a walk later in the afternoon clearly shows Agnes Water is indeed a beautiful beachside town. But today wasn’t the best day to enjoy it. It was as cold as the Auckland winter but deep-down we knew there was a lot of room for an uptick in the thermometer here but not in Auckland.
Having had a good lunch, we opted to have a simple dinner in the motel, of canned soup, pita bread stuffed with some cheese and tomatoes.
Covid-19 Update
On the evening news, we heard that there had been several cases of local transmission of Covid-19 in south-east Queensland. We’re glad to have left the region moving north. But it may mean that New Zealand will see Queensland as a whole as a higher-risk region similar to New South Wales and Victoria. And that may affect our return to New Zealand as scheduled.