Discovering Hervey Bay

Coming to Australia of course meant that I was super excited to go travelling around and see different places. After last weeks fun of Morton Bay, Shorncliffe and Ipswich, this week I headed to another bay which was also pretty awesome (but I stayed for longer than one day).

Hervey Bay is about 3-4 hours drive North of Brisbane and is known as the gateway town to Fraser Island. We weren't planning on visiting Fraser Island with this trip since we just had our Island day on Morton Island; perhaps whilst in Noosa we will hop a ferry up. When you live in a city all the time like me, whether it's Edinburgh or Brisbane, it's always nice to go somewhere quiet. The first thing you normally notice is the noise level and the fact that people, cars, construction work and buses aren't constantly in your ear drums.

There are buses around Hervey Bay but I found it pretty easy to walk everywhere. The first day there, it was kind of dismal. Typically it started chucking it down with rain five minutes off the bus and we had to run for cover. Australian rain is no joke; when it rains, it really rains. Thankfully it normally only rains for about ten minutes though and then you're fighting the humidity.
The Woolshed hostel where we stayed was such a nice change to the previous hostels we have stayed at. It was quiet, wasn't filled to the brim with people and it was all outdoors. Each of the rooms were cabins so you had to go outdoors to access everything like the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen with common area. I felt like I was camping in little cabins which was great.

I'm one of those people that likes to walk everywhere, so thankfully most things in Hervey Bay are within walking distance of each other. I think we racked over 110,000 steps and over fifty miles in the three and a half days whilst we were away; my thighs were glad for a day off on Friday. There were so many little crabs around and the beach was never overly full which meant it was great to walk along. Of course there was the esplanade right beside that if you're not one for the sand. We spent most of the first day exploring and discovered the Fraser Island Discovery Sphere, learning about Fraser Island and all the wildlife that inhabited the area. We also went down to Urangan Pier and walked to the end which is about 884 meters. It used to be over 1000m but after the exportation from the end of the pier was stopped, they started to dismantle it. Luckily a campaign to save the pier stopped them from dismantling any further than those first couple hundred meters.

About fifteen minutes further down from the Urgangan pier, there is an aquarium called Reefworld. They are one of the few aquariums in the world that mimic the natural habitat and have natural lighting for all the animals, including sharks, coral fish, turtles and loads more. They had a tank full of stone fish as well which are super creepy looking! I'd heard of them before, having been warned multiple times to never stand on them, but having never actually seen one I hadn't realised just how well they camouflage in with the rocks.

There are six stone fish in this tank.

Just a short bus ride away from Hervey Bay you can find Maryborough. This small town doesn't have a lot in it so a day trip was definitely all that was needed. However for those who don't know, Maryborough is the birth town of P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books (yes Mary Poppins originated as a book series, which Walt Disney wanted to turn in to a film. Have you never seen Saving Mr Banks - it's amazing and you need to go watch it right now).
A lot of the buildings in the centre are the originals, giving the town an old settlement feeling. You can of course also find Mary Poppins in the town centre as well. Her statue is over on Kent Street beside Cherry Tree Lane, with some murals painted further down. You can also find the worlds favourite nanny on the traffic lights in the town centre or have some lunch in the Spoon Full of Sugar Cafe.

Of course you can't go to a sea side town without having an ice cream (or three). We found a very popular ice creamery which had 72 flavours of ice cream! So we went back everyday to try some more. I think between us we tried twenty six flavours (eighteen of which were my brother). It's called Planet 72 ice creamery if anyone ever finds themselves out that way.

Of course Hervey Bay is also the best place to go to spot Humpback whales. They normally stop in the bay to play for a while on their migration route. Sadly we were too late in the season to see them. We had booked to go out on a whale watching tour, but received a call a week before leaving to say they hadn't seen any on their last few tours, meaning the whales had probably moved on by now. It was pretty disappointing but I still enjoyed Hervey Bay regardless.

Now I'm looking forward to my next trip in a week, when I head off to the Sunshine Coast. Only four weeks left now until I leave Brisbane and six weeks until I leave Australia for the time being.