Stop 12. Bundaberg rum town,

We got to Bundaberg sometime in the afternoon and decided to try another campsite that was outside of the town. When we were driving through Bandaberg we couldn't see that much to keep us there very long. All of the buildings are on one level (pretty much) and it reminded me of a town I saw in a Bruce Springsteen video years ago. A agriculture/industrial centre. We spent a few hours walking around the town center 'sightseeing'.

The best place to stay if you want to watch the turtles is the campsite that's right next door to where the turtle watching tours are organised from. The campsite's called Mon Repos and it's great. There's nobody at the turtle tours place until 7:30 pm. We'd booked the night before onto one of the tours but there was a lot of people who just turned up and got on a place. There was about 100 people there on the evening and we all got split up into 3 groups. As we'd booked we went out with the second group after a wait of about 1 1/2 hour. The first group only waited about 20 minutes before they went out.

It was cool to watch about 100 of these cute little turtles race down to the surf and out into the wide Pacific Ocean

We all tip toe down the pitch dark beach in a bunched group for about 200 yards. We got to where the turtles were coming out of their nest and being kept in a kind of small net. We all stood round while the turtle ranger helped them out of the nest and gave us a bit of a talk about the turtles. Once the turtle ranger ensured that all the baby turtles were out she asked everyone who'd brought a torch to come forward. Then we all had to stand in a line leading from the beach nest to the surf and shine our torches at the person's legs in front of them. The turtles are very light sensitive and will follow thelights into the sea. The ranger then removed the net and the baby turtles raced down to the see. It was cool to watch about 100 of these cute little turtles race down to the surf and out into the wide Pacific Ocean. They did remind me of the clockwork turtles that you see in shops.

The next day we went to the Bundaberg rum factory for the tour there. I think the tours are done about 3 times a day but the one at 3 o clock's the most popular. The tour takes about 30-40 minutes and was quite interesting and costs about $18. At the end of the tour you can go to the distillery's pub and sample their range of rums. Our favourite was the triple distilled rum, which was so good we had to invest in a bottle.