Sunday 13/9/9 Rainbow to 1770

We left Rainbow Beach with a new driver Scooter and the smelly girls from our Fraser trip. It is not good in the confines of a bus and we were all suffering with the smell, goodness knows how they couldn't smell themselves !!! We passed through one of Queensland's oldest towns, Maryborough, where the writer of Mary Poppins, P L Travers, was from. There was a statue of Mary in the main street and the town had some fantastic old Queenslander houses (stilted wooden houses if you were wondering). we stopped off in Hervey Bay to pick up some passengers then on through to Bundaberg, home of the famous rum, for lunch. We arrived in 1770 famous as the first place in Queensland that captain Cook landed on May 24th 1770. It is known as the birthplace of Queensland and marks the South most point of the Great Barrier Reef where it is the closest mainland to it. 1770 is also the furthest North you will find surf so is the last spot to practice. Our hostel didn't lock the rooms as the town is so safe (they trusted other backpackers more than we did) but we left our bags and were collected to go on a motorbike chopper ride round the area on a Scooteroo tour. We arrived at the Scooteroo base and were given helmets and a leather jacket, most of which were very 80s with shoulder pads !! We then chose a motorbike for ourselves from avast array of brilliant cool designs and also the choice of low ride harley style and regular bike style. Phil had a cool harley style while Liz had a girlie pink regular style one. We had a short lesson on riding from Rod the owner, then all pullled out in convoy around the hills surrounding 1770. A loophole in the law allows people to drive bikes less than 50cc without a license so all the bikes had 49cc engines but were really nippy. About thirty of us rode round the back lanes where there were hardly any other cars and stopped to see kangaroos in a property along the route. They were all more interested in eating than in us so we got pretty close and got some good photos. Rod stopped to show us a huge dead Taipan (really deadly snake) which he had found on the road. We then carried on riding and ended up riding down to the beach where we sat watching the sunset eating potato wedges with sour cream and chilli sauce....delicious !!!
We then rode back to the Scooteroo base and having had a really enjoyable three hours got dropped off at the hostel. We all showered and changed and went out for dinner at a hostel a short walk away which Scooter said did really good food. What he really meant to say was there were lors of girls there for him to try and chat up. We stayed fora few more drinks after eating but were pretty shattered so went back to our hostel where we had a quick nightcap before bed.