Bye bye Bundy

Our stay in Bundaberg is coming to an end as this is our last week. With no more work to do it was time to finally plan our visit to the Bundaberg rum factory. But first the Hinkler house.

The Hinkler house is in the middle of the botanic gardens in Bundaberg. It was owned by mr Hinkler who was a pilot in the early 90's. He had the house in Southhampton but wanted it out in Bundaberg. Hinkler must have veen a very stubborn man as he completely broke down his entire house and had it rebuild brick by brick on the other side of the world. The house has now been stood in Bundaberg botanic gardens for 30 years so a birthday celebration was in order. The gardens where filled with market stalls selling local products, we tried a couple of different rare fruits and different flavours of fudge. There was a band playing, fancy dress competitions for the most 'Gatsby themed' adult and child, tours around the house and a parade. All lovely and enjoyable after watching Australia get beat in the world cup that morning. (Ofcourse Hollands 5-1 win made it all good for me!)

After a walk around the gardens and seeing turtles and eels we made our way to the rumfactory. Firstly we went through a little museum about the factories history before all devices with a battery, including watches where taken off us so we wouldnt set the distillery on fire. (So no pics of the actual distillery im afraid) Firstly we went into the building holding over a million liters of raw sugar. Tastes lovely, smells sickening. Next where the massive tanks where you could get drunk of just the fumes with the rum still having over 70% of alcohol in it there. Then some information on the types of rum as we got to watch the botteling process of their limited edition rum. As last of ourse our free tastings. Two per person, a very hard choice. Ofcourse as the limited edition wasnt officially out yet we had to try that and be the first in Australia to have tasted it! A couple of drinks later and hours of walking around the giftshop we finally felt like we had seen the best bit of Bundaberg.

This morning was breakfast on the river and then washing, packing and sorted before a curry tonight and an early get-up for our 3am bus down to Rainbow beach.