Loggerhead turtle being bothered while laying eggs at Mon Repos.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Sunny, Hot and Humid at Rainbow Beach
The Bundaberg distillery was awesome. I mean, it's really fascinating about how they make rum out mollasses, the by-product of refining sugar cane into sugar. There are sugar cane fields all over Queensland, the northeast state of Australia. In fact, I am told that Queensland used to provide 70% of the world's sugar.
The tax on alcohol is steep here. They have oak barrels that hold 64,000 L of rum. This comes to about $5 million in booze. I am told that they have to pay 2/3 of that as tax to the government. Don't quote me on this, but it sort of explains why booze is expensive in stores. In bars, however, it's about the same as in the States. In the "bottle shops", liquor stores, the booze is about double the price you would expect to pay in the States, of course it's in Australian dollars, but it ends up being pretty close to double just the same.
Yeah, so the Bundaberg distillery was made extra nice since I got to have two free drinks of whatever I wanted. It was a nice walk back to the youth hostel...about 30 minutes away.
I also got to see the Loggerhead Turtles at Mon Repos. This is about 14 km from Bundaberg. I shared a taxi with two folks I met at the youth hostel across the street. The Loggerheads are a type of sea turtle that come up on the beach from November to March to lay their eggs. It is pretty amazing to see these turtles, about a meter across, crawl out, make a hole, lay eggs, and then bury them and crawl back into the sea. They take about 30 years to reach maturity to lay eggs, and they lay about 125 eggs every 2 weeks for about 2 months. They only lay eggs every 2-4 years. Out of 1000 eggs, only one turtle will reach maturity and return to Mon Repos. (I like factoids, can you tell?) So, it seems like a shame that the turtle, has to face about 50 people in the darkness, with their blinding flashlights and camera flashes after swimming 3000 km to return home to roost.
After Bundaberg, I went to Noosa (nice name), which is a pretty busy place on the Sunshine Coast. I was there the past couple of nights. There are supposed to be some nice restaurants there, and there is a inlet and sound where campers bring their trailers and boats to cruise around in the protected waterways. I hiked around in the Noosa National Park and saw some large monitors (lizards) and some brush turkeys. I had dinner both nights at a Malaysian Noodle house. I had some Laksa curry noodles; pretty good stuff. Wierd considering how I will probably pay 1/8th of what I paid in a few months for the same thing.
I just got to Rainbow Beach, and it's hot and humid. I heard that it might rain, but it doesn't look like it right now. I'll be here for one night, then I go with a group of folks to Fraser Island. We get to drive a 4wd around on this sand island. I read that there is more sand on Fraser Island than in the Sahara desert.(Who counts the grains of sand?) We'll be camping on Fraser for a couple nights, then we return back to Rainbow Beach.
Christmas on Fraser Island.
Merry Christmas everyone!
The tax on alcohol is steep here. They have oak barrels that hold 64,000 L of rum. This comes to about $5 million in booze. I am told that they have to pay 2/3 of that as tax to the government. Don't quote me on this, but it sort of explains why booze is expensive in stores. In bars, however, it's about the same as in the States. In the "bottle shops", liquor stores, the booze is about double the price you would expect to pay in the States, of course it's in Australian dollars, but it ends up being pretty close to double just the same.
Yeah, so the Bundaberg distillery was made extra nice since I got to have two free drinks of whatever I wanted. It was a nice walk back to the youth hostel...about 30 minutes away.
I also got to see the Loggerhead Turtles at Mon Repos. This is about 14 km from Bundaberg. I shared a taxi with two folks I met at the youth hostel across the street. The Loggerheads are a type of sea turtle that come up on the beach from November to March to lay their eggs. It is pretty amazing to see these turtles, about a meter across, crawl out, make a hole, lay eggs, and then bury them and crawl back into the sea. They take about 30 years to reach maturity to lay eggs, and they lay about 125 eggs every 2 weeks for about 2 months. They only lay eggs every 2-4 years. Out of 1000 eggs, only one turtle will reach maturity and return to Mon Repos. (I like factoids, can you tell?) So, it seems like a shame that the turtle, has to face about 50 people in the darkness, with their blinding flashlights and camera flashes after swimming 3000 km to return home to roost.
After Bundaberg, I went to Noosa (nice name), which is a pretty busy place on the Sunshine Coast. I was there the past couple of nights. There are supposed to be some nice restaurants there, and there is a inlet and sound where campers bring their trailers and boats to cruise around in the protected waterways. I hiked around in the Noosa National Park and saw some large monitors (lizards) and some brush turkeys. I had dinner both nights at a Malaysian Noodle house. I had some Laksa curry noodles; pretty good stuff. Wierd considering how I will probably pay 1/8th of what I paid in a few months for the same thing.
I just got to Rainbow Beach, and it's hot and humid. I heard that it might rain, but it doesn't look like it right now. I'll be here for one night, then I go with a group of folks to Fraser Island. We get to drive a 4wd around on this sand island. I read that there is more sand on Fraser Island than in the Sahara desert.(Who counts the grains of sand?) We'll be camping on Fraser for a couple nights, then we return back to Rainbow Beach.
Christmas on Fraser Island.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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