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Published: April 6th 2012
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Hervey bay After getting back from Fraser Island, we had a massive after party in one of the few bars on Rainbow Beach, though the bar closed at mid-night, so we went back to the backpackers, which was just across the road and got more beer out of the dorm... continued drink by the pool. Really nice group of people, Pontus, an English guy and 2 girls from the Netherlands... 2 Germans came and joined us abit later... can't really be a backpacker party without Germans right? With 7 of us by the pool, the beer didn't last very long... The next morning was a struggle to get up at 9am to pack our bags and check out by 10am, because the backpacker has a policy it is called 'YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE' meaning if you sleep in past the check out time, you will loose the deposit you pay for your keys! We decided to just chill out for the morning and leave for Hervery bay in the afternoon, so said farewell to all the awesome people we met the last few days... Hervey Bay was 2 hours drive away, we came across this really nice 4 star motel, but they didn't
look that busy... Tanja said that they might be able to give us a room for less than $80... I didn't believe her, because the placed looked really fancy and it had a pool... but she managed to negotiate a deal for $70 per night and buffet dinner there was only $15 with really nice food... So we had a really relaxing 2 days there, recoverying from the adventures of Fraser Island and got all of our laundary done, so that we could have clean clothes... We did a really big run before dinner, since it is buffet, it is better to go there really hungry... I went for an 7km run that took about 30 minutes, something I haven't done since my tennis days... The next morning we hired 2 bikes from one of the backpackers on the beach, half day hire was only $25 per bike, there was a really nice bike track along the beach that goes from one side of the town to the other, was something like 14km, the scenry was really nice, we rode past numerous jettys, including one that was 800m long... by the way, this was the second time I have ridden
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Beach front a bike, quite happy with it, because I was getting better and in most parts could keep up with Tanja.
We really appreciated the few nice and relaxing days we had in Hervey bay, particularly given what was waiting for us in the coming days. The rain started as soon as we left Hervey Bay, again it rained and rained, this was a tropical thunderstorm that continued for hours, it rained so heavily, road visibility was reduced to almost zero, couldn't really see much in front, we were driving 60km in a 100km zone, was really challenging, pools of water started accummulating on the road and along with pot holes that were there previously, not to forget about the loose rocks and road work zones... there was a section of road that had a pot hole every few meters, not something you want to drive your new car on!
Got to Bundaberg by 1pm, tried to look for a decent and cheap backpackers, is there such as thing? Reality in Bunderberg was, all the backpacker hostel there looked really run down, costing over $35 a night, some places asked for $40. Even so, most were booked out... we
drove around for few hours looking for a decent backpackers, by the ended had to settle for a motel. The motel we found was great, only $80 per night, with own bathroom and TV, the owner was from the UK, really friendly couple, even invited us over for dinner! I would recommend this place to other backpackers if they end up in Bundeberg... The highlight of Bundeberg has to be the rum factory, the one hour tour was $25, it takes you through the factory processing areas, showing you how the left over from sugar cane, called molasses, where it get fermented, through distillation to remove the impure substances, then it becomes 78% pure alcohol, transferred in to a wooden vat, usually made from imported North American oak wood, the alcohol is stored in the vat for up to 2 years and the wood gives the alcohol the unique rum taste... During packaging, the rum is diluted down from 78% alcohol... The best part of the tour came right at the end, as part of our visit, we were each given 2 sample taste of Bundaberg rum and they have the biggest variety of flavours we have ever seen. We
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Bike ride again agreed that the best one by a long way was the chocolate rum!
Rain was back as soon as we left the rum factory and continued for much of the night, which was worrying, because the roads leading out of Bundaberg could be closed due to floods, and Bundaberg, other than the rum factory, there was nothing else to do AT ALL! We left sometime around 10am when the rain finally stopped, the plan was to head to Agnes Waters and do some surfing there for 2 days, but one of the 2 roads going there got cut off by flood water, so we decided to try the other one via Rockhampton... it was a really challenging drive, you can see all the farms besides the roads were underwater, just a matter of time before it submerged the road too!
We drove through 2 sections of road along the way under 20cm of water, considering we had a really small car, that was so scary... After 3 hours driving in near zero visibility due to the down pour and on really crap road, we reach a town 50km from Agnes Waters, only to be told the other road
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One of the jetties into Agnes Waters was now under 2 meters of flood water... The mood was pretty bad by then, the only option was to drive another 2 hours to Rockhampton and on the way there, the rain just kept on falling, more pot holes on the road and a rock from another car, hit our front wind screen and we had a massive crack... Got to Rockhampton by night, by now, I just wanted to go bed... found a backpacker hostel for $21 a night, wasn't that comfortable, but camping certainly wasn't an option in the rain... The next morning, thought about going to Yeppon, a beautiful coastal town 45 minutes drive, but it was raining really heavily, ended up at the Rockhampton botanical garden and zoo, entry was free, it was really nice, with different plants around, that lifted the morale just a little abit, before the rain came back... we were caught in the open, had to run to the closest sheltered area, which was infront the monkey's cage... we were stranded there for 2 hours, the rain did not stop, although the monkey did come out and laugh at us a few times!!! Decided after the zoo to
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Huge tidal change drive straight to Airlie beach, although our whitsundays cruise was on the 2nd of February, getting there few days earlier should be fine, besides there was nothing else we could do in the rain. Think it took about another 3 hours driving in the rain to get there, we checked into Base backpackers, the place where I stayed in December... had $10 dinner at the Down Under Bar, which was really nice.
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