Hervey Bay and Bundaberg

We drove up from Brisbane to Hervey Bay and checked into our accommodation, which will be our home for the next four nights; this would be our base for the majority of our touring north of Brisbane.

The weather had again taken a turn for the worse - overnight storms had flooded part of the highway between Brisbane and Hervey Bay, which added an extra hour to our journey.  By the time we had arrived in Hervey Bay, the rain had reached monsoon proportions.  Visibility was nil and standing water caused a fair bit of aquaplaning.

We limped into our accommodation and got ourselves installed. Luckily, our planned activity for the afternoon and evening was not weather dependent, as we were meeting with Selina's friend in town for a long overdue catch up.

The next morning, we set off for an hour's drive to Bundaberg... at least it would have been an hour's drive had the direct road been open!  Although the weather was now dry again, the sheer volume of water that had fallen the day and night before had closed the direct route from Hervey Bay to Bundaberg due to flooding, forcing us to take a 40 minute detour. It wasn't all bad though as our journey was very picturesque, as we drove through enormous sugar cane fields, olive groves and forests.

We arrived in Bundaberg at lunchtime and after stopping off for a coffee and exploring the central shopping area of the town, which had an interesting mix of period buildings nudging against more modern shops and strip malls, we drove a short distance to the outskirts of town to our main target of the day: the Bundaberg rum distillery.

The distillery offers a museum of the origin and history of Bundaberg rum, as well as a tour of the distillery itself and a chance to sample some of its products in the bar and gift shop!

The museum and tour took about 2 hours.  The tour through the distillery was enjoyable, as we dodged through rooms sporting a vast array of bewildering pipes, valves, vats and tanks.  As well as the sights, the smells were also intoxicating, as we passed multi-swimming pool-sized tanks of molasses and vats full of raw rum, which before maturation and blending ran at an eye-watering 80% alcohol content.

The highlight of the tour was of course the rum tasting at the end.  We had several varieties to choose from, as well as a limited edition brew, which was only being offered for a short time.

Unfortunately, as I was on the drive, I couldn't take full advantage of the tasting, but a couple of samples went down very nicely.

After a long drive back to our digs, neither if us were up for a night out, so we spent a quiet evening in with a home-cooked dinner and some TV.

Tomorrow, we will see what the weather is doing before deciding on where we will go for our day out.

TTFN