The day after our whale watching trip,we set off bright and early . and stopped for petrol. Here we were approached by two Israeli girls, heavily laden with rucksacks, who were after a lift. We agreed to give them a lift to the outskirts of town where the road split and we were heading in different directions. Then it transpired that they wanted to divert to the supermarket en-route. We agreed to this as we needed to pick up a couple of things ourselves. One of them very helpfully kept giving us directions, but constantly mixed up right and left, so we had to keep checking on whether it was English left or Israeli left when we needed to turn. We arrived at the supermarket and they started unloading all their bags into the car park and said ‘Something is leaking, I think it’s the meat! I need to unpack my bags!’ Fortunately they insisted we left them there and got on our way, otherwise we may never have made our next destination, Bundaberg.

Bundaberg is famous for it’s rum distillery, a big visitor attraction. We stopped and took a photo of the Big Rum Bottle, took a quick trip around the shop but resisted buying anything, and headed off to take a photo of the Big Barrel at the Ginger Beer making factory; this was an extra big thing added to our list by the very helpful woman at the tourist info! Bundaberg was a busy but characterful town with some interesting architecture . It's also clear that Bundaberg Rum (and the adverts for it) are enormous Aussie icons, a bit lost on us Brits who know the name but nothing else. Made TP wish that he had spent more time getting aquainted with the big polar bear that is the symbol of the rum!

The Discovery camp site at Benaraby was our next overnight stop, chosen because their advert said they had internet access, which is proving pretty elusive on our camper trip. However, the writing was on the wall when we arrived and they said here’s your swipe card for the barrier but you won’t need it as the barrier isn’t working; here are the codes for the toilets but you won’t need it for the men’s as the lock isn’t working. We asked about internet access: they usually had it, but it wasn’t working. We could use their office internet connection if we stood at the counter or we may be able to get a signal if we sat as close as possible to the office! They generously didn’t charge the usual fee for the code but the connection kept dropping out all the time .

Nevertheless, it was a very clean and tidy, well equipped site. I met a lovely couple of sisters who I guess were in their sixties (How old? - TP) One of them had emigrated to Australia 40 years ago and they had not seen each other for 22 years and were having a fabulous time together taking a campervan trip! We decided to take a walk down to the riverside. The owner had told us, we have acres of riverside frontage, but don’t go in the flagged-off area as we’ve just spread it with treated effluent (lovely!). Anyhow, we wandered down and I commented on it being prime crocodile country. Tony disagreed, pointing out that the guy on the riverside would not be letting his little girl build sandcastles there if there was any danger of crocodiles. We wandered on a few yards to discover the sign warning us that ‘Crocodiles inhabit this area - attacks may cause injury or death’! We looked hard but didn’t find any, although I did point out to Tony that it would be a little embarrassing if I had to contact you all to say he’d been eaten by a crocodile. Those of you who know his previous track record for accidents on holiday will realise that this is not such a remote possibility.