First days in Australia
Moondance
Alex Belmont
Tue 1 Nov 2011 04:58
anchorage of Port Bundaberg. Had a celebretory rum and did a little work
to clean the boat up in order to make it easier for quarantine in the
morning. Monday, we were directed to a locked pier where two quarantine
officials did a very thorough job looking for anything that might
introduce disease into the country - apparantly monkeys are hard to import
- and took away all the "dangerous" stuff in bright yellow bags labeled
"CLINICAL WASTE". Two more officials, this time from customs, showed up
and checked us into the country, made sure we didn't have any cocaine,
meth, opium, etc. We did not, so the process was very simple. We had heard
lots of horror stories about how difficult Australian customs can be, but
we found it to be very easy. Not cheap, but easy.
kim's grandma and uncle happened to be passing through Bundaberg that
morning, so through a very lucky coincidence they were able to welcome us,
and very kindly brought us a whole box of fruit. That was really awesome.
This morning we decided to move from Burnett Heads, where we had to check
in at the mouth of the river. We picked up anchor and had a very pleasant
8 mile trip up the river to the city of Bundaberg. It is a bit of a shock
stepping into a city, even a small one, but we are happy to be somewhere
with lots of people to meet and pubs to visit.