Bert, Bundy and biology

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This was published 12 years ago

Bert, Bundy and biology

Egg watch ... a tour group watches a turtle nesting on Mon Repos beach.

Egg watch ... a tour group watches a turtle nesting on Mon Repos beach.

In one crowded day in Bundaberg, Keith Austin sips rum before lunch, takes an aviation history lesson and watches the cycle of life under a full moon.

If you drive into Bundaberg from the south, a sign welcomes you to the city and proudly reveals this was the home of Bert Hinkler. Who? Who? There are no signs to the Bundaberg Rum distillery that I can find but there's a sign about Bert Hinkler?

I'd never heard of the bloke but a few hours later I'm puzzled that nobody has made a movie about his amazing, blazing firework of a life. And I've gained an appreciation for Bundaberg Rum - which, for a single-malt man, is damascene in its implications.

A few hours later, on a warm evening under a ghostly full moon, a giant loggerhead turtle calmly squirts a hundred or so ping-pong-ball eggs into a shallow hole on Mon Repos beach, to the north of Bundaberg, where Bert Hinkler's story began in the baby years of the 20th century.

But first, that distillery. The turtles might be the main attraction but missing the Bundaberg distillery tour would be like going to the Black Forest and not having the gateau.

The city was named in 1867 by jamming together the Aboriginal word "bunda" (elder) with the Saxon suffix "berg" (mountain). The district of 112,000 people sits at the tail end of the Great Barrier Reef, and Mon Repos beach, 14 kilometres from Bundaberg, has the largest and most accessible mainland turtle rookery on the east coast of Australia. Loggerhead, green and flatback turtles come ashore to lay their eggs here between November and March each year.

It's also surrounded by sugar cane farms - the first Bundaberg sugar mill was built in 1872. A major by-product of sugar refining is molasses - an overabundance of which led a group of sugar millers to an ingenious solution in 1888, when they established the Bundaberg Rum distillery.

That dark syrupy liquid is piped underground direct from the mill into the distillery and stored in several molasses "wells", which are the first port of call on the distillery tour.

There's something curiously Willy Wonka-ish about this section. There's a sweet, dark aroma in the air and we taste the raw product on Paddle Pop sticks. About 5 million litres of the stuff, like a thick milk-chocolate lake, sits inside the A-frame building (on the roof of which is painted the motto, "When life smothers you in molasses, make rum").

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Deeper into the tour it becomes evident that the air is swirling with potentially explosive rum vapour, which is why all electrical items must be left outside (though the lady at reception did say they prefer to leave pacemakers in).

Fermentation, distillation, maturation - we follow our guide, Helen, through the stages of using yeast and water to turn molasses into rum. It's fascinating even for those few of us on the tour who are not Bundy aficionados - three kids, me and several women.

Looking through the glass windows into the honeycomb-coloured bubble bath of the fermentation tanks is like watching something coming to life in a horror movie. In a good way.

After a distillation or two in the Bundy equivalent of a kitchen kettle the stuff that comes out is a clear, 78-proof liquid that could "start a motor". Colouring (with caramel), blending, flavouring and maturing follow in the maturation vats in the bond stores nearby.

These vast wooden barrels, explains our guide, are made locally from American white oak using no nails, no glues and no screws and, depending on size, hold 60,000 litres to 75,000 litres of rum.

This is where the traditional Bundy rum starts to appear - and you can certainly smell it in the air. Or as one little boy told our guide: "Helen, this place smells like grandpa."

The one we are standing next to - No.33 spirit vat - soars up towards the bond store ceiling and is holding the equivalent of 200,000 bottles, worth about $6 million. A fire in 1936 that caused rum from the factory to run into the nearby Burnett River prompted the building of a "bund wall" around the stores to contain any spillage. If it ever happens again it will be the world's most expensive - and popular - paddling pool.

After a quick visit to the bottling plant, where 120 bottles a minute are filled, labelled, capped, boxed and shrink-wrapped (the plant bottles to order and doesn't warehouse anything) we retire to the Federation-style homestead for our two free samples and the opportunity to buy just about anything on which it's possible to print a polar bear.

A few kilometres away the Hinkler Hall of Aviation sits in the botanic gardens. It's a pretty spot, with lots of shade and lakes with fountains sparkling in the sultry Queensland warmth. To be honest, I have about as much interest in aviation as I do in quilt-making. And yet this is an unexpectedly fascinating place, dedicated to an astonishing, obsessive, self-made man.

Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. As a child he became obsessed with the local ibises and the notion of flight. With no experience he began building gliders, which he flew from beaches near his home, eventually becoming an aeroplane designer, builder and aviator. He was the first person to fly solo from England to Australia and also across the southern Atlantic Ocean.

Next to the museum is Mon Repos, the house Hinkler lived in with his wife in Southampton, England, and which was dismantled and reassembled brick by brick in 1984. In it, another plaque explains how Hinkler would prepare for the extremes of weather on his long solo flights by filling the bath with steaming hot water and immersing himself for as long as possible. He would then repeat the exercise with freezing cold water.

Hinkler served in World War I with the Royal Naval Air Service as a gunner/observer and also invented a device to stop scalding machine-gun shells landing in the laps of the gunners.

In 1933, he left England in an attempt to break the solo flying record to Australia and crashed in Italy. He was buried, with full military honours, in Florence. A monument to him was built in the Alps; there's even a pub named after him in Southampton.

Perhaps one of the more amazing facts revealed in the fascinating hands-on exhibition is that a piece of wood from one of Hinkler's early hand-made gliders was on board the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle mission when it exploded in 1986. Remarkably, the wood was recovered from the sea, identified, mounted and returned to the museum, where it sits today.

These days Hinkler wouldn't get within cooee of the Mon Repos beach and the turtle rookery with his glider, given that it's part of a conservation park designed to protect turtles. As our ranger points out on a guided walk, "it sucks being a turtle". Only one in every 1000 turtles born each year make it to maturity - they need all the help they can get.

The Mon Repos visitor centre is at the end of a long, dark, road about 10 minutes from Bargara and has been set up to help people understand and appreciate turtle biology, and it's from here that the popular nightly walking tours begin.

On the previous evening a group had waited until midnight without so much as a sniff of a turtle, being the start of the season. We, on the other hand, are lucky. A large loggerhead - unromantically numbered K65359 - had already been spotted on the beach, a small stain of darkness even under the bright full moon, digging with her large back legs to create the hole in which she will lay her eggs.

At first we're kept well away to avoid spooking her back to the ocean. As she begins laying we're ushered into a circle at a respectable distance. "She's as relaxed as she has ever been," the ranger says, "and nothing much could disturb her now."

With just the moon and the ranger's head light for illumination, we glimpse her massive head and large, black, sad-looking eyes. A muscle in her neck works constantly as she lays her eggs, the size of ping-pong balls, and we get to touch a couple before they are replaced in the hole.

I find myself unexpectedly touched to witness this giant labouring to propagate her species against the odds. Loggerheads are still endangered despite the rising number of nesting successes along this stretch of coastline (last year more than 480 turtles laid their eggs on Mon Repos beaches).

Finally she uses all four flippers to cover the nest with sand and then hauls herself around and pulls-pushes herself back to the sea.

Within a few seconds she is gone. She might lay several times in one season, then it will be another few decades before she comes back this way, if she survives. Au revoir, K65359, and bon voyage.

Keith Austin travelled courtesy of Tourism Queensland.

FAST FACTS

Getting there

Qantas has return fares to Bundaberg from Sydney (from $491) and Melbourne (from $520), including tax. Fly to Brisbane (2hr 10min from Melbourne and 1hr 30min from Sydney), then to Bundaberg (about 1hr); see qantas.com.

Staying there

Kacy's Bargara Beach Motel is 20 minutes' drive from Bundaberg and about 10 minutes from the turtle nesting grounds at Mon Repos. There are a range of rooms, suites and apartments, from $99 a night; bargaramotel.com.au. For other options, see queenslandholidays.com.au.

Eating there

Indulge Cafe, at 80 Bourbong Street, Bundaberg, does excellent coffee and home-made meals and snacks.

Kacy's Restaurant at Kacy's Bargara Beach Motel serves modern Australian cuisine with an emphasis on fresh seafood.

While there

The Mon Repos Nightly Turtle Experience is a short drive from Bundaberg and Bargara beach. Bookings are essential for tickets, costing $10.20 adults, $5.40 children (ages five-17), book online at bookbundabergregion .com.au. Family tickets are $24.30 and can be bought by phone only on 1800 308 888. More information, see derm.qld.gov.au/parks. Turtles lay their eggs here in November-February and hatch in January-March.

The Bundaberg Region visitor centre is at 217 Bourbong Street, Bundaberg.

Take a one-hour guided tour of the Bundaberg Rum Distillery Bond Store at Avenue Street. Tours run on the hour from 10am-3pm Monday to Friday and from 10am-2pm weekends; tours cost $25 adults, cheaper if booked online. See bundabergrum.com.au.

Visit the Hinkler Hall of Aviation in the botanic gardens complex on Mount Perry Road, on the city's northern outskirts. The gardens span 27 hectares and feature a lake that attracts 114 species of birds. The Hinkler Hall is open daily 9am-4pm. Entry costs $15 adults, $10 children. See hinklerhallofaviation.com.

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