HERVEY BAY (1 - 8 SEPTEMBER)

Did I mention in my last that I was not a bundle of enthusiasm as we arose early in the morning for our departure from Yeppoon?   Good call.  Our 450 kms south along the dreaded Bruce Highway to Hervey Bay was one of those travelling days which become much more benign in hindsight and can be worn as a badge of honour around the happy hour fire.

 

We managed to pull out without incident thanks in no small way to the cooperation of our neighbours in relocating their vehicles.  And indeed our trip to and through Rockhampton was uneventful.  'Rocky', from the little we saw of it as we skirted around its CBD, was something of a surprise to us.  All the advice we had previously received from various sources about the value of a few days in this, the cattle capital of Australia, could be summed up in two words..."don't bother".  And we didn't, but we think this may have been a mistake.  We passed some wonderful public gardens as we drove around the city edge and have since become aware that many of Rocky's historic buildings are well worth seeing.  And, like so many of the very large rivers of the east coast which drain enormous catchments and then flow down off the Great Dividing Range, the Fitzroy River on which Rockhampton is located (forty miles inland from the coast) was a sight indeed. On the list for next time. (this is a growing list!)

So much for an uneventful day.  Just beyond the outskirts of Rockhampton the fun started....roadworks..roadworks....roadworks.  We had been warned that this stretch of the highway was undergoing major repairs.  Our informants were right.  Over the next 300 kms or so we traversed no less than twenty sites, some of considerable length.  Whilst we were able to crawl through many of them, we were brought to a full stop at seven for varying periods of delay.  (this is one of the shorter lines and delays)

 
"Get over it", I hear you say.  "Just part of life on the road".  Fair comment, except for the fact that the accumulating total of time expended added over an hour to the already long haul of this particular day.  Significant concentration is also required when negotiating many of these sites with a big rig, which is also cumulative in its tiring effect.  Suffice it to say, I was very glad to reach Hervey Bay and the entrance to our chosen park.

But my relief was short lived as I eyed the narrow entrance and beyond. I was in no mood to have to manoeuvre onto another tight site. God bless Norm. "Follow me....we'll get you on in no time". Music to my ears! It is not often I relish a total abdication of responsibility, but this was certainly one of them.
 


And just as well.  The Palms Tourist Park at Hervey Bay is a delight for a number of reasons, but ease of access to its limited number of tourist sites is not one of its attributes.  I must admit that my sense of disquiet (and blood pressure) rocketed as I followed Norm down this narrow driveway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and into the area he had chosen for us, but, true to his word, Norm's local knowledge came to the fore and we were on in no time, right next to the slab.

Despite initial appearances, this was a top spot.  We were close to the amenities, had no immediate neighbour on one side, the shelter of the trees at the back of the rig, and a garden bed which was just the ticket for the 'black panther' who would disappear into the foliage in his daily (and continually unsuccessful) quest for skinks.  (spot the black back if you can)




Unfortunately there has been very little rain in this part of the world for some time, and what is normally a very green and lush park was somewhat crispy.  But what really made it for us our stay here was the attitude and friendliness of the managers, Gayle and Norm.  They are absolute treats.  In fact, it came as no real surprise to us to learn that they are not terribly keen on taking their breaks from the park....they miss their guests, many of whom, as you could imagine, are long term return visitors. We intend to join that group in the future.

Hervey Bay is a real mixture of the old and the new.  The area of town in which we were staying, some three streets back from the Esplanade at the beach front suburb of Torquay, is definitely 'old' Hervey Bay.   Older style houses, many 'queenslanders' and most made of wood, line the very narrow bitumen strip roads which were typical of these areas both here and elsewhere. (guess who was up and about very early in the morning?)

And yet,a short drive from this spot takes one onto the two laned Boat Harbour Road, which bisects the town from east to west, along which can be found every type of business imaginable including all the usual suspects...Bunnings, Dan Murphys (yes!), Target, Woollies, Super Cheap Autos etc, etc, etc. (we didn't bother with photos of what could be Main North Road)

The Esplanade.  Hervey Bay does have an Esplanade, let me tell you...all 15 kms of it stretching along the bay from Point Vernan in the west (Hervey Bay faces north) to the main town jetty in the east.







As could be expected, this is the prime tourist drag.  Large rental apartment blocks lord it over remnant private houses,

 

some of which are clearly originals,

whilst others are clearly not.









The Esplanade strip through the Torquay area hosts cafes, pubs, a rather sleazy looking, black painted nightclub invitingly named  'The Viper', and any number of restaurants and assorted small shops.  And the narrow road does get busy, particularly on the weekends as we discovered driving in.

 

 

The seaward side of the road is given over to an extensive linear park walkway which

opens out at various points to accommodate BBQ and picnic areas which we noted were very well used during the weekends.






Further west along the front, tourist Torquay gives way to the more up-market Scarness and Pialba whilst in the opposite direction the Esplanade takes one to the main jetty.  Now this is something.  A mere one kilometre long these days (it was originally nearly two) the jetty was built to provide a loading point for sugar and other agricultural products.  It is now retained purely for recreational purposes.  Its extraordinary length (which is equally extraordinarily difficult to capture in one photo) is a direct legacy of the huge sandbar which stretches right across Hervey Bay and which is totally exposed at low tide.  This enormous spit bisects the jetty almost at its centre. 

It can just be seen in this photo (taken on a rising tide) as a light section of water on the left and a series of small, breaking waves to the right of the jetty.  The channel  on the inshore side of the spit retains good water, even at the lowest tide.  It is a habitat for both dugongs and dolphins, the 'spotting' of which provides for a local tourist industry in addition to that for which Hervey Bay is much more famous......whale watching. 


Large cruise boats leave the local marina daily to venture out across the bay carrying hopefuls by the dozens.  The migrating humpbacks use the sheltered waters of Hervey Bay as a rest stop on their long trip back to Antarctica.  The claim that Hervey Bay is the whale watching capital of Australia is no idle boast.  (I was able to snap this boat as John O'Donohue and I were making our way back to the marina after a trip out to Pelican Banks in his 7 metre power boat.)

It was very difficult to capture 'the banks' from our pitching and rolling craft,  but I did manage a shot of the end of what is a large sand bank which is exposed a low tide and all  but completely submerged on the high.  The tiny, dark coloured patch on the ridge of the bank is actually a stand of low shrubs which is apparently the only thing which remains visible at high tide.   The Hervey Bay mainland, some ten kms or so distant,  can be seen at the left hand end of the shot.  Another few kms to sea would have seen us fetch up on the west coast of Fraser Island.  John told me that he and Diane often picnic here on the bank at low tide.  What a setting for a fine lunch and a chilled wine or two.





Like most marinas everywhere, that at Hervey Bay hosts a range of craft.  In addition to the cruise boats, together with the necessary booking office infrastructure and the ubiquitous souvenir shops and cafes of the precinct,

the cruising yachts and stinkies,










a fair number of commercial boats make the harbour their port. Prawns and scallops are the primary targets of their endeavours, although scale fish netting is also part of the local fishing industry.

And  of course, what is a tourist hub without its requisite 'big thing',

 

or a marina without apartments?

Like most reasonable sized towns in the eastern states, Hervey Bay has a plethora of clubs, all of which provide good meals at reasonable prices, and, more importantly, for the imbibing traveller or local, each has a fleet of courtesy buses which deliver to the doorstep to and from. The Boat Club, pictured below, is up there for size and service,

 

 

 

but faces significant competition from the equally large and glitzy RSL Club and assorted bowls and golfing country clubs, not to mention several pubs which also toss their hats into the local merry making ring.

 

As if this is not enough for those who cannot face the thought of cooking at home, Hervey Bay boasts a number of very classy restaurants

and beachside cafes, and although none of these establishments was able to prise any of our precious retiree dollars from us,  our social life in Hervey Bay was otherwise pretty hectic.







An invitation to late afternoon drinks with our newly acquired friends Diane and John O'Donohue (of Shag Islet CYC fame) morphed into a pizza dinner on Wednesday night .  A delightful evening at the RSL Club (at the President's table no less) hosted by Lucille and Ian Tothill (Ian was the President of the Glenelg SLSC when I joined in 1963!) took care of the following night.  Friday evening saw us enjoying a wonderful BBQ at the home of Megan and Rob Clarke (another old Glenelg SLSC mate who has lived in Hervey Bay for many years), and we topped off all this revelry with drinks at the Hervey Bay SLSC on Saturday afternoon.

This, of course, demanded the obligatory 'happy snap' of the boys,

artistically (and totally coincidentally) arranged in order of age and height! (Rob's not quite that tall...camera angle!)

The surf club fronts the first real beach we had seen for weeks.  Proper sand and no mud!  Some distance further to the east, the beach does change somewhat.

 

As this sunrise shot looking across the bay to Point Vernon shows, Shelley Beach is aptly named.

In the course of our stay at Hervey Bay we took the opportunity to recce the nearby fishing and tourist town of Burrum Heads and  its neighbour, Toogoom.   Burrum Heads is obviously one of those places where a boat is almost a prerequisite for a good stay, and notwithstanding the fact that good friends of ours had a fine time there some years ago, it did not hold much appeal for us.

On the other hand, we found Toogoom to be a charming spot.  Admittedly the high tide did show the little bay off at its best, and the mangrove trees some distance from the waters edge gave a real hint of what would be found at low tide,












but nevertheless the place had a real appeal for us.







We were more than a little surprised to find that the harbour estuary area hosted a quite large restaurant and nearby bakery, with very little else other than a row of holiday and permanent homes either side of it,

but all was revealed when we later discovered that some 500 metres to the south of the harbour, the bush opened out into a huge development area of at least two hundred homes.  A catchment indeed for what we were later told is a very good restaurant.

I am not sure one could say the same for Toogoom's caravan park.  It appears in the parks book boasting a 'bushland' setting.  Of that there is no question, but looking at the 'office' building at the entrance we almost expected to see Norman Bates (of 'Psycho' fame) emerge to greet us. 

And, so as not to disappoint, we cannot leave Hervey Bay without a snippet of the unusual.






Liz actually came back from a walk in a state of high excitement.  "You should see this yellow house on the Esplanade".  And it is yellow.

 

And yes, it does belong to a local 'nutter'.  The sign says it all.  Apparently this is pretty tame compared to some of his previous displays, which included highly disparaging comments about state and local government members all painted on various items of clothing which he strung on a line across the front of the property.  What a hoot!  It was only the threat of serious legal action which forced him to pull his head in at all, much to the chagrin of the locals who made it a practice to walk past regularly just to see who was in the firing line next!

And so we farewell Hervey Bay after a delightful week.  Our park hosts were on hand to take a happy snap of the Marshies and Max for the camp kitchen wall, and to make sure we could extricate ourselves from our site without mishap.  Our promise to return was not idle.

But now its off to Caloundra to revisit our favourite town on the Sunshine Coast and catch up with Lyn and Steve Eleftheriou, our travelling companions during the Longreach-Winton-Cloncurry stage of our trip.  Fortunately I had recovered from a nasty chest infection which laid me low for our first two days in Hervey Bay.  I say this because, if our previous association with the Elefs is anything to go by, we are in for some pretty solid socialising. "Bring it on", as my hero Cleaver Green (what do you mean you have never watched 'Rake') would say!