Thursday 5 September 2013 – Chiltern, Bundaberg and more

We’ve had a good day today, and even the weather was somewhat improved, with quite  a few sunny patches, and only a couple of light showers of rain in the morning.

After the usual morning rituals, we left here at about 9.30 for Bundaberg – about 125 kms north of here.  It was quite a nice drive, during which we encountered several fairly lengthy stretches of roadworks, with lots of female stop/go sign controllers letting us know when and if we could proceed.  

We passed through several small hamlets, then Childers (more later), plantations of strawberries, pineapples, sugar cane, avocado trees, mango trees, citrus trees, a sugar cane carrying train, and cane carrying trucks before reaching the very spread-out (some may say sprawling) city of Bundaberg.  This is quite a big city, with a population of over 71,000, beautiful wide streets, lovely street trees (jacarandas, frangipani, Moreton Bay figs and Illawarra flame trees being pretty apparent) and some beautiful old buildings.

We drove around having a good look, saw the Bundy Rum distillery and the Bundaberg Brewed drinks factory designed as half a huge barrel and where they make the famous Bundy ginger beer, among other treats.   

  

The Bundaberg Rum Distillery

We then made our way to the port – about 20 km downstream on the Burnett River, and Burnett Heads where the river flows into the ocean.  The original lighthouse at Burnett Heads dates back to 1873 and has now been replaced, but it now takes pride of place in a park near the beach.  It has a very rocky shoreline here.

From there we drove a further 10km to Bargara, another popular coastal town south of Burnett Heads where we had some lunch while watching the sea and trying to decide whether a big cargo ship loitering well out to sea was actually moving or not … it was!

Black Rocks (and threatening sky) at Bargara

Back in the city itself we drove down to the river (Burnett) and the impressive Railway Bridge, as well as the Burnett Bridge then filled up with petrol and started back to Hervey Bay.

We had been told that when passing through Childers, a ‘must see’ was the memorial to the backpackers who died in ‘The Palace Backpacker Hostel fire in 2000.  The fire was deliberately lit by a 37 year old itinerant Australian who had been staying at the hostel for three months and owed rent.  Variously described as a misfit, a troublemaker and sociopath, he was known to have made threats to backpackers but was not taken seriously.  Fifteen young backpackers died.

Now Childers is not a large town, and we drove down the main street and a few side streets without sighting any such memorial, so as high school kids were starting to head home after school, Grant pulled over and I asked a young lad if he could direct us.  He hadn’t a clue what I was talking about, and soon three others had joined the discussion, finally deciding that they thought it was in the street behind the IGA.  We thanked them, found the IG and drove around the street behind it, to find nothing.  Well we did find the police station, so I went in there to seek assistance.  At least I went in as far as the front door which was locked, but had a notice on it which said: ‘Open Tuesdays and Thursdays 9am – 1pm. But if you think there may be someone around, knock on the door.’  My eagle eyes had noticed, as I walked from the car, that I had indeed walked past a police car parked in front of the building, so I deduced that there was a fair chance that someone might just be there.  I knocked on the door!  Now the door was plate glass, my knock didn’t rate too highly on the decibel scale, so I got no response.

Plan C was to drive back up the main street and find the Information centre, which we did, found a parking spot further up the road in their fairly busy main street, and back I walked to get the all important info.  As I reached the entrance, a reasonably large sign sticking out from the wall said ‘Art gallery. Back Packers Memorial.’ I was expecting it to be an outside statue/sculpture/tribute of some sort, but it was upstairs in the art gallery.

So I went back to the car and got Grant and we finally made it to what we had been looking for.  It was beautifully done (no photography allowed, but I’ve sneaked a photo off the internet of one part of it).

The memorial comprises a very large painting titled ‘Taking a Break in the Field’ done by Australian portraitist Josonia Palaitis which shows the fifteen backpackers who were all here to work in the local farms, in the setting typical to their day. She obtained photos of each of the deceased from their families, and painted the portraits from them. In front of the painting, on small tables, are messages and tributes from family members, friends and strangers to the deceased.

The painting 

The second part of the memorial is a glass mural.  This is very unusual.  It contains 15 memory boxes, each one dedicated to one victim and containing the name, flag of the country of their birth and photos sent by their families.  These exhibits are all reproduced on glass panels, forming a 3D box (each about the size of a large shoe box). 

It was most impressive, and undoubtedly one of the most moving memorials I have seen.  So naturally I was brought to tears as I looked at these wonderful tributes – and Grant was also quite moved by it.  Well worth the visit.

We got back here at about 4.30, very much ready for a soothing, much needed cuppa!  It was a most enjoyable day.