Bundaberg & the Burnett River

Getting to Bundaberg was easily the most unpleasant sailing experience either of us have has and it took us a day or two to recover. After we got over it, we headed into Bundaberg. We had been planning to take Batty up the Burnett River and anchor in Bundaberg proper. We found however that there was one bus that came out to Burnett Heads just a short walk away and so we decided to spare ourselves the trouble. The first bus leaves for town at 7:30am-ish and the last one leaves town at 3pm-ish. Weird hours? That's cause it was the school bus. It was a 40 minute roundabout route to collect kids from all over the countryside. The bus was packed and noisy and we were the only adults on board. We spent a couple of days meandering around old town Bundaberg and resupplying.

It took us a few days to make the connection but we finally figured out the the phone call we got about our anchor dragging was from our friend Mike who was anchored nearby. We had been baffled as to how someone got our phone number! Mike had a car in the area and took us to check out the nearby town of Bargara. We took the opportunity to fill up our fuel tanks at the marina. We had some issues when we discovered that we couldn't get the fuelcap off. *Someone* doesn't know their own strength and habitually overtightens things on board. We did finally get it off with some help. We were relaxing, got our dates mixed up and missed a weather window to leave northbound, but it was nice as we got a few days extra in the area.

The day before we left we took the school bus into Bundy again. Last year, Bundaberg was severely hit by floods where the water rose about 18 metres above the river. They still haven't completely recovered. There is a lovely riverwalk that goes from the old marina under the two oldest bridges and ends at the town "zoo" - Some kangaroos and emu. All of this was under in the floods. We were looking for the visitors bureau which is probably not worth going to if you don't have a car. It was a nice walk but from the zoo we went through the business/industrial area of town. The Tourist Info Centre did have coupons for free smoothies at the shopping centre and discounted tours of the Bundaberg Rum Distillery if those are on your agenda. We caught an IGA's going out of business sale and it was very eerie to be in a shop with practically empty shelves.

All stocked up we were ready to continue north.