Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
into this little harbor. We motored over to an old wooden dock that had obviously seen a lot
of use, and, with fenders thrown out, we thankfully bumped up against it and sprang ashore
with mooring lines.
We were greeted by the owner of a little boatyard situated on the bank of the Burnett River.
He offered to call up the immigration authorities who were ten miles upstream and who
would drive down to clear us in and do a health and quarantine assessment. We looked
about the little anchorage at the few boats moored in the mouth. Most were little fishing
dories and skiffs. There were a few yachts hauled out on the hard with their owners hard at
work, scrubbing or sanding on their hulls. I made a mental note of this yard: it may come
in handy one day. Little did I know….
The officials duly arrived; they had been expecting us, tipped off no doubt by the Australian
Navy. With broad Aussie accents and a few g'day mateys, we were soon cleared in and
welcomed to Australia. I must say the Australian port authorities wherever we went were
always courteous and very professional. They were uncanny in their knowledge of our
whereabouts. They even told us where they knew us to be working illegally at some later
stage in our stay in Bundaberg. They were pretty cool about things and chose to turn a blind
eye, much to their credit.
We were informed by the boatyard owner while purchasing a few supplies from his store
that Bundaberg lay ten miles up the Burnett river, and he suggested we stay in the middle of
the river and avoid the bends as far as possible, thus avoiding the shallows. The trip would
take the average boat around three hours to get to Bundaberg. We decided to head off in
the morning as it was getting on towards late afternoon. We strolled over to the boats in the
yard and chatted to the owners. We were advised where the best place was to tie up and
some of the better stores for supplies. “Don't forget to stock up on some Bundy Rum!” one
bloke grinned, “Cheapest and best rum in Aus'!”
“Thanks, hey are you from the States?” I asked him, noticing his accent.
“Yeah, my wife and I are from Washington State.”
They were very young, I reckoned in their early twenties. He was a slightly built, fair-
haired, blue eyed young man, and his wife, who was beaming proudly from around the side
of the hull where she was painting, was a great looking woman. She was a lot bigger than
he was; one could almost describe her as a strapping young lass in a very healthy way. She
had a mane of blonde hair, and her lovely copper brown eyes twinkled mischievously. She
exuded friendliness and goodwill. We would all become good friends and even cruise in
tandem at some future stage. He turned out to be an excellent guitarist and inspired me to
take up playing again with a more serious attitude.
