Riding the Train in Queensland, Australia!

 In Queensland, Australia

Saturday, Dec 13

On Saturday, Dec 6th, we rode the train to Bundaberg.

IN BUNDABERG

There is a rum distillery in Bundaberg, but we didn’t do this because rum isn’t our favorite (port is my favorite).

From Bundaberg, we caught a bus out to Bargara, on the coast, just a 30 min ride. For 1$ ea AUD we got an all day bus pass.

We got off at Bargara Esplanade Turtle Park, with some hope of seeing Turtles. However, to really see Turtles we would have had to go to Mon Repos Turtle Center. The cost is just $10 each but there were two problems. 

First, they close at 2 pm and we figured we’d have more time. Second, the bus doesn’t go there so it would be a one hour walk. But it occurred to us that there wasn’t enough time anyway.

So, we walked around Esplanade Park (it had a turtle playground). We watched the rocky beach for turtles but didn’t see any. 

We entered the Great Sandy Marine Park, which takes up miles of the coast, but doesn’t seem to have an office (on that side) just some informational bulletin boards. 

It said that six of the seven types @ of turtles lived (or just nested) in the park. Also, it talked about the importance of the trees in providing abundant life for the turtles to eat. I’d hoped they’d have a little zoo or something, but I didn’t see that. 

Having missed out on turtles, we took a walk on the beach and I took my shoes off to wade in the cool water. 

Khevron’s fb post:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0zUE6XwFM1Gy9zxoeZ9b7wk55GsvesmPZxY3fbjtJ3yK3rKvaWFEADhPXKGptvMmnl&id=1218759563

We got ice cream cones before getting the bus back to Bundaberg.

Lareena bought a new charging battery. 

For dinner, Lareena had chicken udon noodles & water, from Noodles and Donburi (at the mall). And Khevron had a burger.

MOVING ON

December 8th

On Monday, Dec 8th, we rode the train to Bowen. This was an overnight train and had to sleeper berths to upgrade to, so we spent the night in Economy seats.  I don’t recommend this. It was crowded and around 5:30 am, someone in the seat in front of us got on the phone and talked for 20 mins. After that, everyone in the car was awake and there was lots of noise so we gave up sleeping after that. Got to Bowen by maybe at noon. 

TRAINS DO NOT ARRIVE ON TIME

We should have arrived at 7:43 am to Bowen but the train was terribly late (over 3 hours late when we caught it in Bundaberg). And traveling from Bowen to Cairns, we should have arrived at 5 pm but we didn’t get here until 6 pm.

BOWEN

Wednesday, December 10th

Buses and Horseshoe Bay

We had a simple plan to visit the beach at Horseshoe Bay, a short bus ride from town. However, this town only has 1 bus, with 4 routes. So it only goes that route 3 times a day and the last returns at 2 pm (WTF?). So we left around 9 and got back by 2:30 on the bus.

There was a short hike we did before the beach, the Cape Edgecumbe Walking Trail. It is short but has some good views overlooking the bay. The beach near there, Cove Beach, was pretty rocky and had a lot of possibly fossilized coral on the beach, tons of it.

We went back and walked down to Horseshoe Bay. I swam there on the beach, and it had a lot less shells and rocks, so it was fairly pleasant. There was a bathroom at the beach for changing.

Afterward, we got a pizza at the cafe there (Tropical Bar) that was pretty good, before catching the bus back.

For dinner, we went to Tastee Kebab and he had a wrap but I had lamb nachos, which was yummy (but too big!). 

TRAIN TO CAIRNS

December 11th

This train was only an hour late, but during the day. It was a long 9 hour ride and we got to Cairns around 6 pm and went to the nearby mall for food. Saturday we’ll go scuba diving!