Botanic Gardens and Hinkler Hall of Aviation, Bundaberg

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Thursday 11th August
Today we decided to visit the Botanic Gardens which included the Hinkler Aviation Museum and Fairymead House.
The Hinkler Museum was just amazing - Bert Hinkler was born in Bundaberg and was interested in flying from a very early age. He built (in his parents shed) and flew his first glider (on a Bundaberg beach) just a couple of years after the Wright Brothers did their first flight. In 1928 he flew solo from England to Bundaberg, which took 15 days. John is in the photo of a replica of the plane he did this flight in. He was a very clever man inventing many things but unfortunatley he died in a plane crash in 1933 aged 40yrs. I don't think we realise how many very clever pioneers we had in this country.
The toilets at the museum were very interesting - the wash basin was outside, which is a great idea.
We also visited Fairymead house, which was once owned by the Young family (pioneer sugar cane farming family) which was cut into 5 pieces and trasported to the site it is now on in the gardens. A beautiful old queenslander, polished floors, huge wide verandahs etc - just beautiful.

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