Great Barrier Reef and Bundaberg!

Blake and I got underway with no trouble at all in a rental car! It was more for my own nerves than Blake's benefit that I gently and perhaps too oftenly reminded him to stay "on the left!" But he was a good sport, and we got along swimmingly! Along with driving on the legal side of the street, we were also treated to the Queensland Government's great attempts at keeping drivers awake on long hauls. As the sign says "Fatigue Zone: Trivia Games Help You Stay Alert." Keep that in mind next time you're having one two many at the bar answering pop culture questions...I digress.

In case you were wondering, the "trivia" questions were really more things like "What is a monotreme?" and 5 km later the answer...which I will put somewhere else in this blog post to keep YOU alert from the fatigue of reading these things....and also maybe me from the fatigue of writing them. 

Blake and I arrived in the Bundaberg area at our sweet little beachside cabin at the wonderful Bargara Beach Caravan park. 

What a difference being in a sweet little beach town made on my experience of the ocean! No more Surfer's Nightmare, more like a Dream Come True! Below you will see me smiling while very near to the ocean. It's not photoshopped, I assure you. 

While the park was adorable, and the cabin was clean and wonderfully laid out (I would live there I tell you!) what was not so nice was the ad hoc motocross race which happened from 9pm-11pm nightly on the public road just outside our idyllic retreat. Oh how I fantasized about putting tacks in their path, or waiting until they were sound asleep in their beds and revving some sort of horrendously loud machine just as soon as they were in whatever sort of hellish nightmare was their happiest dream...

We were set to spend our first day on the Lady Musgrave Experience! An ocean tour which brings you on a 2 hour journey (each way!) out to Lady Musgrave Island where you do a guided hike on the island, have a glass bottom boat tour, and snorkel! That's right, I said snorkel with an exclamation mark! I was also surprised. Lady Musgrave Island is in one of the only navigable coves on the Great Barrier Reef, which makes for calm and placid waters in which to navigate by glass bottom boat or with a snorkel. 

Because it was recommended by some other travelers, and because it came with free snacks, Blake and I upgraded to the VIP tickets, thinking we would at least be kept company by some wealthy and/or elderly retirees. Lucky (?) for us, it was a rather under-booked day and we had the entire VIP lounge to ourselves!

We felt supremely ridiculous, and a bit foolhardy for paying extra, but in the end it was blissful to nap for most of the 4 hours to and from the island. For the short period we went down to "steerage" as I came to call it, we were inundated with how many other people, and their children, were on the boat screaming and hollering in any number of foreign languages which surely would have disturbed my much needed slumber after a night at the damn racetrack.

After some R&R Blake and I got ready for our glass bottom boat tour! We were so terribly excited to see all the sea creatures, and Blake was especially eager and rewarded to see several sea turtles! (The "I like turtles" kid is a very accurate representation of Blake showing excitement.) Sea turtles are reptiles who lay eggs, similar to a monotreme, which is a mammal that lays eggs. But don't stop reading now! There's more a-coming! 

Unfortunately no photos exist of me in my wetsuit and snorkel gear. This is not because I wanted it this way, but because Blake was also snorkeling in the water and we didn't feel the need to test the water resistance of his phone. But I have included this image below, which pretty accurately shows what I most definitely probably looked like.

After the excitement of all that, we had a lovely evening in, which was again interrupted by the otherworldly sound of stupid small engines being idiotically revved by hormonally-compromised and inconsiderate soulless monsters. 

What a better way to deal with all that than with a tour of the rum factory! The irony is not lost on me that this same rum was likely the fuel for the midnight rampages...for both the people and the machines by the sound of those engines.

Bundaberg rum is made only in Bundaberg, with Bundaberg Molasses, which is a byproduct of Bundaberg sugar cane refining, which is the only crop they can get to grow in their red, volcanic soil. The myth is true, Aussies like drinking alcohol.

Blake and I got a picture out front with the giant bottle which we were *assured* did not contain one drop of actual rum. Sure. That's what they want you to think.

Inside we learned about how rum is made from molasses (with yeast, and water, and time, and heat, and some more time, and some more heat, and more water), and the various varieties of rum which Bundaberg currently bottles and has bottled in the past. Afterwards we were allowed to try two different rums at full pour! Needless to say, the sugarcane wasn't the only thing swaying in the breeze after all that. 

We closed our time in the Bundaberg region with a walk down the coast. Blake took this marvelous photo of the moon, a palm, and some benches, which really I think is the height of photographic art and makes me feel serene just looking at it. Although, what's that in the distance, the faint, yet unmistakable drone of a non-compliant exhaust system.

Up next, We arrive back in Brisbane long enough to board a plane to Sydney!