Rum, ginger beer and old friends

Bargara is a lovely spot on the coast about 15kms from Bundaberg. It's a place we'd probably visit again. Being close to Bundaberg meant a few trips in to check out some of the tourist spots with Bundaberg Ginger Beer and Bundaberg Rum Distillery being near the top of the list.

The Big Barrel at Bundaberg Ginger Beer Factory.
We tasted some different products that we don't see in SA. Bought some ginger beer and chocolate-coated ginger.

Bargara Beach at sunset.

Main street in Bundaberg. Stainless steel palm tree sculpture standing along side the real thing.

Public art is everywhere in Queensland and it's great to see.







Bundaberg Rum Distillery was excellent especially as neither of us are rum drinkers. We did the tour and it was so informative, interesting and entertaining. Molasses is stored in an enormous concrete shed. It looks luscious, like rich and creamy toffee.

The tour guides, Donna and Di, were great. The aromas from the vats is almost intoxicating. Jokingly, Donna offered her microphone to an Italian tourist to do a bit of kareoke and to everyone's surprise, he sang to us. He was a handsome man with a lovely voice. A bonus for eveyone!

We posed with THE BEAR and tasted some of the products on sale.  Rum drinkers were in heaven. Part of the tour entitles each person 2 drinks (and they are a normal size drink).

A friend told us about an excellent liqueur so went along with his recommendation. Fantastic!!!! It's available at cellar door so we have enough to last us for a while unless we share with Jennifer, Heafy, Lynda and Trev.

In Bargara Beach Caravan Park, I didn't expect to bump into an old friend from high school days. Pam and I went through Port Adelaide Girls' High School and we were good friends. Pam, Hartley, Robert and I used to go out socially and once we had kids, we saw each other a few times and have always exchanged Christmas cards.

Chatting for a couple of hours over a cuppa with Pam's mum and dad, we found out that Eunice was in the same class as my dad in primary school at Alberton Primary! What a small world!

We extended our stay so that we could have a really good catch-up. The only changes were our appearances - other than that, we were still the same. Listening to stories of other trips, we discovered that in March we'd missed each other by one day at Tidal River in Wilson's Promontory; in ACT in April, we missed each other by a week. Eunice said that it was bound to happen that we connect sooner or later somewhere in Australia.

Shaz and Pam

We're looking forward to catching up when we both return to Adelaide. I think this made Bargara Beach a special place.

From left: Hartley, Vern, Eunice and Pam

Rockhampton Zoo

This zoo might not be as big as Adelaide's zoo but it's free! The animal exhibits are being renovated to be more spacious and as like the natural habitat as they can be given it's a zoo.

We got up close and personal with a 36 year old chimpanzee that looked lonely. He and another male (38 years old) had a large enclosure with sections of glass windows. The chimp didn't seem to bother about people; he ambled from one end to squat where we were waiting. I took a lot of photos but the reflection from the glass can be seen.

Look at those eyes!











The Zoo is situated in The Botanical Gardens with a golf club as part of the complex. The fern garden is great. With the Fitzroy River running on one side, this is a very peaceful place (until the dingos start howling). The koalas sleep, move a limb and continue sleeping; Snappy, the small crocodile, sits in some water watching; it looks like its in training for its adult life. Another highlight was watching a wombat waddling in its large enclosure in the middle of the afternoon. We've only seen them at night. A lone cassowary was spotted after a long search - they hide themselves very well - no wonder they're hard to find in their habitat.

Checking out the fern garden is a must if you visit Rockhampton. There are some very different ferns from Australia and other countries growing here.

Finch Hatton Gorge

Finch Hatton Gorge isn't far from Mackay and it's just as stunning as most national parks. There's always a feeling of calmness and peace in these places.

With Queensland being such a large state in terms of square kilometres, there's an abundance of national parks and people flock to them. Our national parks don't have the water that Queensland has so water falls and running rivers and creeks make them interesting in different ways.

I didn't get to the waterfall - it was too far and too steep. I could certainly hear it so it must have been a reasonable size. Robert didn't get to the top either.

Mackay and Sarina

I think I'll remember Mackay's Orchid House for a long time. Stunning blooms of so many different varieties; some so delicate and others so robust. We were both calling to each other, "Look at this one!" Luckily, we were the only 2 in the house at the time. We've tried to grow orchids a few times but not successfully. Maybe now that I'm retired, I can have a better go.

Photos are taking too long to upload from Rockhampton (net is very slow) so I'm only going to post one at the moment.

Mackay is also at the centre for sugar cane production; cane fields border the main highway for kilometres and go back as far as the eye can see. It seems that almost every spare space is used to grow this cane. Some houses are surrounded by it with a narrow path hewn to allow access to the property.

We've both wanted to see how sugar is produced so we took the opportunity to visit the only miniature cane mill in Australia at Sarina (not far south from Mackay). Our guide was experienced and informative - we didn't know how involved the process was and we learnt about sugar cane from the planting to the final product. Watching freshly cut cane being milled, tasting the greenish sugar juice and seeing some of the machinery in operation helped us to understand what is involved.

This mill produces different products for sale and tastings after the tour helped the sales along. We haven't tried the lime chilli sauce yet but the ginger beer was a treat!

Most of the towns in Queensland ar having their shows and the big one in Brisbane, The Ekka, is featured on the local TV news every night. It is Queensland's largest annual event. Don't know why it's called Ekka. Sarina's show was on when we were in Mackay so we thought we'd see what a country show was like in Queensland. Same as country shows in SA - smaller than the Royal Show but just as noisy and smelly. We wandered around for a couple of hours looking at the blacksmith working his hammers, the angler hawking his lures (he was really funny), the bull judging, Punch and Judy, camels and checking out the crafts and baking.

Robert was really keen to show me some roosters and hens that his family kept when he was a little kid. Chooks and I just don't get on; bad experience as a child when I used an outside loo at a friend's house only to have a hen fly down from the over head water cistern on to my head and flap and flutter making such a  fuss. Quickly, I followed him to the cage, commented on its size and took off out the door.

One of the cutest animals on show was a very tiny, pink piglet. It was the star attraction of the animal nursery.

2010 July 6th Barron Gorge near Lake Placid

2010 July 7th Kuranda train skyrail

2010 July 30th Magnetic Island