320 km south of Rockhampton, 50 km east off Bruce Highway. Bundaberg is famous all over Australia for the ‘polar’ hangovers it produces. This is the home of ‘Bundie’, Australia’s best-known dark rum (whose logo is a polar bear). Even those brave (or thick-skulled) souls who claim never to have had a hangover in their life will sing the praises of this place’s product. (Yes, there’s an unrepeatable song, which goes on for over 20 verses in the version I heard.)

Bundaberg is a centre of the sugar cane industry, and during the harvesting season (July to December) the cane fields are burned off, providing quite a sight. Sometimes, as you travel along the road, huge billowing clouds of smoke obscure the horizon. At night the fires can be spectacular, like the flames of some eerie inferno amidst the dark glowing clouds of smoke.

Bundaberg itself is a small town on the Burnett River, some dozen or so kilometres from the beaches. The closest recommended beach is at Bargara. Another popular beach is to the north at Moore Park. (Regular buses to both run from Barolin Street, near the Post Office.)

If you’re in town between October and January, be sure to visit Mon Repos beach, 15 km east of town. In October loggerhead turtles come ashore to lay their eggs here. You’ll need patience if you want to watch this: they sometimes only come ashore at the rate of one an hour – but it’s an amazing sight. Once they’re out of the water, it’s all an enormous lumbering effort. (You’d probably lumber a bit too, if you were around 50 years old, lived in a heavy shell, had to dig a pit, lay a hundred or so eggs, and then make it back into the water before dawn.)

After two months in the sand the eggs hatch out. Then the fun really begins. December and January are the best times. Each night it’s a mad scramble for the sea, as dozens of tiny hopalongs and tumblers run the gauntlet of the torches and photographers. But don’t grouch: in the good old days it was far worse – they were eaten by rats (no need to worry about the rats nowadays: as we all know, rats of any kind – including the human variety – don’t like being photographed going about their business). Even so, it’s a tough life for a little loggerhead. They’re not mature enough to start taking a lively interest in the activity which obsesses all human teenagers for almost 50 years, and their chances of surviving in the ocean this long are less than one in fifty.

There are a couple of sights worth visiting in Bundaberg itself. No trip would be complete without a tour of the Rum Distillery (www.bundabergrum.com.au), which is on the eastern side of town at Whittered Street (four tours daily). Aficionados of this dark spirit will be pleased to hear the fumes from the vats are so strong that flash cameras are forbidden, in case they spark a fire. Deep inhalers emerge with a grin, which broadens even further at the sight of the free sample awaiting them at the end of the tour.

Bundaberg has little history, so in 1983 it decided to import some. The famous early aviator Bert Hinkler was born here at the end of the 19thC. In 1921 he flew from Sydney to Bundaberg, setting the world record for the longest continuous flight – 1,270 km. This was no mean feat, when you consider that Blériot had only just managed to cross the English Channel 12 years previously. But Bert Hinkler went on to even more spectacular things. In 1928 he became the first person to fly solo from Britain to Australia. Bert eventually died in Southampton, England, but in 1983 they transported his house back to Bundaberg. You can see it in Young Street, at the junction with Perry Road, across the river in the north of town. If you want to get an idea of Hinkler’s achievement, go and look at the reconstruction of his plane, which is in the Information Centre on Bourbong Street.

The coast east of Bundaberg is opposite the southern remnants of the Barrier Reef. From the local airport you can fly the 80 km or so out to two islands: Lady Elliot Island and Lady Musgrave Island. The latter can also be reached by boat from Port Bundaberg, on the coast north-east of Bundaberg.

Almost 30 km west of Bundaberg on the road to Gin Gin (on Bruce Highway), you can see the Mystery Craters (www.mysterycraters.com.au). These are rather boring holes in the ground, which haven’t been bored anywhere near deep enough to be of much interest to anyone but geologists. They were formed more than 20 million years ago, but were not considered sufficiently interesting until just over 20 years ago, when they were ‘discovered’ in the middle of a pineapple plantation. Even more boring are the implausible theories about how they were formed. (There’s not room for mine here.)