Hervey Bay
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| Sunrise over Hervey Bay |
After about a month,
Joe and I left Hervey Bay to head further north. Hervey Bay
(pronounced “Harvey” but we still preferred to call it “Hervey”
in our British accents) is a growing town on the Fraser Coast,
offering trips to Fraser Island, and is the best spot in the country
for whale watching between July and November. Unfortunately we were a
bit early for that, but we might stop by on our way back down the
east coast.
As soon as we reached
Hervey Bay, we went for a much needed walk on the beach and
immediately fell in love with the place. The beach was quiet, the sea
was calm and safe for swimming, the sand was soft and golden. We
enjoyed watching the crabs scuttle across the beach, the occasional
hawk patrolling, and even saw dolphins jumping out of the water just
off shore to greet the sunset.
We stayed at each of
the 4 council run beachfront caravan sites to take advantage of their
short stay $15 backpacker rate. Each of these sites had clean
toilets/showers and kitchens with hobs, bbqs fridge and microwave.
The staff were friendly, and we liked them even more when they forgot
to charge us for the wifi.
During our stay, Joe
and I found a job delivering phone books, and actually found that we
were really quite good at it. A lot better than we were at picking
oranges! It was a short term casual role, only lasting as long as
there were books left to deliver (about 3 weeks) – and many of the
other candidates gave up after a couple of days. Many of the areas
were rural, and delivering thousands of books is not so easy when
there's a house every half mile. We did however find some awesome
looking houses, and also a lot of microwaves used as mailboxes. The
other areas were residential, and abundant with retirement villages.
As one local elderly resident put it “Hervey Bay is God's waiting
room – for the newly wed and the nearly dead”. We thought a lot
of the place anyway, and so did it's residents.
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| Urangan Pier, Hervey Bay - 1km long! |
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Fraser Island
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| 4WD tour bus |
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We
ended our visit to the Fraser Coast with a trip to Fraser Island once
we had earnt enough money from delivering phone books. Fraser Island
is the largest sand island in the world, and is only accessible by
4WD vehicles. Needless to say, a 4WD all-terrain bus looks a little
weird, and I felt more like I was getting into a G4S secure van. When
the sand is dry, vehicles can easily get stuck. Fraser Island has an
amazing array of wildlife, and a high population of – pretty much
every animal that can kill you. Snakes, spiders, sharks, and probably
some crocs too. There are over 300 species of birds, and many plants
and trees that don't grow anywhere else in Australia. Fraser is most
famous for the dingoes. About 200-300 of them inhabit the island, and
unlike the rest of Oz where they have bred with domestic dogs, Fraser
dingoes are purebred, and it has been illegal for some years to take
dogs onto the island. Visitors are reminded to watch their children
and food supplies at all times, and it is an offence to harass or
feed them. Sadly we didn't see any on our trip, but maybe that's for
the better as I'd probably want to take them home with me.
Our
trip started at the ferry port, before travelling through the
rainforest until we reached 75 mile
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| 75 mile beach |
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| Lake Makenzie |
beach. This beach is a highway as
well as plane landing strip, which felt very bizarre. The surf looked
good, but no surfers because if you go in that water you WILL be
eaten by sharks. Not maybe. You WILL. We took a look at the Maheno
shipwreck and learnt about it's history, viewed the coloured sands
where the aboriginals traditionally performed their ceremonies, then
went for a paddle in Eli Creek. We then headed to Lake Makenzie for
lunch and a swim. Lake Makenzie is one of the 40 freshwater lakes on
the island, and one of the largest in the world of it's kind that
sits above sea level on top of the dunes. The water was unbelievably
crystal clear and the sand was the whitest I've ever seen! The Eurong
central station was the last destination on our trip, where we learnt
about the railway built to transport timber before the island became
a world heritage listed site. It was a fun and interesting day,
improved only by slightly warmer weather, but then, it is winter ;).
Now we're heading north to more tropical climates, waving goodbye to
Hervey Bay in the mirror and hoping we will be back again sometime.
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| Maheno shipwreck |
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| Eli Creek |
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