File:Post and Telegraph Offices, Bundaberg, c 1890.jpg

FROM MARYBOROUGH TO BUNDABERG

By our Travelling Reporter

The journey from Maryborough to Bundaberg is calculated to make a pessimist of the hopeful and contented man on earth. A more absolutely dreary stretch of fifty miles of country perhaps does not exist in Queensland. The land on each side of the railway line is a poverty-stricken, ill-favoured waste of wallum country, covered with stunted grass, trees, gnarled dwarf gums (which apparently are ceaselessly engaged in a struggle for existence), lean starved ti-trees, blighted wallusms, and dropsical looking grass (which would not satisfy a kangaroo rat). Here and there are oozy dark pool of water, foul with rank vegetation - fit habitation for venomous reptiles, and around which one could not help fancying some mysterious murderous rites had been performed by savage myalls in the misty past. The Isis River lazily crawls along in the middle distance, but there is no cheerfulness in its halting meanderings.

..... BUNDABERG

First impressions of Bundaberg cannot fail to be pleasing ... The principal thoroughfare is Bourbon-street, a king amongst streets, and the visitor from Brisbane simply turns green with envy when he looks upon its ample breadth. Bourbon-street runs the full length of the town, and is remarkably well formed and free from the suspicions of uncleanness.

There are only two public buildings in Bundaberg with striking characteristics - the new post and telegraph offices and the School of Arts. The former is situated on the corner of Bourbon and Barolin streets, and is a handsome edifice, the design being of the Renaissance style. The building is of brick, cemented, and the cost of the structure is estimated at about £7000. The Barolin-street wing is to be used as the post office and the Bourbon-street wing as the telegraph office.