Day 19- Bound for Bundaberg

Based on the fact that we had about 500+ km to do again today and that we were hoping to see a bit of Bundaberg we decided to head off really early this morning. Just after the sun was up!
We got ourselves organised to have breakfast as we travelled which was a bit of fun.
We made great progress, the roads in Queensland are not as wide as the Territory and have no where near as many places to pull over (making urgent wee stops a bit tricky although we managed well today).

Our first wildlife sighting was of a water bird of some description, missed photographing that! And other than a few kites everything else we saw were cows with a few ducks and some horses thrown in. It is easy to tell we are heading closer and closer to bigger centres and towns with more people and much more evidence of human impact on the landscape, cleared and fenced paddocks, and more traffic too!
We found a great roadhouse at Dingo ( we had to stop here for a pic anyway) Brett was after his morning cuppa tea and came back out with his free tea, in a proper cup and all, they are pretty into their arrive alive driver reviver campaign!

The Dingo memorial 

Grey skies and sugar cane

The actual landscape has changed greatly, especially here at Bundaberg where there are many fields  where sugar cane  is planted.
We still saw an occasional road train today but they were few and far between. Traffic in general is now full of regular passenger vehicles.
Early I today we drove through Blackall, Queenslands largest coal mining town, as we continued beside the train line we saw thousands of coal carriages, many full, some empty. The standard train length was 50 carriages full and 100 empty, we very soon lost count of how many trains we saw.

The weather today was the first overcast day that we have had, we actually had rain today too, not enough to clean all of the dirt and dust off the car but enough to get the windscreen clean.

The view in the rain

The view of the actual rain (same background!).

We arrived at Bundaberg just before 2.00 and headed out to the Bundaberg barrel to the 'home of the world's finest ginger beer" only to be minutes too late for the last tour of the day. Fortunately we were offered a tasting of the 16 flavours of soft drink that they have on offer, they were very yummy! The kids loved them too! - this may be connected to the reason why Lewis is taking so long to get to sleep!

Outside the 'barrel' Bundaberg brewing company.

After that we decided to try outer luck at the Bundaberg rum distillery, again too late for the main tour but a quick tasting, a tour of the museum and a chance meeting with a cane toad, the first for the kids so they were a bit excited and scared at the same time. Even more exciting since we have listened to Morris Gleitzman's Toad series of books (which were very funny!).

Meeting a cane toad

Lewis hugging the Bundy bear

That's one giant bottle!

Tickling the Bundy Bears chin

Back to our room for a home cooked dinner, spaghetti, good comfort food!
Tomorrow we head off the Frazer Island, the forecast isn't great but we will make the most of it regardless.