Buderim Ginger

Friday, 14th September 2012

Thursday was a fairly quiet day (a holiday, in other words), with just a bit of necessary shopping at Myer in the morning. Following the visit to Noosa, it was necessary to find a pair of shoes!

Friday, like Thursday, has been clear, sunny and a bit on the windy side. It is nice and warm in the sun, but the southerly breeze certainly has a cool feel to it.

Today we visited the Buderim Ginger Factory, which is at Yandina, not Buderim. This was a great place to spend a couple of hours – apart from the tours and rides, there is a nice garden to wander in and lots of little shops for poking about among. We decided to take a ride around the site on the old cane train and wave to all the tourists. Cat had a lovely time chatting up the conductoress! Then it was a tour through the ginger processing factory, or rather looking through the windows down onto the factory and learning how the ginger is processed. They even use a large colour sorter, for those who know what that is! The large boiling vats give us a very distinctive odour – not really pleasant for those who don’t like ginger. We were then offered a tasting plate and drink of ginger syrup (yuk!!!), Les and Cat didn’t have any problems clearing their plates.

Our next ride was “Overboard,” where we boarded a boat to follow the Gingerbread Man around the world – New Zealand, Hawaii, Hollywood, London, Paris, even a quick visit to Santa. It was a smaller scale of the Disneyland ride, “It’s a Small World” and very enjoyable. We did decline the $12 photo of us sitting in the boat. We finished the visit with a wander around the small shops, which did become a bit embarrassing when Cat and a ferret had a slight altercation over a ball!

After leaving the Ginger Factory, we made a quick dash across the road to the macadamia nut factory – these taste much better than ginger, in my opinion – and a few nuts did find their way back with us.