Big things road trip day one - Brisbane to Agnes Waters

Emma
Jan 2, 2021
4 min read

We set off early this morning, as today was the biggest driving day of our entire road trip at around 6 hours to our destination in Agnes Waters.

As we had already explored the "Big Things" of the Sunshine Coast on one of our practice runs (you can see that post here) we powered through the first couple of hours to get north and beat the weekend traffic.

Our first "Big Thing" of the trip was The Big Matilda at Kybong. Matilda was the mascot of the 1982 Commonwealth Games that were held in Brisbane. She got a new life when she was purchased by Puma Energy and she now lives a low key existence at the service station located just off the highway at Kybong. It was under construction when we went, so the best we could do was a drive-by photo (we went around the roundabout 4 times LOL). The travel centre she is located at looked very close to opening, so it should be open now.

After an underwhelming breakfast at Hungry Jacks, we continued on to Maryborough. On the way, we saw the "Big Hot Water System" along the side of the highway before arriving at the Big Ned Kelly. It was huge!!

We hit the road again and headed to Hervey Bay where we saw the Big Golf Ball, Big Whale (there's actually two of them) & Big Whiting. We also discovered a few bonus "Big Things" here. We stopped in at the boat club for some morning tea before continuing through to our next stops in Bundaberg.

We were pretty hungry by the time we reached Bundaberg, so luckily our next "Big Thing" was the Big Lungfish, which is located right out the front of a cafe on the river. We took our pictures and headed in for lunch. It was really tasty, good value and had a nice view so we were pretty happy. It was at this point that we discovered that the car fridge we had borrowed from a friend didn't seem to be working :(

We quickly went to a couple of stores until we found one that stocked the replacement cable we needed to get it up and running again. Phew! Shout out to the friendly folks at BCF Bundaberg for their help!

With the potential crisis averted we continued our adventure in Bundaberg at the rum distillery, which of course has a giant Bundaberg rum bottle out the front. Factory tours are available here, and booking in advance is the best way to ensure you don't miss out on doing this. They run for about an hour and you will need closed shoes to participate. They also have a large store that sells some liqueurs that you can't get anywhere else and a large range of merch.

Before leaving Bundaberg we also saw the Big Bundaberg Barrel, which houses Bundaberg Soft Drink factory. You can do a tasting here, but it would be a good idea to book ahead as it was booked out when we went. We purchased a mixed pack of soft drinks and planned to do our own tastings over the next few days and decide on our favourite. Tropical Mango was the clear winner in case you were wondering.

After fueling up we hit the road again headed for tonight's destination in Agnes Waters, which is about 90 minutes from Bundaberg. About 15 minutes from our destination, we came around a bend in the road to see a kangaroo on the road. There wasn't even time to react and we had a true Aussie road trip experience and hit our first ever kangaroo. #RIPSKIPPY #SORRY

Thankfully, the damage to the car was mostly cosmetic and Noel managed to do an impressive roadside repair with only a roll of masking tape we were lucky to have in the car and we continued through to our destination.

Tonight we were staying at the "Zen Den", which is a small, adults-only, pet-friendly accommodation in Agnes Waters. After patting all four doggos that were staying here we enjoyed a refreshing dip in the pool to cool down before we headed into the town of Seventeen Seventy.

We went right out to the headland and got a great view of the beautiful water and coastline. There is a lookout at the bottom and top of the hill here. We then headed back into Seventeen Seventy to find some dinner and call the insurance company to sort out what to do with the car. Thankfully we got their blessing to continue with the trip and arrange any emergency repairs we needed to make this happen. We bought some stronger tape and zip ties to fix up the car the best we could so we could continue on our adventure.

After a big day, we headed back to our accommodation, enjoyed the AMAZING rain shower and climbed into the comfortable bed and drifted off to sleep.