Saturday 11 February 2012

Turtles and rum

Last weekend James and I drove the three and a half hours north to Bundaberg, well James drove, I mainly slept...!

For those of you that aren't Ozzies, Bundaberg is famous for making rum. So of course we visited the distillery for the tour and tastings, as James was driving I had all four drinks :)  James treated himself to a collectors port barrel and I managed to resist buying a bottle of the run liquer, which was a delicious mix of rum, coffee and chocolate, sounds dodgy but was yum. Still I knew it would just be me drinking it and I'm trying to save pennies. (By the way, the reason I'm wearing trainers is because you had to for the tour, I realise I look like an American tourist.)

Along we the rum, another popular tourist trap is the Turtle conservation project at Mon Repos. Earlier in the year you would see Mumma Turtles coming to the beach under the safe cover of darkness to lay their nest of eggs, (usually a clutch will be 100 eggs). At this time of the season you see the babies hatching out of the sand and making their way into the sea. As we only booked a few days before we were the final group of the evening, getting down to the beach at 11pm after a 7pm start, they keep you back at the site until they find something on the beach for you to see. So we didn't see a whole hatch erupting but watched the ranger dig up and already hatched nest and rescue a baby that couldn't get out. Then we watched the baby make it's way to the sea, where she will swim non stop for the first week of her life. We know she is a she because it's the temperature of the sand that dictates the sex. All in all it was a cool evening.

The following day, after a yummy breakfast, we made our way back down south and stopped at a small winery to wine taste and buy some goods.








Me with Bundy - the Bundaberg Bear

Enjoying the free rum samples



We love Bundaberg Rum



My driver

Our hotel for the night

Pretty stars

Baby turtles

Yummy pancakes - I only managed half!

Wine tasting