Bundaberg

This morning I left Brisbane - home of Bluey I discovered - and took the 'tilt train' to Bundaberg, gateway to the southern great barrier reef........or so I thought........

I read this morning that the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is half Italian - his Mum and Dad met on the same boat my Mum sailed to Australia on,

from Wikipedia:

Albanese was born on 2 March 1963 in the Sydney. He is the son of Carlo Albanese and Maryanne Ellery (1936–2002).His mother was Australian, while his Italian father was from Barletta, Apulia. His parents met in March 1962 on a voyage from Sydney to Southampton, England, on the Sitmar Lines's TSS Fairsky, where his father worked as a steward, but did not continue their relationship afterwards, going their separate ways. Albanese's mother adopted Carlo's surname for herself and named Anthony after his cousin Anthony Howett, who had died in a car accident in Northern New South Wales four years earlier.

Growing up, Albanese was told that his father had died in a car accident; he did not meet his father, who was in fact still alive, until 2009. He made contact with his father in 2009, visiting him a number of times in Italy, and also took his family there. His father died in 2014. He subsequently discovered that he had two half-siblings. 

I walked to the station through the park, discovering the place where the homeless people live. The park had a lot of tents. I've noticed a few drunk people hanging around in parks, as you do in cities. A few of the Aborigine people looking a bit lost and drunk.

The pedestrian crossings here are funny - they beep constantly and then when it goes green, you get a weird whooshing sound and a fast beep - you don't get long to cross!

At the station I chatted to a couple who were also travelling to Bundaberg to visit their daughter. They had been in Perth where they said it was really hot. I hadn't thought about it but I realise that - opposite to the Northern hemisphere - it gets cooler the further south you go in summer, as North is closer to the equator.

At the station, a lady in the toilet queue said I had a good tan - I have heard this three times now from Australians - it's something, I guess, when the Ozzys think you are tanned. 

I haven't managed to get any cash yet, as the atms seem to charge quite a large fee - $5 which is £2.45 so all I have to do is half everything to work out the cost of things, which is similar to the UK. I think that transport is a bit cheaper and certainly petrol is.

Food is similar if not a bit more expensive.

I got a ticket for the train. This operated a bit like a plane, so you could check in your baggage for free, as long as it was under 20 kg. The train was quite nice - air conditioned - and left on time, although the lady in the seat next to me joked, 'It won't arrive on time' - I find the Australians quite direct and blunt with a very sarcastic sense of humour.

There were monitors with TV programmes on - there was a short film about the dangers of funnel web spiders and how to avoid getting bitten whilst gardening etc.

The journey was four hours and forty minutes through quite a bit of woodland/forest and some bush land. I asked the lady next to me what the trees were called with purple blossom that I'd seen a lot of. These are called Jacaranda trees and are really beautiful

Some pics from the train window

I saw my first kangaroo - or wallaby - sitting in a field.

At one point the train had to go through a smokey area close to where there was a bush fire and they had to turn off the air conditioning and warn any asthmatics or people with breathing difficulties that they may need to take their inhaler. It wasn't too bad, a bit smokey, but you could see the blackened trees.

The picture I took doesn't really show it well. At first I thought it was rain in the distance.....

Arriving in Bundaberg - it certainly seems more 'out of the way' with everything really spread out.

The hostel is quieter and everything is self service including check in with a lock system you can operate from an app on your phone.

I found Aldi round the corner and did a bit more shopping. I noticed Aldi here doesn't sell alcohol, not that I wanted any. I'm still trying to stay away but I must admit, when I turned up at the town - like a ghost town and the hostel the same, it did cross my mind - what the hell am I doing here alone!