Bundaberg is a city like any other city. It has a good feel about it, but it is definately not a small country town.

During our stay in Bundaberg we have seen a few things.

We did a tour of the Bundaberg Rum factory which was very interesting. The tour included free tasting of different rums and liquours. Needless to say, we bought a bottle or two at the shop before we left.

We also visited the Mon Repos Turtle Sanctuary at Mon Repos beach, just out of Bundy. This was an awesome experience. It gave the impression of being a bit disorganised when we arrived, but it turned out to be very well organised and informative. The rangers running the visit are just not that very good at explaining why you are waiting in the theatre watching a documentary when there are turtles hatching on the beach. But it is all timed to perfection, the rangers are monitoring nests on the beach and they can tell when the hatchlings are due to break the surface of the sand. They walked our group onto the beach and had us waiting by the nest in plenty of time. Here we were, standing on the beach under a beautiful, clear, star filled sky watching newly hatched Loggerhead Turtles crawl out of the sand and make their way down to the water. Absolutely well worth doing.

We took a day trip down to Woodgate Beach and drove out on the sand, it's a pity the weather was ordinary as it would be a beautiful spot in the right weather.

The Bundaberg Botanical gardens are close to Kathy's parents house, so we have been for a walk through them a number of times. The gardens have a large population of Eastern Water Dragons. Some will happily sit on the rocks as you walk past, others will jump into the water or scurry off through the leaf litter. The gardens also have an old, steam powered sugar cane train that gives rides around the gardens. We took a ride on the old train one day and enjoyed it.

Bundaberg also has a wetlands in the town with walking tracks cutting through it, which we visited a couple of times. There is also a small zoo in one park, located in town. The zoo is free to walk through and has a variety of animals, snakes, lizards and birds. It is quite unusual to have something like this in a town these days, but it is good to see the council running this zoo and making it available to the public for free.

One morning we visited the local rifle range and spent a couple of hours blasting targets, and I have been out flying radio controlled aeroplanes with Kathy's father on a few occasions while we have been here.

We are currently still in Bundaberg and will be for another week or so, maybe.

The weather hasn't been the best since we've been here and it is a bit ordinary at the moment due to cyclone activity further north, so we'll see how that goes before heading further north.

Or, maybe we'll give the coast a miss and just go inland for a while…