Rum and Sydney Trip

On Friday we ran some errands in town, and did some sightseeing. We picked up a rental car for a few days, and then drove ourselves to the home of Bundaberg Rum. Jason is a big fan of rum and wanted to see the factory. The home of the “bear” – Bundaberg Rum uses a polar bear as their iconic symbol. In fact, the bear as a marketing tool was created 50 years ago. We got to see them bottling a 50-year limited-edition special bottle of rum with the bear logo which will be released in a week. There were already people camping out in line to be the first to buy the limited edition.

Of course, the real highlight of the tour was a chance to taste some of the rum. Then go to the store and buy some. A task we didn’t neglect!

Part of the reason we got the rental car was to take Jason to the airport in the early morning hours Saturday. He needed to return home to New Zealand. It was great having him on board to help with the sail from New Caledonia, but it was even better having a chance to catch up with him after over a year since he last crewed on board Tahina. We hope he and Lara will come cruise with us some next fall/winter.

This coming week, I’m making a trip to Sydney to attend the Google Developer Day there. I’m also staying an extra day to visit the Google Sydney office, and so I can explore possible places where we can keep Tahina when we move the boat down there in December. I’ll be using the rental car to drive myself down to Brisbane to catch a flight from there. It turned out to be less expensive that way.