Friday 20th March 2015
We drove from Bargara to Bundaberg Botanic Gardens, a short 20min drive. On the way, we saw a lot of plantations of Macadamia trees.
Here is a typical Bundaberg picture, a flat house with tall palm trees.
A lot more sugar cane fields again.
On the bridge, we passed a beautiful river.
We wandered through the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens for about two hours. It was really hot, probably around 36 degrees and it felt like summer is dragging on and on! I was really impressed by the gardens’ size.
There were a couple of fresh water turtles like this one.
And how happy they were in such a big pond.
There were a lot of Great Eastern Egrets.
We also saw some Moorhen birds, one was nesting.
A juvenile Moorhen bird.
Baby Moorhen birds.
The Pacific Black Duck with her baby ducks. This duck is found in Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and many islands nearby. I can’t remember ever seeing it in Europe. It’s a gorgeous duck with beautiful eyes.
There were a few moray eels but they were impossible to photograph. We also saw a couple of Eastern Water dragons.
A couple of Blue Tiger Butterflies like this one, which are most commonly found in India and South-East Asia.
Butterflies are known to hang around the plant on which they want to lay eggs so that the larvae can eat the leaves of this plant once out. Sounds like this butterfly here was fond of that plant with a red flower. I can’t find the name online, if anyone knows, please let me know!
On one end there was the Japanese Garden.
We learned about the Japanese student Yoshi Funamura.
Many species of cactus plants, including this one.
After this long walk around the Botanic Gardens in the heat, we had a lunch in Cafe 1928. Then we went to the nearby Bert Hinkler’s museum.
We spent three hours learning everything about Bert Hinkler who was an aviator and inventor. Born in 1892 in Bundaberg, he sadly crashed in Italy in 1933. During his short lifetime, he was passionate about planes. He was the first to fly solo from England to Australia in 15 days, in February 1928. He was also the first to fly solo across the Southern Atlantic Ocean in 1931, He was only the second person to cross the Atlantic solo, after Charles Lindbergh.
Here is the Avro Baby he used to fly. More info about this plane here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Baby
Two of his planes, one is the Avro Avian which he used to fly from England to Australia in February 1928. He was the first aviator to fly this route. More info about this plane here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Avian
The other plane in the picture is the Ibis amphibian aircraft he tried to commercialise in the US but this didn’t work out because of the Great Depression which hit in the 1930s.
He was so popular at the time, that people even invented the Hinkler’s dance and the Hinkler’s cake. Here is the recipe.
You can read more info about this incredible inventor and aviator here: http://hinklerhallofaviation.com/life-bert-hinkler
The house in which he lived in Southampton, England had been deconstructed pieces by pieces and rebuilt here.
We went inside. From there we had a beautiful view of the Botanical Gardens.
The most funny part of it was that people could not find the Exit button and we couldn’t find it either and then realised there were lots of signs pointing to it, which made us laugh a lot! 🙂
It was time to head South again as we had 260 kilometers to drive to Noosa.
While exiting Bundaberg, we saw a bridge above the Burnett River. It was under this bridge that Bert Hinkler would fly doing acrobatics to amuse the crowd!
On the road again!
On the way, we stopped in Childers to have some of Mammino’s ice-cream. It’s a local business where a woman makes 1,000 ice-creams per day which get sold in the surroundings, and include Macadamia Nuts, Bundaberg Rum, and other local products. They are very rich in dairy but also in flavour. Unique ice-creams in the world which can only be eaten there!
Twilight on the road
Once in Noosa, we went to Samba Grill, a Brazilian restaurant where we had the ‘All you can eat’ menu which includes tasting 11 types of meat, absolutely delicious and very filling.
We went for a digestive walk and I noticed this sign on which was written ‘Seek local knowledge’, I thought that was funny and a pretty good idea. I can’t remember seeing a sign like this in other countries which tells you to go talk to the locals instead of writing to you lots of information!
Night in Noosa!
Pom explores 