Hervey Bay 21 - 23 June 2015

Headed up to Hervey Bay to see the sites and camped on a few acres near the edge of town. We haven’t been to Hervey Bay for about 10 years and in that time it has exploded, with new retirement enclaves, shopping centres and housing estates. There is a noticeable difference between Hervey Bay and Maryborough, with the people who have been forced out of Hervey Bay due to the high house prices, settling for the cheaper and older areas of Maryborough and often travelling back here for work. In the afternoon we visited the local Historical Village to catch up with some of the history of the area. There were about 20 buildings that had been carted in from various outlying areas, representing early houses, a church, chemist, blacksmith, farrier, stable, school, railway station and garage. While we have seen larger historic villages, we were very impressed by the care that had been taken to accurately portray what life would have been like 100 years ago. The early slab hut reminded Peter of the houses that his dad grew up in around outback Queensland and recalled how rapidly life had changed (and continues to change).

On Monday we drove around Dundowran. This is a recent development that has retained all the vine forests along the beaches as the roads spread out from the highway. While we are not fans of residential developments, if you had to live in one there are a lot worse places to settle. The blocks are very large and many have their own lagoons, which give a park like atmosphere to many of the houses. We then drove on to Barrum Heads, a small fishing village at the mouth of the Gregory River for lunch. In the afternoon we drove around Point Vernon and Pialba. While quite built up, the council has managed to retain a large green space around all the beaches, which makes the whole area very attractive and great for a picnic. On Tuesday we had a walk along the esplanade and then had lunch overlooking the marina at the Boat Club. We then went for a stroll along the old pier to watch the sunset. The pier stretched out about 900m and was the only form of transport for the many goods in and out of Hervey Bay. At the end of the pier a number of fishermen were busy pulling in a variety of fish, supervised by a variety of birds. They were kept in check by an osprey that insisted on requiring the first hand-out of any fish that was thrown away.