Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 15

And so it was down a bit more to get to Bundaberg, a popular town with backpackers on account of the fact its on the East Coast, has plenty of seasonal work which counts towards your second visa and is the home of Bundaberg Rum, or Bundy as it's affectionately known by drunk people who can't manage too many syllables. You don't go to Bundaberg without going on the Rum Distillery Tour which you can book at the Visitor Centre, we opted for the Silver tour which gets you an hours guided walk around the distillery from sugar to bottling and a free drink at the end. It's interesting and worth a look, even if its just to say you've done it and so you can buy Bundy Rum from the place itself. And yes, I had the lower alcohol Socially Responsible option at the end on account of having to navigate the Falcon back through the town so we could find accommodation for the night. We treated ourselves to a cube of rum and cola cans though, I didn't have to drive all night.

Behind The Bundy Bar

If Bundaberg is popular with backpackers, why are the backpacker hostels here so evil?? Most of them will find you work as the racks of dirty boots outside the door indicated but every single one we looked at had a strict No Alcohol policy. What the hell kind of sadist sends you out to work in the fields all day then doesn't let you kick back with a mug of goon in the evening? Some of them even had signs up such as "Don't Go To Work, Lose Your Job. Lose Your Job, Lose Your Bed." They all had notice boards full of rules and curfew notices. I had images of gruel for breakfast and barefooted youths singing in ear shatteringly high voices about food, glorious food.

The Old Cop Shop

Then there's Cellblock. Whereas the other hostels are like being in prison, Cellblock is a prison, or it was anyway until they converted it. It's expensive but it seems much less miserable and there's a bar which means you still can't bring your own grog but at least you can drink. They still have the walls lined with rules, threats of eviction for not showing up for work and there were at least 5 different notices in the kitchen about washing up including full instructions reminding you to scrape excess food off the plate, wash the dishes in hot water with soap, rinse them, dry them and put them away followed by a patronising "Well Done" and a smiley face. We decided to camp again tonight. Apart from not being in the mood to be treated like 4 year olds we had a cube of rum with our names on it and it'd be rude not to relieve it of a few cans at least.

Nomming Pizza

Rum, Pizza, Lesbian And A One Man Tent

Even camping here is miserable, we got pissed on by the weather and sandflies, it ended up being the two of us huddled together in my one man tent for the night hacking at the urine stains left on our flesh by the sandflies. Evil little fuckers they are, I mean, if you wanna bite me then yeah, it's annoying but at least theres a point, everything needs food. But don't piss on me you filthy buggers! Rah!

Rant over.

Aaaanyway, now I've gotten that off my chest, lets move on to happier things such as turtles and beaches and stuff.

written by

Koala Bear on November 14, 2007 from Bundaberg, Australia

from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and EastCoast

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