Gidday Mate!

Gidday folks - hope all is well in NZ - hear there is a lot of rain in the BOP. Well our journey in our camper van has come to an end. We had a fantasic time in it but we are all pleased to be somewhere with a bit of room.
We had a grea tour around the Bundaberg Rum Factory - thought the kids might have got a bit bored but they really enjoyed it - didn't realise the Australian Government took 2/3rds of the money made from the rum in taxes. It was interesting to see how small the bottling plant was for the amount of rum made. We had tastings mmm yum - Green with envy are we Gary!!??!!We then went to the Ginger Beer Barrel to taste all their products and to look at their interactive display which the kids enjoyed and a laser type show that James kept trying to see where the man had disappeared to. Onwards then to the Town of 1770 where we stayed in a site that was right on the beach - saw our first kookaburra here - more excitement! Needed Callum to verfify that thats what it was - our little wildlife warrior. The sand was beautiful and white but no time here to swim as tide was out when we were in! Next morning up at 6am (which isn't hard when you are in bed at 7pm lol) to get the boat out to Lady Musgrave Island which is a protected island with no inhabitants. We were ferryed out to the boat and went straight to the top so that we could sit in the wind - wasn't just wind we were struck with but all advised to put rain coats on as well - when I got off I was saturated even with the raincoat. Woo hoo what a trip - it was rough as - Bec and Phil both sick - I wasn't prepared to leave my seat as I knew that would be the end of it lol. The staff were great - they had there eyes on everyone as it is a regular occurance on the way out. 90 minutes later we arrived at the reef - as we came in we saw a mantra ray. We docked onto the poontoon and we were in the first group to go over to the island - there is only birds there - lots of nests for muttonbirds. The turtles nest there in the season unfortunately they only had 15 turtles nest this year but the previous year there was 200 of them - they think they knew that there was bad weather coming. It was then back to the boat for lunch and then a trip out on the semi submarine - we saw turtles and lots of reef fish - then it was out for snorkling. Bec enjoyed swimming but the rest of us enjoyed the snorkling and seeing all the reef fish - particularly the angel fish. The trip back was so bad but still quite swayey (if there is such a word lol)