Bundaberg, or Bundy as it’s known here, is about an hour south of Tannum Sands and is famous for it’s Rum production. Bundy is a larger city where people from here go when they need bigger city stuff, like medical specialists, etc. Bundy’s population is a little over 100,000 people so it has more to offer than the smaller cities. Also it is farther south, so it attracts more people. The farther north you move in Australia, the more remote it is. If you go west from the coast, it gets very remote, very fast. As a matter of fact (Yes, a Factoid!) 87% of the Australian population lives with 50 Kilometers (30 miles) of the coast. Bundaberg, Gladstone, and Rockhampton (which you will meet later) are all coastal towns and are all located right on major rivers. Bundaberg is on the Burnett River and has suffered catastrophic floods several times. Gladstone is located on the Boyne River but is hillier so the floods as not as damaging. Rocky is located on the Fitzroy River and floods frequently. Every year hundreds of cattle drown in the Rockhampton area by being caught in floods. This is how these cities were founded. They were established as ports where ships could bring in supplies and smaller boats and ships could carry supplies inland to the vast sheep and cattle stations that early settlers had established..
Bundaberg is an old city and is laid out the way you find may of the older cities in Australia. There is a wide center street that has parking on both sides with a wide strip in the middle for parking. All the stores and businesses are located mostly along that street. That all morphs as the city grows of course but amy of the older, small towns, have not changed much in the years they have been around.
I didn’t get many pictures of the city itself when we drove down one day but we did take a tour of the Bundaberg Rum Distillery, it was very interesting. The rum industry started in Bundaberg because of all the molasses produced when refining sugar. Sugar was and still is, a major crop in the area.
That’s it for Bundy. As with Tannum Sands, as we do more stuff and go more places, I will be adding more pictures … even to to these. I will get more shots of the cities themselves. I didn’t have this in mind when we went there the first time.
