Bundaberg History

The Queensland city of Bundaberg is crammed with traffic, with franchised fast food outlets, and with shopping centres tucked into air-conditioned cocoons that isolate them from the outside world. At an initial glance it appears to be merely a clone of many other Australian cities, but if you take the time to look beyond the veneer of concrete and glass, you’ll find that there’s more to this bustling metropolis than initially meets the eye. It’s a city shaped by people with grand visions of the future, and the stories of the passion and the determination that converted their dreams into reality unfold in a picturesque location that’s a quiet retreat from the hullabaloo of city life. At the close of the 19th century, bureaucrats dreamt of …show more content…
It was the cheap labour they provided that enabled the industry to blossom, and between 1875 and the 1890s, 36 sugar mills were constructed to process the cane that was harvested by men who dreamed of a strong drink at the end of the day. And Frederic Buss gave them exactly what they wanted. He had a vision of turning molasses, a by-product of the sugar industry, into liquid gold, and in 1889 thirsty workers enthusiastically sampled the first batch of Bundy rum from the distillery that now produces some 3.5 million litres of this and other alcoholic drinks annually. As sugar production increased, export markets were in the sights of the industry’s leaders. The door to overseas trade opened in 1923 when the first shipment of 2,500 tonnes of Bundaberg sugar was despatched to New Zealand, but it was a miserly amount in comparison to the more than 3.5 million tonnes that are now exported annual. It was brains as well as brawn that led to the success of the sugar industry, for it was local engineers with vision and determination who designed and created the innovative machinery that saw mechanisation move from the pages of science fiction to the reality of farmers’ …show more content…
In the Hinkler Hall of Aviation, story boards, interactive displays, memorabilia, videos, and replicas of the aircraft that played a major role in his life tell the story of his daring exploits that began in 1892 when young Bert created a pair of wings with arm sockets that he “slipped on as one does a coat.” He quickly realised, when he failed to become airborne, that flight was a complex skill to master. He studied the ibis that demonstrated the elegance of flight as they soared through the skies above the swamps where the gardens now bloom, and eventually the teenage boy constructed a glider that, on its successful launch, gave him the impetus to continue the pursuit of his